Strange Wanderings (300+)

[Deleted]

Valek

You|really|don't|know|me|very|well

Silence spoke more than words ever could, and the assassin knew that, but silence was a hard thing to maintain. Especially when he felt he should tell this mare, Neytiri, his whole past, his whole, gruesome, horrifycing story. No one needed to know, no one needed to understand. No one could understand why he was the horse he was. No one would see the reason why he walked with the confidence of a young colt but with the eyes of someone broken. How could they, when his tale was something none could ever truly understand? The blood dripping from his black soul, the hidden depths in his eyes that held sapphire blue fire not matter what he was doing. That fire, so bright, but yet sometimes so could and uncaring. Merciless, even.

Yet, as he blinked, his vision ran red with the blood of all his victims. He seemed to be guiltless, uncaring, merciless, until the moment he slippedoff his stone mask and walked as himself, walked as Valek, just Valek, not the assassin, not the spy, not the soldier. Just Valek, the stallion with the blood soaked soul and gore stained mind. The stallion that hated himself for every life he took, but somehow also understood it was necessary, that it was the path he was supposed to take. Even though there was no glory in assassination, it was key to the survival of any kingdom. He understood that, every part of him did. Whether it be sarcastic, caring, observant or sensitive, he understood. Death was something that had to happen, but why must it be him that brought it? Why Valek? Why the black stallion with a blood red C on his chest?

Sapphire blue eyes followed the mare as she moved forward slowly, but confidently. There was not a trace of shyness or caution in her movements, though her steps were small they were decisive, an action to show that she wouldn't jump, that she would not end her life. Valek snorted softly, more of an outward breath through his nose and breathed in deeply, inhaling the mare's scent once again. Though it was already in his mind, imprinted in a place that he could find again easily, he let it swirl through his thoughts, and dull the bright red colours that flashed across his eyelids every time he blinked. It was numbing, like a pain killer, and it filled his mind that a mist that dulled the pain of the memories of his past deeds and actions. The way everything floated into background noise was comforting, and it made Valek realise how much his kills really haunted his mind. Like ghosts of his past come back to stalk him, as if Alexi still looked over his shoulder, criticizing everything he did and Lucas watched calmly as he attacked Alexi with words and hooves as the hatred he felt for his brother overcame the bonds of brotherhood. Overcame, not break. Brotherhood was a bond that could never be broken, not matter how much hatred one had. No matter how much hatred Valek had.

"You don't fear it. Love. There are some that say Fear is the greatest enemy of Love. You don't fear it, but you exclude yourself from it. It's not a selfish thing. Rather shameless, actually." Neytiri said, as if she understood all the mysteries of the assassin. She stood before him, uncaring of his reputation, of his past, and ignoring all his descriptors. He could feel it, that she stood before him as who he really was. As himself, as Valek and only Valek. Not the assassin, not the killers, not the spy. Just Valek. For that he was almost grateful, and he let his breath out slowly as she drew closer, showing that he was relaxed. And he was. All the tension in his shoulders was gone, and he stood calmly, truely calmly, with his eyes warm and sparkling with a hint of humour.

Her eyes remained on him, but he did not care. He never felt wary under another horse's gaze, in fact, it was almost natural for him, even though his job required him to blend in. He was a leader at heart, and he never minded being the spotlight if he had to, especially if it involved him talking his way out of trouble. Neytiri then said something that made Valek freeze completely. "Sometimes Love and Death must be rescued from each other's bonds. But sometimes, they need each other." Oh, how true she was, but if only she knew what was standing right behind her, bright blue pits glowing in the last dying light. Valek stopped himself from stepping back as a snowy white form was drenched in black, a ragged cloak flew in the wind.

"You say that I don't fear love, that I just exlude it from my life, that it an selfless act, but you don't know me. If you did, you would know how selfish I am being by not letting myself love, and that I do fear love. I fear it, I fear falling into it, and I fear it shattering." Valek spoke with absolute certainly, looking at Neytiri while also looking beyond her, at the shadowy form standing right on the cliff's edge, an hourglass held in it's jaw. The hourglass's sand was blue, the exact shade of Valek's eyes, and it was almost run out. He stared as the creature locked eyes with him, and looked at him as if it could see his soul. It probably could. "I fear...Death." he managed to say as the Dark Lord took a step forward, his eyes blazing in the night. Valek refrained himself from stepping back to keep the bubble of space between them.

Then a looking the Lord of the Dead's glowing eyes clearly conveyed a message to Valek, and he almost thought he heard the words ring in his head for a few moments after. You always push your boundaries, Valek. This time you've pushed them too far. Get away from here, away from my daughter. The God of Death's words were clear and meaningful. They were also a threat and if Valek did not bear a grudge against the Dark Lord he would have heeded the hidden warning. Instead he stood fast, his head held proudly and his eyes flashing. He spoke his answer in his mind, knowing full well that Death would understand him. She's very beautiful, Hades. You must be proud of her. I certainly want to stay with her longer and get to know her a bit. Maybe even leave her something more than a memory of me.

You push your lines way to far, Ghost. Maybe you'll be a bit more careful once you realise whose hourglass I hold. That time Valek was certain Hades spoke in his head, and it was probably true. Only a god could get through his immunity and know his mind, and only Death would find a reason to. Valek did not dwell on the fact long, instead he wondered what the Lord of the Dead was talking about. Whose hourglass? Whose indeed, assassin. The words echoed in his head, matching the God's expression exactly. Whose indeed...Valek loved puzzles, but this one was one he didn't want to figure out. How was to die? Was it him, or Hades daughter? Death laughed in the assassin's head.

Remember this, Valek. The sand is almost gone... The God faded out, leaving only the spotsnof light where his eyes had been in Valek's vision. The assassin blinked, Hades words still ringing in his mind and ears. The sand is almost gone... A death warning, perhaps? Valek was not sure, and he felt that he needed to tell Neytiri, but he also felt like it should be kept to himself. And whose sand was almost gone? His? Neytiri's? That half dead looking horse stumbling its way on to the cliffs? Somehow Valek knew that it wasn't either Neytiri or that horse that looked dead already. Somehow, he knew it was him. His sand was running out, his time was coming to an end. He knew it, could feel it within himself. How, he wasn't sure.

Perhaps it was all the deaths he had caused, all those times he had waited and watched, feeling for th perfect time to strike. To kill. To send another poor soul to the Grim Reaper long before his or her time. Another stain upon his soul, more darkness in his heart. Yet still he killed, still he lived on, ignoring the guilt, excluding it from himself. Neytiri was right about one thing, he excluded love from his, but she had not quite caught on to the whole thing. He pushed all emotions from his life except for cold annoyance and fiery rage. The two emotions that could be allowed to run rampant though the mind and heart of a trained killer. A killer like Valek, even though, at heart, he wasn't an assassin. He was only a stallion walking around bombs, trying to avoid his painful past and his bloody present. Now he had another thing to contend with: The prophecy of his death.

Neytiri jolted him from his thoughts with We all want answers, don't we? I have none for myself, or for you. Words see me in another way." Valek focussed on her, although he had seemed focussed on her the whole time he his mind was elsewhere and engaged with trading insults with the God of Death. "Even Death has a heart. It beats forever and never. That is his mystery." Valek looked away at her mention of Death. He did not want to talk about the Dark God at that very moment, as his prophecy, his foretelling, still rang in Valek's mind. The sand is almost gone... The assassin stopped himself from reacting to the chills running down his spine as he thought of the way Hades had 'said' it. It was as if the God was almost happy that someone'sValek's time was about to end. As if he'd been waiting a very long time for it to happen.

"My heart never seems to beat, but I know it always must. Mustn't it? I haven't heard it beat in the longest time..." Neytiri said, her words brushing Valek's mind, the true meaning behind them almost out of reach. There was a connection, a key, somewhere in those words. Those little mysteries. What key? What piece of the puzzle? Valek closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Everything was there, in reach but yet he couldn't put it together. The pieces just wouldn't fall into place no matter how much he twisted and turned them. A puzzle he couldn't quite figure out, and it infuriated him to no end. There was something he was missing, something he couldn't quite place. What was it? What piece was the one he could not find?

