Post by avianthanatic on Dec 26, 2015 6:25:17 GMT
A really upsetting sadstuck drabble about Eyirie Falken's accidental ascension. TW: blood, TW: suicide, please be careful and read at your discretion ~
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Eyirie Falken stood on her sacrificial slab and cried. Not loud, heaving sobs, or the silent kind that wracked her ribcage and burned her throat and convulsed her abdomen until it was sore to the touch. Both of these were familiar, but today they didn't come. Today there was just a stinging in her green-rimmed eyes and narrow rivulets of hot, salty tears cutting watermarked paths down her freckled cheeks. She was dimly aware of a searing sensation in her left hand as the lenses from her shattered eyeglasses cracked and cut into the flesh of her clenched fist--once her vision had become too blurry to see, she had yanked them off furiously as if that would somehow stop the world from swimming in front of her--but even this didn't draw her attention back into the moment that had swallowed her up so entirely.
She was angry, and more than that she was angry at herself for being angry, and every iteration of that vicious cycle twisted the knife of self-hatred further and further into her gut until she could practically feel the blade of it sticking out her back--
--if only it had been that easy. But she didn't have a knife, and couldn't have used one if she had. Just another instance of powerlessness in this stupid game that had somehow become her world. No, the only weapons available to her were her own two hands and a quiver of arrows that were useless without the bow that had been snapped in half several echeladder tiers ago. Which meant that the choice to die by her own hand was only half as difficult as the slow and ineffectual process that followed. She looked down at her arm and almost retched. The cuts were jagged and barely perceptible under caked layers of olive green, but still they flowed, painfully slow. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she stumbled forward, falling to her knees. She gritted her teeth and fought back against the sensation, hating that the response was so automatic. Her body was fighting to keep her alive, but her brain had been trying for years to get her killed. They were both stretched to their limits now trying to justify their own causes, and Eyirie was caught in the middle, blinking through tears to wait out her last few minutes in dizzying anguish.
She fell forward to her hands and knees, shaking her head slightly as her aspect symbol splayed out on the hard rock beneath her. Hope. She almost vomited again, but instead laughed bitterly, flecks of green coming up as she did so. The familiar bitter taste of anger rose hot and heavy on her tongue and the tears renewed their fervor. This whole thing was a joke. Some Hope player she had been. This game had somehow found a way to make her feel even more useless than she had before she'd entered, a fact she would never have thought possible, but there it was. She had one job in this crummy sideslipped universe--to bring hope to their team. She couldn't even find the willpower to wake up some days. How was she supposed to do anything for anybody else? They'd be better off without her. At least then they wouldn't have to tiptoe around her aspect when they made their grandiose plans. At least then she wouldn't have to fume silently when the jadeblood made a patronizing comment about "accommodating the strengths and weaknesses of all of our players." At least then Azzlay wouldn't look at her like she was a shadow of her former self--something she already knew, and resented, and would like very much never to think about again.
At least then she would never have to have another good day, and then feel the nothingness and the crippling doubt that felt worse every time it came afterwards, knowing those days got fewer and farther between each time they came back around. At least she'd never have to wonder again when she'd finally act on the awful, terrible, horrible idea gnawing at the back of her head. Because she already had.
Her arms trembled beneath her, and the force of effort caused her heart to pump even faster, and with it the blood to flow more quickly from the gashes she'd inflicted. She gasped as her muscles gave out entirely and she crumpled weakly onto the slab, her vision blurring even further into shades of grey and teary uncertainty.
It suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know why she'd chosen this spot to die. Rydell had mentioned the existence of these game constructs to her seemingly in passing, musing as he often did in his smirky, knowing sort of way that the name "sacrificial slab" implied a rather ominous higher purpose. She wondered, as her breathing became shallower and her eyelids fluttered shut, if there was any higher purpose to any of this. If sacrificing herself could possibly help her sessionmates in any way aside from cutting dead weight from their mission. Maybe it would unlock some game element or disable the Black King or help someone complete their denizen quest. It might be nice to have it all mean something, she thought. But she thought it much more likely that it didn't. It was almost entirely certain her death meant nothing at all.
