He is returning - to the beginning, it seems.
It is within the soul of his pain that he finds solace. A home - once his own, he believes - remains settled in a place he has once vowed to never return to, but it seems as if his capabilities of keeping any such promise are close to none. He cannot help but ask the lingering question: is it right to call such a place, the core of his own agony, home? From the ashes of his past, Kylar rose, shaping a new life in which memories of a life before stay forever hidden within the shadows.
This is where he began; this is his home.
A whisper of a spirit - or, perhaps, simply the words of his inner conscious - brings his eyes to a close and his vision to darkness. Murmurs entangle themselves within his mind. Shallow breathing turns rough, jagged; it catches in his throat, once, before it ceases completely. The voices continue, harsher.
You left them...
Do you expect them to remember you?
Do you think they'll welcome you with joy and pride?
He doesn't - no, he knows they view him as a deserter.
Because he left in fear of what he had become. The clan, perhaps, may not be watching, but he is; he is always watching. And he knows. He knows there is suffering and pain. He sees the agony, but he sees something else too; he sees the unity and the single family. Beyond the misery, he sees the wholeness that prevails.
The darkness lifts as his vision clears, his eyes opening; the light caresses his face, his eyes searching. His sight falls upon his forearms, and he pushes a grimace away as his eyes follow the trails of delicate scars, the rigid lines that taint the pale white of his skin. Kylar remembers digging the knife deep, and his fingers trace the wound in the same motion as had the blade; it is a punishment he once drew upon himself. He is deserving, he knows, because of his actions of the past, and for that same reason he remains tough and does not let the guilt drown him within its deep waters. He was weak before, but not now.
Now, he is strong.
The scars have aged over the course of three years, but they serve as any reminder would. The pain roars within his ears as if it was the fire that had licked his throat dry when the agony had swept over him. The memory of his own screams as the blade caught inside of a vein is vivid within his mind, and the sound rings out, clear. His ears cannot forget, but they must.
To remain strong, he must forget it all.
Blood runs thicker, deeper. It shifts, darker, and then it runs cold. The morning light seeps through the seams of his heart, seeking freedom within the frozen crimson of its tissue. An opposition to the blood moon of the past night, the rising sun is golden as if molton joy. The magical trance its beauty commands him to is gentle, but it hurts; he is hurting under the light's touch.
His eyes return to his companion, the one he has so recently turned. Dark hair billows in the wind, soft and seemingly fragile; he is reminded of his forearms. Eyes, dark and glazed over with a newfound hunger, remain still; he is reminded of his blackened aura. Pale skin, deathly in color, inhales fragmented breaths; he is reminded of his soul. Lips, thin and lost of luscious color, barely part; he is reminded of a heart, his own, that cannot persist survival by itself. Hope, frail without faith, is disappearing from the man's spirit; he is reminded of his own spirit, lost of its vibrant colors that once gave it character.
He looks only into a mirror, to see his own broken state, to be reminded of himself.
Kylar cannot look away, for his sight catches the flawed threads of his fractured face. The imperfections are evident, glaringly obvious, and a frown forms to intensify the shortcoming of beauty. The truth, he knows, is that he is gone; he has been gone for too long. He cannot forget, so he must embrace the past until it is not pain, but a cure to his pain. He must let his past become more than the core of agony; he must let it become the center of his most joyful memories. It is a must, and perhaps, this necessity is what drives him forward.