Then everything clicked. Thoughts swirled, and fell into place one after another. Get away from here, away from my daughter.. Hades' cold voice rang in his head, still, mixed with Neytiri's. My heart never seems to beat...Even Death has a heart. It beats forever and never. Valek's eyes snapped open as he froze. The puzzle, that puzzle not even Neytiri had been able to solve. She was Death's daughter! The long lost child of Hades, the one who was said to hold the power of life in its hands. Life and Death. The offpspring of the gods were always the strangest creatures. Powerful, strong, sometimes sassy, sometimes shy, but, always, breathtaking, whether they be mare of stallion. Valek had only met a few, and all of those he had been asked to kill, but during those brief, deadly meetings, he learnt much about the children of the gods. Their hopes, their powers, thir undeniably lust to be a hero. All but one. Neytiri.

She showed no desire to be a hero, instead she seemed the complete opposite. Withdrawn, careful and not outgoing, she was like none of the godchildren Valek had met and killed. Not at all. Still, she was interesting and her puzzle was much more complex than he could ever comprehend. The one part he had solved only made the puzzle all the more tangled, and he liked that. He liked that a lot. He also liked the challenge of staying with Neytiri while avoiding the rage of the Dark Lord and cheating Death once again. Yes, Valek lvoed a challenge, and he loved the thrill of slipping out of the Grim reaper's welcoming arms. How many times had he cheated Death of his soul? Many, many times. Like a cat, he seemed to have nine lives, maybe more, and it seemed like he could never be caught unawares, not even by the God of Death.

"You heart does beat. I can hear it, but it sounds different. Not like mine. Not like a mortals. It sounds like that of a halfblood. A godchild." Valek said. He flicked his ears, and once again the eery eyes of Death were before him, accusing, cold, and deadly. Then the great black god turned to his daughter, and bowed his ivory head. Valek took a step back that time, knowing that once again he had seen Hades and survived. Once again. How many times would he see the face of Death before he actually died?

---

Words: 2239
Muse: Wow
Notes/other: Sorry about focussing mainly on Valek, but I felt I needed to draw to this conclusion in one post.

[Deleted]

OOC( Mmkay, ruffy. Hope you like it )

[Velnias]

OOC: It's a very good post. I luff it.

Once I get caught up on work and sleep, I'll finish my reply. Sorry to keep you waiting like this.

[Velnias]

Neytiri

Acid tears rack my bulleted body

He looked at me. His gaze tore into me. But I built a wall round my sore flesh, replacing the bloodied streaks that his eyes created with another layer of dark silk skin. I wouldn't leve. And he didn't want it, either. With each razorlike gash he tore, more remorse, more emotion filled his eyes. Deep, blue eyes. They say a blue flame is hotter than a red one. They also have said that blue is the color of ice, the color of an iced soul. But I ask them, have they explored anoher possibility? Because blue is the color of refreshing water, the color of a calm sky after a storm, the color of glassy gems resting at the bottom of an ocean. Waiting to be discovered, hidden treasures.

They have no answer for me.

Valek's sapphire eyes shifted across me, full of their many things. They looked through me, beyond me, and saw something. He saw the chilled wind at my back. Did he know, or hould I tell him? That it always followed me around? It was there, watching over my shoulder. As familiar to me as it was foreign. No, he didn't know. It frightened him, the things he must see in it. I rejoiced at first, that there was someone else who noticed it besides me. But I didn't rejoice to see the flashed of red and black and white and blue that shifted in his eyes. Glassy eyes. I saw fear. Fear in the eyes of one whose gaze has been hardened by bloodshed is a strange sight. It drew me in. I saw it, felt it, felt my eyes blink for an eternal second. I felt the cold draft envelop me. The attic doors into some forbidden world shuddered open, and drifted closed. The open, empty air around us was full and uncomfortable for a moment, and it felt as though it was dwelling in my body. Taking from my strength, ever slowly. Steadily.

It vanished, but it wasn't gone. Only dispersed. The cold air pocketed itself around us, parted as did Valek's quiet lips. They thought about what to say after I had spoken. The stillness fell around us again, an itchy cloak blowing in the deafening wind. It stood somewhere behind me. It was my companion, and I didn't turn to look at it or accept it. I didn't. I couldn't. The cold draft would blow away my mane. Expose my eyes. And suddenly, Valek's voice. "You say that I don't fear love, that I just exlude it from my life, that it an selfless act, but you don't know me. If you did, you would know how selfish I am being by not letting myself love, and that I do fear love. I fear it, I fear falling into it, and I fear it shattering."

He feared what stood behind me, defiantly. I stood with my back to the wind, not willing to accept it. He faced it, looked it straight in the eye, and bravely seemed to whisper his trepidation. And he spoke it into the wind. It reached my ears and the current blew it bck into my face. As a kind of triumph, that thing standing behind me. I threw my blanket of thoughts behind me, and it streamed out, blowing invisible in the wind. It settled on the face of the wind, and I pulled it down, trying to tame the wild forces that struggled against me. Try it, they said, you know you cannot win, it taunted, you cannot conquer me, said the voice. But it was fringed in ruffles of panic. A silent struggle; nothing was spoken. I didn't grimace from the fight. But I felt the bloodred power in my dappled black and red blood course up my legs, down my sides, in my chest, and it forced the blanket upon the wind. The spirit fought back. Fringed with panic,indeed. It saw my power versus its own and was not reassured.

But just as soon, I saw the conflicted glances on Valek's face versus the air behind me. He was listening, as whatever it was that appeared to him but not physically to me. He was listening, it was telling him something. He didn't see the blanket, thankfully didn't see my eyes. I eased on the pressure in my limbs, I lifted it to the wind. The wind and I passed on level grounds, I interfered no more.

But by now, the wind had lot interest it tossing our manes. I feld the cold presence drift away, drift in furls back to its attic chamber, but a part of it stayed behind. Lingering, standing there on the rocks where I didn't wish to look at it. It made up its mind and it sunk into my skin. I didn't think enough of it to stop it. It always happened that way; it was never really gone. Meanwhile, my ruby smooth eyes flashed with smoky visions and were a dark, bright crimson. The color they always were. The color they were cursed to be.

Valek's emotions were glass. The changed and shimmered on his still face, regal and turned into the wind. Watching me barely, but watching me all the same. Thinking. Feeling something. Searching for something. His mind whirred silently. In what little I could see or feel from inside his mind...which was not much, partly because he was immune to it and partly because I had refrained from trying. I thought to him, although I knew he couldn't hear it, Tell me, blow away the wind at my back, Valek. But then I paused. I drew in a cold breath and I breathed, No, you don't... my mind said, you don't have to. I won't betray your choice. It doesn't matter, I won't betray it. Even if... I drew out the thought and wondered, wondered what I wanted to say. Even though I feel like the greatest betrayal has been pulled upon me, Valek. The greatest betrayal, indeed. Maybe that is why I couldn't remember it.

I suppose he decided to tell me in his way of hinting things. I listened. "You heart does beat. I can hear it, but it sounds different. Not like mine. Not like a mortals. It sounds like that of a halfblood. A godchild." A godchild. The word sparked kindling in my mind. The blood seeping out of my body's wounds evaporated into mist and nerves jumped. Why did it hve such a feeling on me? Valek had only mentioned it, and I had listened. But somthing in me was unraveling the words. I saw it, then, saw what Valek had told me. And it made my knees a little more limber when I realized it. But I wavered between believing him and staying quiet. Should I trust him, because he had obviously seen something I had not minutes ago. Hours ago, however long ago it was. Do I?

Or do I stay my own tired self, a wal of flesh building up around every word and refusing to be cut down by anything?

Silent?

I decided to test it.

