[ That’s the thing: He won’t desert Armand, his first friend in this place, and perhaps the only person who understands the depths of his loneliness still, for having fallen so low himself. The unique anguish of having faith turn to ash in one’s mouth, of faltering and becoming unworthy, and of a heartbreak that rips your bones from your body, nothing left to support your meagre flesh, collapse inevitable. He can’t tear his gaze away, not even to look back at the manor, where all that he holds dear remains. Already drowning, in the deep wells of Armand’s eyes.
Gale followed him into the bowels of the manor, so why not take to the water?
Because this isn’t Armand. Or perhaps it is, only every trait has been sharpened, refined to the point of grotesquerie. Beautiful hands encircling his wrists. Sharp teeth razored and multiplied. Voice, ever timeless and canorous, now a mesmeric timbre. The promise of dying peacefully (in his sleep, in the water, instead of in an explosion that splits him in two, searing his flesh from the inside out). The assurance that he needn’t go alone. That the yawning hunger and unerring pain will end —
It tempts him. Of course it does. It has for a long time now. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes. Protestations catch in his throat. Before he realises it, they’re treading water, his trousers sopping. Waist-deep, then, shirt sticking to skin. ]
Armand. [ an uncertain note, eyes pleasing (though he couldn’t say for what). ] I’m sorry I left you before.
[ Under the mistletoe and in the cellar. He ought to have stayed then, as Armand promises to do for him now. ]
I’m afraid I’m still — afraid.
[ His ultimate inadequacy, made obvious by his juvenile, repetitive phrasing. For all Gale thinks the world would better off without him, he fears the end. The dark. The nothing that will come after, Elysium lost to him when Mystra cast him out. ]
no subject
Gale followed him into the bowels of the manor, so why not take to the water?
Because this isn’t Armand. Or perhaps it is, only every trait has been sharpened, refined to the point of grotesquerie. Beautiful hands encircling his wrists. Sharp teeth razored and multiplied. Voice, ever timeless and canorous, now a mesmeric timbre. The promise of dying peacefully (in his sleep, in the water, instead of in an explosion that splits him in two, searing his flesh from the inside out). The assurance that he needn’t go alone. That the yawning hunger and unerring pain will end —
It tempts him. Of course it does. It has for a long time now. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes. Protestations catch in his throat. Before he realises it, they’re treading water, his trousers sopping. Waist-deep, then, shirt sticking to skin. ]
Armand. [ an uncertain note, eyes pleasing (though he couldn’t say for what). ] I’m sorry I left you before.
[ Under the mistletoe and in the cellar. He ought to have stayed then, as Armand promises to do for him now. ]
I’m afraid I’m still — afraid.
[ His ultimate inadequacy, made obvious by his juvenile, repetitive phrasing. For all Gale thinks the world would better off without him, he fears the end. The dark. The nothing that will come after, Elysium lost to him when Mystra cast him out. ]