----
Eyirie Falken stood on her sacrificial slab and cried. Not loud, heaving sobs, or the silent kind that wracked her ribcage and burned her throat and convulsed her abdomen until it was sore to the touch. Both of these were familiar, but today they didn't come. Today there was just a stinging in her green-rimmed eyes and narrow rivulets of hot, salty tears cutting watermarked paths down her freckled cheeks. She was dimly aware of a searing sensation in her left hand as the lenses from her shattered eyeglasses cracked and cut into the flesh of her clenched fist--once her vision had become too blurry to see, she had yanked them off furiously as if that would somehow stop the world from swimming in front of her--but even this didn't draw her attention back into the moment that had swallowed her up so entirely.
She was angry, and more than that she was angry at herself for being angry, and every iteration of that vicious cycle twisted the knife of self-hatred further and further into her gut until she could practically feel the blade of it sticking out her back--
--if only it had been that easy. But she didn't have a knife, and couldn't have used one if she had. Just another instance of powerlessness in this stupid game that had somehow become her world. No, the only weapons available to her were her own two hands and a quiver of arrows that were useless without the bow that had been snapped in half several echeladder tiers ago. Which meant that the choice to die by her own hand was only half as difficult as the slow and ineffectual process that followed. She looked down at her arm and almost retched. The cuts were jagged and barely perceptible under caked layers of olive green, but still they flowed, painfully slow. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she stumbled forward, falling to her knees. She gritted her teeth and fought back against the sensation, hating that the response was so automatic. Her body was fighting to keep her alive, but her brain had been trying for years to get her killed. They were both stretched to their limits now trying to justify their own causes, and Eyirie was caught in the middle, blinking through tears to wait out her last few minutes in dizzying anguish.
She fell forward to her hands and knees, shaking her head slightly as her aspect symbol splayed out on the hard rock beneath her. Hope. She almost vomited again, but instead laughed bitterly, flecks of green coming up as she did so. The familiar bitter taste of anger rose hot and heavy on her tongue and the tears renewed their fervor. This whole thing was a joke. Some Hope player she had been. This game had somehow found a way to make her feel even more useless than she had before she'd entered, a fact she would never have thought possible, but there it was. She had one job in this crummy sideslipped universe--to bring hope to their team. She couldn't even find the willpower to wake up some days. How was she supposed to do anything for anybody else? They'd be better off without her. At least then they wouldn't have to tiptoe around her aspect when they made their grandiose plans. At least then she wouldn't have to fume silently when the jadeblood made a patronizing comment about "accommodating the strengths and weaknesses of all of our players." At least then Azzlay wouldn't look at her like she was a shadow of her former self--something she already knew, and resented, and would like very much never to think about again.
At least then she would never have to have another good day, and then feel the nothingness and the crippling doubt that felt worse every time it came afterwards, knowing those days got fewer and farther between each time they came back around. At least she'd never have to wonder again when she'd finally act on the awful, terrible, horrible idea gnawing at the back of her head. Because she already had.
Her arms trembled beneath her, and the force of effort caused her heart to pump even faster, and with it the blood to flow more quickly from the gashes she'd inflicted. She gasped as her muscles gave out entirely and she crumpled weakly onto the slab, her vision blurring even further into shades of grey and teary uncertainty.
It suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know why she'd chosen this spot to die. Rydell had mentioned the existence of these game constructs to her seemingly in passing, musing as he often did in his smirky, knowing sort of way that the name "sacrificial slab" implied a rather ominous higher purpose. She wondered, as her breathing became shallower and her eyelids fluttered shut, if there was any higher purpose to any of this. If sacrificing herself could possibly help her sessionmates in any way aside from cutting dead weight from their mission. Maybe it would unlock some game element or disable the Black King or help someone complete their denizen quest. It might be nice to have it all mean something, she thought. But she thought it much more likely that it didn't. It was almost entirely certain her death meant nothing at all.