"I wonder why it is that I've lost so much time," I spoke. The air's sails took the words and made them strong, living off their power, carrying them to Valek's velvet ears. "And I wonder what it has to do with me." Again, a brief pause. "Wherever I go, I smell something. I see something out of the corner of my eyes. I see eyes that try to watch me, dark eyes. They're gray and silver and cold. They know everything." I lifted my head to the wind's ripple again. "And I smell a orest, a strange forest. It's unique, I've never found that smell anywhere else." I thought to myself about what mst Valek be thinking to hear me say this...and maybe he wouldn't understand? Maybe he would blow it away.

But, no, he wouldn't. I wanted him to hear it.

"I love that smell. And I hate it. I smell it all the time, and whenever I see the eyes. Those eyes must be the eyes of death. They come and watch me." And then, a chance... "Have you...ever seen them?" The quetion was plausible, malleable, fluttering in the air. Unsure. As unsure as the wind, which returned. It came to me and, as if by pure coincidence, it blew and lashed at my face. I held strong to my ground as it whipped my mane, screeching in my ears. A gust caught me and blew my locks away, but my face was closed to the wind. I looked away, my face having been fully exposed for Valek for the first time so far. But not my eyes. I still wasn't certain if he had seen them yet, at first...but I didn't take the chance. He was brave, I knew. He had seen things.

Somewhere, something told me that the only one who could meet these eyes without cowering, withering, must be one who had truly looked Death in the eye. But it wasn't Valek's fault, it was mine. I didn't even know what I was sure of, many times. Valek...you are the bravest soul, but I cannot show them to you. It is my fault, my fault...only mine. Only mine that these eyes kill. Only mine that I am like this. Only mine I am alone. Only mine that the cold, billowing wind rests on my shoulders everywhere I go. And why? Why me? Oh, Noxadon, why did you erase me? Why take my mind from me in the years that have been stolen? Why, Death, do your silver eyes gleam over my shoulders, why do you infect me with your presence? Why do you leave me who I am? Why not take me now, and ave yourself the trouble later? I am a fraction of a body, an ounce of a soul.

"Take me..." I whispered forlornly to the rushing wind, rushing past me and Valek so that not even I could hear those words. I didn't want to hear them, anyhow. I wanted them to be taken away, far and farther away. Maybe the gods would pity those words, so pitiful indeed, and carry them up. Carry them up to heaven and read them, unravel them, scowl upon them. They would throw them down into the depths of hell where the spirits of the dead would feast upon them. They would itch at me, clawing up through the soil of the trodden earth and grab at my hooves, chase after me as I ran from the tired and poor spirits. And the pale white cloaked in midnight black would follow, silent and swift in the night. He would disappear from the face of the earth, and yet he would see everything. He would be anywhere at all, and nowhere.

Following my hoofbeats, treading upon them, floating just above them. Disguised in a pillar of ashen clouds. Just when I would feel most alone and helpless, he would be there. Standing at my back. Looking over my houlder as the dead spirits tore at me, tore me apart, wishing that my wishes become true. I would feel his cold breath, the cold wind that sits behind me, around me, inside me. My blood would rust and lie still, cease to flow. Who was to know if it had ever flown freely in my body? And what of my heart? What of that cut in my chest where a black hole lay, where the skin had reformed to cover that oozing wound that could never be healed? If Death was kind to me, would he give me a heart? A fresh heart, to flow and beat so that I could truly become normal...or something in the shadow of it? Would I even need a heart where I was going? Would the spirits take my two words and cast me down with them, into the ground, never to be found again?

Those two, fateful words.

And in the moment that I would breach heaven and the boundaries of earth, the moment Death would collapse my soul into his hands, finally accept me for what I had always been...I would know him. I would know myself. The mist settling on my shoulders would carry me up. It would leave its burdens on earth. I would see the eyes again, all around me. Maybe my own eyes would become their silver-grey shimmer. But in that moment, I would go back. I would know all that time that had been lost, all the time I had erased from my memory. I would know it. I would embrace it.

I would expect something wonderful. Don't we all? We all want our answers...but perhaps it is better that we don't have them all.

I would wake up in a bed of leaves. The brown crisps lying all around me, crackling like fire under my hooves. Dead, charred fire of golden red and brown. The sun would flicker, kindling their light through the green treetop canopies. The leaves would rustle in the wind and I would stand on my own. Alone in the place, but strong. Complete. Whole. I would stand on four beautiful, ebony legs and my long locks would fall to the sides of my crest and face. My eyes, silver-blue and flecked in the gold dappled of wisdom and peace, would see the world larger than it had ever been. The trees rising around me from the leaves covering the ground entirely. A warm current of air caressing my coat. The summer breathing around me. A pleasant scent, strong like mint but soft like dew, would fill my dark nostrils. I would breath it into my lungs, allow it to fill me up entirely.

I would feel my heartbeat.

It would beat, one with that forest.

I see the world in you, and the world is crying

Words: 2399
Muse: Erm...much better.
Notes: Haha...beat ya.

[Deleted]

Valek

You|really|don't|know|me|very|well

It is said that no one can look into the eyes of Death and survive, that one can only see the regal God of Death once in their lifetime. That saying is wrong, dead wrong, amusingly enough. I know. I have met Hades eyes many times before and many times more I will. Horses ask me how I do it; stare Death in the eyes and mock him. I don't know how to answer and I doubt I ever will. Its not something that can be explained or worked out or analysed and I suppose that annoys me. Actually, it does annoy me. They all whisper in my ears asking how I survive so many meetings with the Dark God and I don't know how to answer. Its a puzzle I can never piece together as I don't even know where to begin finding the pieces. And still they ask, intent on finding my secret to immortality. Except I'm not immortal. I can die like all of them, I just happen to look Death in his glowing blue eyes every other day. It is, after all, my job as an assassin. So perhaps there's the answer. Its my job. Simple, three words that are not true. Its not my job and its not who I am. Its something else, something more powerful. Even I have to admit that and I don't generally believe in forces beyond the power in one's own mind and body. So what is it that allows me to take the force of Hades blue eyes? I doubt I'll ever know. I'm only mortal, remember...

"I wonder why it is that I've lost so much time." Words, soft and hesitant filled Valek's waiting ears and made him snap away from the shadow vision of the God of Death waiting, waiting. What for? He never waited, he had not the time but yet he was, his silvery blue eyes on Valek with intensity that the assassin could feel. Was he waiting for the obsidian stallion's blood drenched soul? Or was he waiting for a moment to talk to his daughter? More words brought Valek away from his thoughts. "And I wonder what it has to do with me." Neytiri paused again for a moment, allowing Valek to sort out his scattered thoughts and focus on the beautiful living mare in front of him. Wait...When had he realised she was beautiful? He never even noticed what a mare looked like unless he had to kill her. "Wherever I go, I smell something. I see something out of the corner of my eyes. I see eyes that try to watch me, dark eyes. They're gray and silver and cold. They know everything." Blue eyes tracked her head as it lifted to the wind that was contenting itself by playing with their midnight toned manes. "And I smell a forest, a strange forest. It's unique, I've never found that smell anywhere else."

The eyes...The forest. Sapphire eyes, like cut and polished gems sparkling with facets unknown, slid shut as the assassin let the information run through his brain. Silver and gray. Silver gray and blue. Those eyes snapped open, their hidden facets surfacing in a moment then sinking back beneath the layer of shimmering blue brilliance. Valek knew those eyes. Silver, gray and blue. Cold and all knowing. Who else but Hades? Of course he watched his daughter and course he would be there waiting for the assassin to leave her alone. The God of Death was smart, smart enough to know that Valek meant trouble even on his days off.

And the forest. Valek knew that forest. He knew what it smelled like as it haunted him wherever he went and everytime he sent another soul to the Underworld he caught a glimpse of the strange place. Every glimpse told another story, sometimes good sometimes bad, but no matter what story it told he longed for it. For Death's cool embrace. He wanted to be free from his past and present. His memories and his life. Everything he had done was wrong since his brother's had died, everything but what could he do? Sit in a corner and cry about it? No, he had to live, had to do something with his life other than mourn. And so he took revenge upon his brothers' killers. That was when he became an assassin, a hired killer.

