Catalyst - 2021

ch.1 - the shade spot

Gaps plague their memories. They always are popping up; for example they just start walking this afternoon and just don't remember how they got here, but they find the shady spot relaxing. 

They don't remember a lot of things, but they always remember the faces. The faces always looked terrified, they wondered if those poor people saw Dark Goddess in them as they looked at their hands lightly touching them

Hycein imagines their death is painless but they don't know for sure. They have long grown deaf to the sounds they make as they touch them, though they think some scream. Grown deaf to the shouts of his Royal Highness as he barks orders at the other men standing around, although sometimes he is silently watching with joy in his ice blue eyes. Deaf as they slip back on the black leather gloves, deaf to all but the next command from his Highness, the Crown Prince Ordell.

The breeze tousled the leaves and so the sun interrupted the shade; he may have given Hycein the afternoon off but that didn't mean they were to rest apparently. Propped up on elbows, the young knight surveyed where they ended up; it's a nice willow tree, well manicured so probably they were laying in a nobleman's garden or estate. Laying back down felt like a weight had been lifted. The willow shielded the rest of the world away, even the sunlight barely got through its thick spring foliage. 

Pulling some of the tall grass out, they took off their gloves. The blades were stiff and springy. Full of life and bend. They were cool to the touch on inky black fingers. The grasses were feather light against their tanned and weathered skin until they crumbled into dust with the wind. Life drained from them, withered and dry, ashes of themselves. 

They said the king years ago wished for golden fingers so everything he touched turned to gold and from then people were born with magic in their fingers. Colored for their affinity and spiraling up their forearms like plumes of smoke or vines of ivy. They say no greater gift than that of a colored palm of an infant, knowing they would one day do great things. Hycein wouldn't know what their father would say about their 'gift', he was the first to die by their ink black hands. 

Turning over didn't help, sleep wasn't coming. It was hard to sleep, faces were always there. They never let them forget, they never let them rest. Don't they know how sorry Hycein was? That it wasn't their choice? They never wanted to be the Knight Odollam, they didn't want to be the black hand of the prince. 

Frustrated Hycein turned to the ground. The Earth took the beating they gave it. It took it silently and without any fuss. It didn't fight back but in the end, it stayed the same and it was Hycein that lost, collapsing from exhaustion. Forgiveness was forced by the loved ones of the deceased and never genuine. Redemption was out of the question for the likes of them and sleep never comes easy to the murderer. Exhaustion though, exhaustion will always lead to sleep; and sleep brings their own death one day closer. 

One day closer until they don't have to follow orders; until they don't have to kill at the bequest of someone else. One day closer until they can kneel before the Dark Goddess with her starry night robe and asked why she cursed me with her ink black hands. 

Succumbing to exhaustion, Hycein, take their rest, uneasy as it may be, under the protection of the willow tree. They had no fears of attacks for who would dare sneak up, wake, or even bother the one who brings death with just a touch?