𝐏𝐒𝐘𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐀 | coming soon.

PROLOGUE.

everything, everything comes, all at once; but nothing ever goes. it stays forever, watches life shine and burn out like stars, waits for the next blossom of generations. there is no reason why we should be afraid of loss, or the loneliness that comes with it.

should we be afraid of the fire? the things that burn brightest under a full moon, things that spill daylight into the crevices of a midnight sky. you could be afraid of love and the wounds it leaves behind, how it leaves your skin to flake and wither to dried summer petals. you could be afraid of the flames of desire, passion, obsession; the addiction that drags you endlessly through the abyss until there is no way out, and you forget how to scream for help because you find a paradoxical pleasure in the danger that has befallen you. the contradiction in your question hits you, and you begin to ponder exactly why one would be scared of something that could grant them a sliver of happiness in a world where such an emotion is so rare it is a myth. because the fire burns nothing but you, and even as it dies, you could really just revive it with a pop of oxygen.

should we be afraid of the gods and monsters? whispers of the loved and the dead, and the undead: feelings that once crumbled to ashes coming back to haunt you. and perhaps you should be afraid, because there are only two kinds of feelings that grow a pair of hands to crawl out of their graves: the worst, where everybody cries a little and dies a little, someone's neck ends up on a noose, whether by suicide or conviction, and everyone suffers together like a mystical misery party. the best, an even more terrifying breed where time stops for no one knows how long, you're trapped in a lost memory and forced to live the rest of your days there. you are vulnerable, you are made of skin and bones and a heart prone to a bloody big bang, but what scares you is that you are not scared at all. those memories were happy ones, the ones that made you laugh and sing and wish that you were a part of that same tiny universe once more. and the desire to live it all over again, and again, and again, is the mouth of a weeping whale - and you sit on their tongue, still and unmoving, like a prince made of lotus petals and spring water. you miss it.

but why should you be scared? you have lived it all before. now you just have to do it all over again. you, an iron-blooded fae, one who wears their heart under a rusting blade; will be reborn, perhaps a second time, maybe a third, each time reaching higher into the heathens. the clouds will soon numb your body, and your nerves, and your mind once your body sublimes to nebulas. the pain won't bother you anymore, and it will be absolutely wonderful.

and even if you don't live it a second time, it doesn't matter; the feelings, the fire, everything will still be there, tailing your shadow and your footsteps. they stay for good, and even as it subsides, even as the sea releases its embrace on the shore, the dead are always asleep. not dead. asleep.

they lie. everything comes at once, but nothing ever goes. because everything stays.