Thoughts once again flickered from his past to the present, his eyes taking in the scene in front of him with mournful perspective. Neytiri stood there, her father behind her, his dark eyes on the assassin. There was death in the air and not only because he stood there, watching Valek as if he was his next victim. It was all the blood in Valek's past, from his first glance at his brother Lucas's life pumping from him to his most recent kill which he used poison for. Blood in his mind, blood on his soul. And the death, all that death. It haunted him, it loved him. It was his life. The blood and death was what shaped his life and so it was his life, as was this seemingly everlasting moment with Death's daughter. How long had it really been?

"I love that smell. And I hate it. I smell it all the time, and whenever I see the eyes. Those eyes must be the eyes of death. They come and watch me." More words, lyrical words, uncertain words. He wanted no more words. He wanted pictured painted in magnificent brilliance and statues carved to exquisite life likeness. He wanted the simplicity of a picture telling a thousand words rather the complex stuttering of words and speech. Pictures never let you down while words could. They always could. "Have you...ever seen them?" She was hesitant in her question but the hesitation made her words that much more alluring. He had never told anyone before that he had seen Death's blue and silver eyes but as with everything she just understood him without ever once meeting him prior.

Words collected in his throat, bubbling and building as they pushed to escape but he held them back. This was something he must think about before answering, as it was a question he had no clue how to answer. But the answer was so easy, it was right in front of him. Yes, and they haunt me every day... Yet those same words threatened to choke him when he tried to speak them. Why wouldn't the truth be spoken? Why couldn't be simply tell her what he knew? It was not like she had not already figured it out but the moment he tried to open his maw and let the words flow he lost his ability to form words. Why? Why now? He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. When words cannot be spoken a picture may tell a thousand words. Oh, if only he could still carve. If only he could show her the eyes that haunted his mind. If only, if only...

How he wished for the comforting familiarity of stalking someone through the darkness or standing hidden behind a tree listening in on conversations. That was his life, not this complex dance. He was used to planning out everything and figuring out every puzzle. Neytiri was a change in his life that had set him majorly off balance so much he could not speak the truth in his words. Yes, he had seen the eyes of Death. Those colds, accusing silver blue eyes that had haunted him since his brothers' deaths. He had seen them and he knew them but he still found it impossible to form the words. The words had blocked his throat and he had no way of letting them pour out the way they had minutes before.

What was stopping him from speaking his mind? Nothing had ever made him speechless before and all she had asked was one simple question. One simple yes or no question. Yet he still could not find the words to answer it. Was it her beauty, both hidden and shown, that had him lost for words? Because she certainly was beautiful in all her dark mystery. Even with her forelock covering her crimson eyes, the colour of blood dripping from a wound, she was breathtaking. Her head was carved to perfection and her long wavy mane danced wildly in the breeze that tugged at it. Unlike his, which simply flowed like a silken banner. The assassin's sapphire eyes ran over every perfect line of her body, from her slightly arched neck to her strong feathered legs. Memorising her perfection, imprinting it within him. She was beautiful, she was perfect. And he had the strangest thought that he loved her.

No. Valek snapped his eyes shut. He could not love her. He did not love. He was an assassin and one day he might have to turn around and kill her without mercy or even the slightest thought. He would never live with himself if he had to do that and then death would finally collect his soul. His body would be lost but his spirit free. Living with that kind of guilt, the guilt of killing the one you love, was something Valek knew he could not live with. Guilt, all that guilt. There was guilt over killing someone you had never met before and that was nothing, nothing compared to the guilt of knowing that it was you that ended the life of a loved one. Valek knew that, he understood that he would never live if he had to kill her.

How did he know the guilt of killing a love one? It was all in his past and written in his soul. The story of his guilt was scribed into his black soul in blood red ink. The guilt over his brothers’ deaths, the tears that he had cried that day. Mingled, mixed, and they told the story of his guilt. How he had caused the killers to come and how it was his fault his brothers were dead. He felt tears welling in his closed eyes as he thought of the blood and the guilt, the unstoppable unbearable guilt that weighed him down ever day. The guilt for the unnamed victims he had killed, the guilt for his brothers and the guilt for what his life had turned into. Just one kill after another.

He should have been crying, should have been broken, but he was not. He took a deep breath and pushed the tears back. His eyes slid open and he lifted his nose into the wind. Blue eyes, cold, unreadable blue eyes. They were back, hiding his true emotions deep within him. Hiding the love that was growing for Neytiri in a crystal cage somewhere in his mind for him to watch and hold but never show. He could never show what he felt to her and she would never guess. His mind was hidden to her, she had told him so and at that moment he was almost grateful that she could not see the complex whirl of emotions building inside him. He could barely contain it all, yet he did and not one thing got past those sapphire eyes, not one emotion flickered across his stone face. Like a guard at Buckingham Palace, he was emotionless. Almost a statue. A stone statue. Like that he used to carve.

Behind his stone mask his emotions whirled and spun, gathering into different thoughts and actions. The forest, the forest of Death. And those words he could not speak. Those simple words that told that he had seen the eyes of Death many, many times. Once again he wondered why he could not speak his mind. The words to answer her question were so simple yet so impossible for him to say. The assassin could not quiet understand it. Like a puzzle he had not solved. It drove him crazy. He tilted his head up further, so he could look at the clouded gray sky. The wind pulled gentle fingers through his mane, making it waver and billow like an black silk flag against the darkness of the night. Like a flag of war, a flag of death.

Blue eyes slid shut again, questions and answers spinning through his head faster than he could grab them. How could Valek hope to understand the mysteries of fate? Even with Neytiri there, her silent presence comforting somehow, Valek was confused and upset. She had brought up so many memories he just wanted to forget happened and had stirred up emotions he had been pushing down for most of his life. And then death had foretold his death, his final, true death…It was little surprise that the assassin found he was unable to speak the truth on his mind. Yet, he wanted to tell her. He wanted her to know how he was haunted by Death despite often being the bringer of it.

Eyes still shut he brought his nose down. He did not want to looked her in the eyes, he did not want her to guess what he was feeling. He wanted everything to remain hidden deep within, like it always had been but his stone mask could no longer hide everything he was feeling, there was just too many emotions. They were all trapped within him, stirred up by a single thought he had while running his eyes over Neytiri’s gorgeous body. I think I love her… Those blue glass eyes stayed shut, hiding the facets he knew would be sparkling for the first time in his life. Glass eyes that burned with cold fire, cold blue fire. Yet they could be warmer than even the hottest amber flames. Blue, the colour of ice. Blue, the colour of the hottest fire.

Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at Neytiri, who still hid her eyes behind the graceful tumble of her forelock. He knew they would be as red as the blood that pumped through his veins, as red as the marking on his chest. Words built in his throat, wanting to escape, and suddenly he knew how to answer. Suddenly he understood why he had not been able to speak. “I have seen the eyes of death many times,” he began, his voice low and hoarse. “The first being when I was little more than a colt. I watched my brothers be slaughtered in front of me. That was my first taste of blood and my first sight of Hades. It was not my last.”

Anger flashed in his blue eyes, like blue sparks flying through the air. “My father blamed it on me and told me to leave and never return. So I left but I burned for revenge. I learnt to be a killer and taught myself how to fight until I became unbeatable. Through those years I saw death’s eyes many more times, and yet my anger still burned. I still wanted to kill the stallion responsible for my brothers’ deaths. Eventually, I did. Eventually he became one of my victims, one of my targets. And he died. I killed him easily. He never expected it.” Sadistic delight sparkled in his eyes for a second before disappearing and he became a stone statue once more.

“After that I was hired by many and killed many. Still I saw Death and his eyes watching me, every time becoming more accusing and spiteful. He spoke to me on occasion, his voice echoing in my head like he wasn’t really there. He hated me and he still does. I see he eyes often now, even when I’m not on a job. They watch me, accuse me and wait until my soul is his,” Valek said. He stared at the ground, unsure of why he told her his story. No one else knew his past and he had entrusted it to her. By doing that he had given her a bit of who he was, and she would have to be careful with it because he was so close to shattering up there on the cliffs. All those unwanted emotions weakening his unbreakable defences to a state that they would crumble with a single blow.

“So, yes, I have seen them. I have seen them many, many times.”

---

Words: 2734
Muse: Wow
Notes/Other: Sorry about taking so long, but….Just wow. That’s almost 3000 words! And the beginning's a bit strange, I know, but I felt like writing something from his point of view.

[Velnias]

Neytiri

Your eyes glitter like sapphires

It was then that I saw it again. The place of drifting leaves, falling through the air. Bedding down on the crackling dirt, covered with the rest. Silent and dead. The trees were silent, standing as they were. I had a feeling that they had been that way for a long, long time. Dead. But standing, as though for all the dead things in that forest, nothing new ever grew. So hey stood there with nothing, no one to replace them. The place was obselete, unseen. It was nowhere on any map or scale. It was just...there. Forever. Untouched by humanity or a fatal cycle of life. It couldn't live, couldn't die, it was trapped. As I floated over the forest floor, I didn't see even myself. Even I was home to this place, and I believe I saw myself as the world saw me. Invisible, just a dark corner in a room. But I also believe I was like the forest in others' eyes. Always there, lurking, but impossible to see. I had a feeling that it was everywhere, all around me. This forest. My hooves rested always on its soiled floor and my body always brushed against the umbrella of sparse, dead, crackling leaves. they adorned my ebony back like a cape of dead roses, falling, resting, sliding off my back as I moved so that more could take their place. I was a part of this forest, not alive nor dead. Invisible to the naked eye. But to the in-betweens, I was so much more.

The trees melted into shadows, the leaves melted into rock floors, and the ground became a cliff. A dark, sorrow-fed cliff. The water sheared bits and pieces of it off nto itself, and swallowed it up and dragged it to the ocean's depths. like the leaves that caught on my back and fell off silently, innocently, to the floor. Nothing gold can stay. But all things black and rotten must someday be wasted, taken away. Nothing stays the same; it all changes. The sorrow and the grief that molded this windswept place would eventually all be sheared off and dragged to the ocean's depths. What then? Where would the undead go? The tremor of uncertainty rang in the stone as each new wave blasted its sides. I elt it under my hooves that had uddenly touched ground again. At least, they had felt so, although I knew they must have always been there.

At least Valek hadn't missed the eternity I felt I'd spent in the leaf-covered place. The rustling sound still crackled in my ears and the matured smell of foreign earth-made trees still filled my nostrils. rom the dust of the earth had they come, and to the dust of the earth they would remain rooted in forever. Forever. Forever was a dangerous word, standing here. Forever would the eyes watch me. Forever would I stand here with this stallion, if it was necessary. Forever I would walk alone, if the time hastened to me. Forever would I wait for the right time that may never come. Forever I would live and die, the cursed circular rotation of my heart always, always beating. Mortals at least had the good sense to leave the world behind at some point, to allow their flatlining hearts to stop flooding their bodies with blood. The living kind. So unlike mine, charred with ash. Choking my lungs from the inside out.

That ash seemed to choke his blue eyes, too. I wondered if it was my own doing. But I kept silent, kept an invisible finger to my dark lips. He concentrated on me, then again behind me. I felt that cold chill tanding there and looking over my shoulder. Again. I had thought of a good guess what it might be. My mind that knew those things, it had always known. But I refused to accept some things, or rather simply let them float away than snatching them into my conscious mind. It seemed to feel like in the very brief time we had stood here, the wind at our backs, making us vulnerable, towering over the water. The murky ocean below. I could look down at the foaming waves and search the green-gray water. Dark and deep with anger, full of grief. Past the sinking shards of black-gray rock, the sand littered the bottom of the sea. Ancient. Like the two blue, murky gems that rested there. Buried, hidden, concealed. Would they ever be found? They stared back at me.

Valek was quiet, silent as he had been. I didn't try to read his silhouetted face's expressions anymore because he had communicated in silence that he didn't want himself to be known. I wasn't sure if I would choose that, if I had a past like he did. If I had a past at all. I think I would; not out of shame or fear, but out of respect. Because no one could fully relive my memories like myself. It left me wishing all the more that I had something to remember, but the days blurred together so well that day and night were only colors of the sky; in this forsaken place, all was night. I didn't like the sun here, or anywhere, because it glared down at me, staring hot on my back for the whole day. It made me feel like even in the sky, far away from Death's cavernous prisons below, that the gods were watching me. Slowly, out on the barren and fruitless plains, they burn my skin away with their golden oculus, left hanging in the cheery blue sky.

Exposing my darkness beneath.

But in the forest thesun is different. It is warm in a comforting way and it gives light to the world. To my life. But the brown twigs of the trees' lifeless claws break up the light into crystalline fragments. They give the forest its dulled and dead, matured and beautiful colors. There are patches of dark soil, shadows cast in the setting sun by the trees. The darkness is still my home, but now I see all of the world; not only the black and the white that I want to see. Because the shades of black, white, and gray are all I want to know. Red is the prominent color, though, because I see through it every day, dark or light. Day or night. Yet in this forest, the red is no longer present and lurching. I see the world through strange, golden eyes. A young goddess' eyes. I see the colors that are real there, the brown and golden and white and yellow and black, the colors that represent ancient, peaceful, omnipresent death. Then I can see the radiant blue of the sky, and the pure white clouds, and the luminous sun's eye. Those are the colors that seem so out of place in the forest, in my life, but they are there, waiting to be seen. They will always be there for whoever wants to find them.

Now, on the clifs, I still see mostly black rock, gray sky, the black stallion, and my red eyes. Through my red crimson-stained eyes. But I see shades of hues, faintly as before. The sea green of the ocean, the violet shimmer of the dark rocks, the rare blue of two sapphire gemstones, and a bloodied scarlet letter. The gems I havesearched blindly for, groping in the dark depths of the water, the pressure building on my lungs, crushing my own massive weight. They were cold as ice, down in the cold water. They singed my skin to the touch with their icy fire. I lited them gently and carried them to the surface. I broke them of their icy bonds. But still, I couldn't see myself. I seemed inviible to myself, to the world, like the thing Valek saw and I felt, though I was certain he may be standing there, should I look over my shoulder. As for me, I blended in like him. With the dark rock and stormy sky, I was just a trick of the eye. Of the mind.

Valek's eyes fell closed and awoke again, a light in the darkness. They were silent and stone cold, but murky. Searching forsomething that wasn't there and hadn't been for a long time, I sensed. Pale, vague feelings stillemitted towards me from all around, even from Valek, but I had chosen to refrain from trying to search for them. I watched Valek's eyes shift and he looked from himself to the rocky ground to me, but not in a shifty-eyed, uncomfortable way. Calm, subtle, looking for clues. So I did the same. I looked to his hooves. Sharp as knives, daggers made to cut into the earth. As his profession called, to cut through flesh. To carve death's heart out. To carve.

He was a carver. I blinked hazily, once, slowly. He carved things, not only for the taking of life but for the representation of life. The creating of a picture, a memory. It proved again that nothing simply destroyed; it could be used for creation, as well. To this, a vague smile murmured across my lips. I met his eyes for only half a second. I looked up into the sky. I looked all around, at the pale sickly sky, the stormy clouds, the horizon where storm and sadness met, the grieving rocks that fell away in tears, dancing on the surface of the stained ocean. Our shadows under our feet. Look at it, Valek, I thrust my words into open mindspace. Whether his mind reached out far enough to grasp them, I wasn't certain. But I knew he could, if he wanted. I hoped he heard them. Look at the carving of the world. There is your picture. I sent the message to him, through my eyes, through my mind. I wanted him to see the sky, see the earth, realize that it was a carving of its own. I knew that it was a thing of old, to be able to carve. It took diligence and practice. I could carve if I tried to, with time. But I wanted Valek to know that the world's own carving was a gift as well. Truly a gift. One only had to know how to carve life from it. To see it through bloodstained eyes.

Valek's voice broke. For the first time, it broke the calm. He spoke, but this time he didn't say words. He spoke of pictures, his own memories, his emotions, the deepest thoughts he had held in his mind. His voice was new and innocent as he spoke, but it was old and wise. And tired. It was the tired speech, the hidden eyes that made it known to me. It shattered the silence of the howling cliffs, of the crashing waves. "I have seen the eyes of death many times. The first being when I was little more than a colt. I watched my brothers be slaughtered in front of me. That was my first taste of blood and my first sight of Hades. It was not my last. My father blamed it on me and told me to leave and never return. So I left but I burned for revenge. I learnt to be a killer and taught myself how to fight until I became unbeatable. Through those years I saw death’s eyes many more times, and yet my anger still burned. I still wanted to kill the stallion responsible for my brothers’ deaths. Eventually, I did. Eventually he became one of my victims, one of my targets. And he died. I killed him easily. He never expected it. After that I was hired by many and killed many. Still I saw Death and his eyes watching me, every time becoming more accusing and spiteful. He spoke to me on occasion, his voice echoing in my head like he wasn’t really there. He hated me and he still does. I see he eyes often now, even when I’m not on a job. They watch me, accuse me and wait until my soul is his."

Another moment concluded with that which I had known he would say. "So, yes, I have seen them. I have seen them many, many times.” And this is where he allowed me to hang, hang on his words. Hang on his downcast eyes, as if he were ashamed of his story. I knew that he must seem to feel that way, and hate it, and want revenge. He had said he had found his revenge, but for Valek to continue on in his jobs meant that he also knew he hadn't. I could attest to that. It was something I knew, deep down, and I must have always known. One life cannot simply be replaced, once taken. Death is sadistic in his own ways, and he isn't one to give back. He only accepts, but fairly. We often wonder why. I think it is because he cares not that we are dead, but how we died. Why. In recieving our cold souls, he leaves the others of us behind to discover the truth. Each death, searching for answers. Will we ever find them?

Perhaps the answer lies in only Death itself. It is why I continue to search inside my own heart.

And Valek's eyes were stained, too. Behind their icy blue, their strong and burning flames, there were tears of blood. They couldn't be seen. But I saw them, and I felt something skip around in me. It couldn't have been my heart. But it went out to him. He had a look in his eye that told me it was a story he hadn't told before. To anyone. And now, perhaps other eyes could be seen, lying in recluse behind dark locks of ebony mane. Rich and powerful and tired. My eyes looked down to the ground and I allowed them to flicker shut. My wisps of mane lifted gently in the wind as I allowed my neck to fall. My muzzle fell to my chest, my eyes fell shut. My mane hung from my ears, caressing my forehead and eyelids, not wanting to leave. But I set my mouth firm. With the next breeze, I tipped my head. The forelock fell to one side as I rose my own face again. Carved by my eyes, crafted beautiful and deadly. So beautiful, full of emotion that strangled me and had for as long as I knew. I must let it go now.

Let it go, let it go.

I let my eyes flicker with the red fire burning underneath. They crackled and sparked and rose open. My eyes, stained with blood, charred with fire, painted with red. The red carved my past, present, and future. It seemed to spill out, to bleed onto my forehead, drip down the sides of my cheeks like acid tears. It ran down my muzzle and my nostrils flared soft and bloody with it. The crimson blood dripped to the rock, forming acid pools of tears. It made my bleed, it made me cry. It bled the cliffs red and black. And my eyes lifted to Valek's. Ice blue and fire red. Flame blue and blood red. Valek had been silent before. Now it was my turn. No words, Pictures. Come and see them, Valek. I sent the thoughts to him, meaning for him and only him to see. To feel. I wanted him to see them. Someday, I would ask him and maybe he would tell me about them. He would be able to see them, because there was a great and terrible difference between seeing something and seeing through something. It was the only difference now between me and Valek. I couldn't see the story my eyes told; I was forced to live it. Every day. Valek must see it and show it to me sometime. I mustn't live in the dark forever. It was time, time to go to the light. I would ask Valek to lead me there.

In my crimson ruby eyes, a story unfolded for him now.

There was the glow of a setting red sun. The sky was set afire with its glow. The land was dark, shadows tall, and separated by the red light that lit every place, even the darkest forest and most desolate cave. The animals glowed red and colors were hued the same. The world was setting with the sun, and all of the living things were looking to it. Forward to the future. But the eyes that saw them looking, knew that they were repeating their past. It was the cycle of life. All the world had stopped. There was peace, a moment. Only that. At the place where the sky and the land met, a flash came. It blinded them all at the same time. And their vision turned to fire. The world licked itself with flames. The leaves of the trees disentigrated into gray ash and the grass became a blanket of fire stitched into the earth. The animals showed fear and fright in their different colored eyes. But they could not run. There was a greater emotion filling their hearts: despair. A starting over, a burning to the ground and a replanting of a seed. They all knew it. The fire surrounded them all. The earth began to bleed, its red tears dripping from the sun, the sky, the creatures, the trees, the river, even the soil itself. The earth had turned on itself. The living things were consumed by orange fire and they all starved for one last glimpse to the light sky, but there was none. Only black. Black sky, no stars. The color of ebony silk fur, coating the earth. Suffocating it. The creatures wept as they were flooded by their own pain and grief. The plants' leaves fell to the ground and like that, the earth was covered in skeleton leaves. The brown soil was black and gray. The sky was a storm. The earth cried itself to sleep. Sleep, as the shadows of every standing thing rose and fell All the shadows disappeared as everything slept, both in the night of blackness and the trees and boulders and bodies all resting, falling to the ground. Meeting their shadows, meeting death. When the sun rose again, it was soft and innocent. It didn't shine, it glowed. The remaining skeletons of the earth rose from their graves, old and dead, and they shook the earth. The fallen leaves were shaken from the ground and lifted in the air. They were caught in the wind and, one by one, for eternity, they began to drift back to the earth. The shadows that once were no longer were real in the glow of light made into tiny crystal beams, fragmented by the crisscrossing of bare twig arms of dead trees. The gray ash covered the brown soil and mixed with it, became it. The trees stood, silent and desolate, no one to take their place. The earth was a forest, made of petrified bark and soiled ash and soft light. The scent of amber was strange and surreal, and it filled the air. Peace again. Then, hoofbeats. Coming from the horizon, the place of the white flash. A blck mare with flowing locks descended upon the landscape, and the falling leaves crackled afire when they touched her bare back. She shifted, and again they fell to the earth. But her eyes? Her eyes were silver gray, and they were stained with blood.

When my eyes could see again, when I withdrew and he, too, I expected his eyes to bleed. But I didn't know what I would expect. My eyes...they had changed. Red they were still, red stained, as they likely always would be. But I could see more through them. Less was shielding my vision from normlcy, the thing I seemed to always wish for. Maybe what I had shared, what could have been just seen through my eyes, had lifted something off of my broad shoulders. Maybe I had shared it with him. Maybe, now, I had...added something to his burden. I felt a pang of guilt, almost, although he had in turn shared his story with me. But I had shared it with him, and not knowing it myself I could have only done one thing. I could have only let another look through my eyes, entrust them with my visions. I had wanted to show him something, something that I had no true idea whether it was my past, present, or future. I had a strange notion that it was each of the above. I was certain that it was real. That it either had happened, or...

And then, with my red stained eyes staring into Valek's, I felt a cold wind at my back. I felt my skin shudder resolutely, unafraid but knowing fully well what stood behind me. What lurked there, in the back of my mind. My eyes shifted away from Valek. I swiveled my head around on my sleek, black neck. My mane was whipped completely away from my face and eyes. I stared, red eyed and pinpointing one spot, one wisp of air. I saw before me the edge of the cliffs and the vast ocean stretching out beyond, gray-green water meeting the horizon and stretching on forever and ever, and ever again. But I looked to one place where I could see nothing, but I knew what stood there. In the back of my mind I knew it, for that was where the knowledge had always rested. I felt the cold air wrap me in its arms and I set my jaw, defiant. My eyes cut like lasers, slicing the air where nothing could be seen. I was convinced that the thing, the being, the spirit...was like me. What Valek had spoken of before, being a godchild...this I knew. I confirmed it when he had said it. It felt right, as strange as it was. And the thing that stood there was invisible, like me. Similar. A thought entered my mind and wouldn't leave. He, she, whatever the invisible thing was, was connected to the vision in my eyes.

As I felt the cold wind subside, I felt I had made a point of my own. There was the sea, the crash of the waves, the sickening lurch as more rock was sheared into the ocean. More tears fell. Whether he had left or not, I did not know, but I turned back. I took a step closer to Valek, my eyes full of thoughts. "Tell me sometime, what you saw," I spoke in soft words. Tell me, Valek, about the vision. About what it means. Maybe I can find an answer to it. I felt my face falter and I didn't look away. I stared into his icy eyes for a moment, and I felt that they were more like blue-white hot flames. Burning, living. I walked past him, dragging my weight of more thn was my self. I dragged so much more along with me and I felt tired. But I took a few steps. I looked over my shoulder, this time at the black stallion. My eyes posed the question, Do we leave? But I stopped. Another question perked at my lips but I decided not to ask it. It would wait for another day. For now, I would wait for his answer.

I see them clouded by the darkness rising from the ocean's depths

Words: 4,013
Muse: Uhh...wow.
Notes: The italics part, Valek is suppoed to see. But Neytiri doesn't. I hope it isn't too ranty/scattered.

[Deleted]

Valek

You|really|don't|know|me|very|well

I am known for being a coldhearted killer, a murderer who has no mercy, but that is only judged by my actions, my deeds and the stories about me stalking through the night like the ghost I am nicknamed for. Valek, the Ghost Warrior. Valek, the assistant of death. If all stories and rumours are to be believed I am an invincible, unfeeling assassin who even Death himself cannot master. Every one of them is wrong. If a single horse were to look in my eyes, look truly into my eyes, as I ended a life they would see sadness and guilt that could not be understood by one who has not taken a life before. They would see tears, burning red with the acid of guilt and the drops of blood, that I never shed running beneath those sapphire facets. And they would catch a glimpse of something that would scare them. They would see Death's eyes reflection in my own as I met those glowing blue eyes for an uncountable time. Would they understand what they saw? Probably not. No one could understand how I felt as a killed, not even Death himself who was ever present in the moments when I ended a life. Even then, when my barriers were at their weakest, I was still unreadable. My face was still hidden by its metal mask, my eyes still gems set within that mask. Unreadable, untouchable. My mind hidden beyond unbreakable barriers. Yet, if anyone could look at me and really, really look, they would see me shedding tears of blood for all my victims and they would see the guilt that stained my soul black and hindered my every step and they would understand. They would understand me for who I was. They would understand that what even I do not know.

No words, pictures. Come and see them, Valek. Words hidden within crimson depths and echoing deep within his searching mind. No words, just pictures. Pictures like telling a tale from a storybook that ended happily ever after, but this would not end happily. The assassin knew that. No story could end as happily as they did in picture books. Pictures, like carvings. Created over time and with great patience and diligence. Pictures, like those whirling in his mind too fast for him to comprehend. Pictures of blood, pictures of death. Pictures of a time before he had been soaked in blood and guilt and death. Pictures of innocent mixed with pictures of guilt. All those pictures. Too many pictures. All of them in his mind, bringing him down, breaking him down, and forcing tears that he never cried to surface in his sapphire eyes but not drip down his face. He could not cry. He carried the weight of his actions without tears, without complaint, without words. They were his actions, after all. He had made them and he had to stay with them, no matter the consequences. Even if the consequence was being bloodstained and soulless for his entire life. Except he was not soulless, not as the rumours made him out to be. He was merciful and he felt guilt every day. He had a soul and he carried that guilt, those pictures of blood and death and sorrow, as a lead weight on his shoulders. Pictures. Pictures of death and blood.

But those same pictures he was being asked to see, being told to watch within those ruby orbs. No words, pictures. Come and see them, Valek. Echoes of those words, that thought, bounced around his head confusingly, stopping him from understanding properly. Why could he hear her? No one could touch his mind, no could read his thoughts and intentions but she had broken his barriers and slipped into his bloodstream and invaded his mind and heart. She was a poison, just like those he used, but was she really all that deadly? Her poison seemed almost healing as it tore away the shrouds over his most bloodied, hated memories and brought them to the surface to analyse and try to understand. Then they were returned, clean, renewed and more painful than before but somehow, in some way the assassin could not explain, it felt good to have part of his burden lifted. Even if it was a tiny bit. Even if it was only washing away the blood red haze over his memories and cleansing his mind of the metallic salt taste of blood and the overpowering guilt of some many lives taken and so many souls given to Hades. She poisoned him, she made him say things he had no wish to say, yet somehow, as her poison was destroying him, it made him feel better. It was like no poison he had ever heard of. Not a poison of the body, but instead a poison of the mind. One that helped as it destroyed and healed as it poisoned.

And still she invited him, quietly but in a way he could not resist, to see the pictures held tentatively in her ruby eyes that she had uncovered in one smooth movement. The ripples of her forelock had fallen away to reveal those crimson orbs filled with wisdom and world weariness. Entrancing red optics that drew him in and filled his mind with images that he had no wish to see. So he pulled up his impenetrable barriers and hid behind them, only peering out from behind the blank walls through two sapphire blue windows that showed his thoughts in fleetingly surfacing sparkling facets of the gems. And it was because of those images, that blood and pain and sadness staining his once pure white soul, that he could not let Neytiri show him what he wished to see but also knew he could not. He could not carry the weight of that as well as the guilt and sorrow and blood and death in his own past. It would kill him, as it would destroy any mortal. Too much sadness, too much suffering. He could not hope to gaze into those rubies and understand what he saw. He could not. He was just a mortal, just another mortal trying to keep his life in balance and the gods off his back. Except no mortal could look Death in the eyes and hold a conversation with him time and again. No mortal had that ability, no normal mortal.

So what was the assassin? Was he mortal, or was he divine? Or was he somewhere in between, as Neytiri was? Yet he had no immortal blood in his heritage, no golden ichor ran in his veins as it did Neytiri’s. He was no immortal, he was not divine, he was mortal and yet he could stare Death down as if Hades was just another mortal he had to kill. How could he do it? Why could he do it? Those questions, those unanswerable questions, would never be understood. They would never be taken apart, analysed then fitted carefully back together once all their secrets were uncovered and filed away in neat little boxes in his head. He would never know the answers to them and it would forever drive him crazy as he sort out the pieces to a puzzle much too complex for a mortal to put together. Even a mortal that could look Death in the eyes and honestly laugh, although Valek would never laugh as he gazed into those silvery blue pools of hate and accusation. He could never laugh as he looked at all that wisdom and all those memories, infinite memories filled with unbearable sorrow, and know that he had taken yet another life and passed a soul of uncountable number on to the Dark God.

How many had Valek killed in his near decade of being a paid killer? How many families had he torn apart and how many dreams had he shattered? Was it even possible to count? The lives he had taken, the blood on his soul, it was impossible to define how many had died as even he could not truthfully remember the exact number. The only thing he knew was that it was too many. Way too many. All he had wanted was revenge, revenge for the deaths of his brothers and yet that need for revenge, that burning, unquenchable fire, had changed. It had shifted into something Valek had not understood at that time. Years later he did, years later he regretted it. He regretted that undefinable moment when his pure burning revenge had changed into the cold calculating rage of a trained murderer. And it was his fault that he had tainted his revenge. It was his fault that he never paid back his brothers’ deaths, and so he was still killing, trying to find some acceptance in a world of misery, pain and that cold calculated rage. The rage that was not truly rage or anger or fury. It was the want, no the need to kill. It was killing without reason even if there was a reason.

When that cold calculating killer filled Valek’s sapphire blue eyes his victims became simple targets, as if he was simply shooting a dummy while training. They were nothing, not even worth considering as being a living being. That was when he could not count his kills and that was why he had killed more than he could even try to count. That murderer, the assassin that the rumours and stories told of, that was what his brothers’ deaths had produced. That calculating cold merciless trained killer. That was Valek the assassin, that was Death’s Assistant. Merciless, cold, uncaring. The one who took countless lives without a thought or even the tiniest bit of guilt. Valek never felt remorse for when he killed like that, when he pulled his stones walls down to protect himself from the blood and death but somehow a bit seeped through the cracks in his stone barriers and stained his soul one drop at a time. His guilt built over time even though he had his stone walls up and his emotionless mask on. The guilt for lives ended and families shattered. Just as his had been shattered.

So perhaps it was not only guilt he felt. Maybe it was sympathy also. Guilt and sympathy and remorse and regret. Things that no assassin should even think about feeling. They were emotions that held a paid killer back and stopped him from doing his job because when you regretted and felt guilty for every kill how could you know that you would have the nerve to kill again? That’s why Valek had his stone mask and his walls that cut him off from the emotions that should come from his actions and deeds. Yet that mask was cracking and those walls were crumbling. Neytiri was waking him up and breaking through his impenetrable defences to show him the consequences for his actions and for his job. Death and blood and sorrow. His past and his future. But not his present. His present was this seemingly neverending moment standing on the cliff’s edge with Neytiri, the mare he thought he loved. The mare he did love and would always love, even if she could never know. Even though she would never know.

Sapphire blue orbs, like marbles, sparkling, beautiful and swirling with depths unreadable and yet cold, so cold, and uncaring. Not a thing in the world affected the mind peeking through those sapphire optics, except for that mare, the one he loved, Neytiri. Those glass orbs, layered with unseeable pain and guilt and sorrow, opened slowly and gazed into those two rubies, those two bloodied rubies. Images, pictures, danced within them. Calling him to look and see. No words, pictures. Come and see them, Valek. That invitation still echoed in his mind, even with his barriers drawn up and latched shut. And he wanted to see those pictures, even if he knew he could never carry the weight of what he saw on top of his guilt and sorrow. He wanted to see because he felt Neytiri needed to see, to find out something about her past and perhaps her future. Also he was intrigued by the mystery of her past that she could not tell him with words or thoughts, only pictures. Learning her past would give him another piece of the puzzle and perhaps help him put together the jigsaw that she was to him. Maybe he would even learn something about her that his senses alone could not give him. Maybe he might even begin to piece together a puzzle more complex than that he had ever seen before and solve the mystery that stood before him in a body the colour of darkness with eyes silver eyes stained crimson.

Those barriers around his mind that had been breaking down slowly under that ruby gaze were strong again, fortifying him against tricks of the mind and body but for just this one he wanted it down, he wanted to step outside that stone wall and see what was not just in his own head or the emotions he read with his own eyes. Those eyes, ruby and promising a story that he longed to see but also knew he should not know. Promises, invitations. Neither were an order yet still he wanted to know this piece of a puzzle he was trying to so hard to figure out and not only for himself. Neytiri needed to know what she was and her past and Valek, the supposedly merciless assassin, was the only one whom she was inclined to show it to. Yet his barriers would not come down for her this time, they would not let him see what he so wanted to. Why could he not see?

Sapphire optics were hidden behind onyx lids as the assassin tried to open himself to those eyes, those breathtaking ruby eyes that held an entire history within them. So his deep blue eyes opened and met red. Red and blue, the two colours of fire meeting in a moment and running together like blood and water. And in those crimson eyes he saw this…

…There was the glow of a setting red sun. The sky was set afire with its glow. The land was dark, shadows tall, and separated by the red light that lit every place, even the darkest forest and most desolate cave. The animals glowed red and colours were hued the same. The world was setting with the sun, and all of the living things were looking to it. Forward to the future. But the eyes that saw them looking, knew that they were repeating their past. It was the cycle of life. All the world had stopped. There was peace, a moment. Only that. At the place where the sky and the land met, a flash came. It blinded them all at the same time. And their vision turned to fire. The world licked itself with flames. The leaves of the trees disintegrated into gray ash and the grass became a blanket of fire stitched into the earth. The animals showed fear and fright in their different coloured eyes. But they could not run. There was a greater emotion filling their hearts: despair. A starting over, a burning to the ground and a replanting of a seed. They all knew it. The fire surrounded them all. The earth began to bleed, its red tears dripping from the sun, the sky, the creatures, the trees, the river, even the soil itself. The earth had turned on itself. The living things were consumed by orange fire and they all starved for one last glimpse to the light sky, but there was none. Only black. Black sky, no stars. The colour of ebony silk fur, coating the earth. Suffocating it. The creatures wept as they were flooded by their own pain and grief. The plants' leaves fell to the ground and like that, the earth was covered in skeleton leaves. The brown soil was black and gray. The sky was a storm. The earth cried itself to sleep. Sleep, as the shadows of every standing thing rose and fell All the shadows disappeared as everything slept, both in the night of blackness and the trees and boulders and bodies all resting, falling to the ground. Meeting their shadows, meeting death. When the sun rose again, it was soft and innocent. It didn't shine, it glowed. The remaining skeletons of the earth rose from their graves, old and dead, and they shook the earth. The fallen leaves were shaken from the ground and lifted in the air. They were caught in the wind and, one by one, for eternity, they began to drift back to the earth. The shadows that once were no longer were real in the glow of light made into tiny crystal beams, fragmented by the crisscrossing of bare twig arms of dead trees. The gray ash covered the brown soil and mixed with it, became it. The trees stood, silent and desolate, no one to take their place. The earth was a forest, made of petrified bark and soiled ash and soft light. The scent of amber was strange and surreal, and it filled the air. Peace again. Then, hoof beats. Coming from the horizon, the place of the white flash. A black mare with flowing locks descended upon the landscape, and the falling leaves crackled afire when they touched her bare back. She shifted, and again they fell to the earth. But her eyes? Her eyes were silver gray, and they were stained with blood.

Ruby and sapphire separated and the icy blue gems hid for a second to process what the assassin had just seen in those bloodred depths. Light, fire and ash. It was destruction in all its beautiful creation, something that he itched to carve, just for a representation of that deadly beauty. He could see it already in his mind, a carving of black stone with two silver gray stones shining in the place of the black mare’s eyes. Those eyes without their stain of blood were Death’s eyes. If that was her past then why had Hades ever let her roam the earth? She was truly his daughter, the daughter of Death. Those burning blue eyes opened again and emotions raged through them like a wildfire of different toned blues and blacks.

“Tell me sometime, what you saw” her request was almost like a question, so soft and uncertain and hanging in the air as her face faltered but she did not look away, instead her ruby eyes met his sapphire gems for a moment. Then the beautiful mare walked past him, her steps heavy and dragging as if she had a great weight rested on her shoulders that she had to carry everywhere she went. A few steps and she stopped to look at him with a question posed in her crimson orbs, a question that this time he could answer easily. Do we leave? her rubies asked the question but he could see that there was something more she wanted ask that she held back and sealed behind her lips like it was forbidden so he did not question what it was she wanted to ask of him. If she was keeping it from him than she must have a reason.

In answer to her actual question he spun himself neatly on his quarters and started walking away from the trembling cliff edge that he had first set eyes on her in all of mysterious beauty, like a statue carved of onyx and set on the edge of a crumbling cliff for someone to ask themselves why she was there in a place that it was so easy to be destroyed. He had asked himself that question when he had first seen and now he felt that he understood a little more but still not enough to piece together the puzzle that was Neytiri, the daughter of Death. To do that he would have to stay with her for much longer even though he had no idea how long he had stood there on that shuddering cliff edge with her just talking and spilling all his secrets and lies and memories to her and in return finding pieces of her puzzle, just pieces though and not enough to finish the picture.

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Words; 3410
Notes; damn, I didn’t beat you. Oh well, I like this post and I hope its not to boring.