i. You are not a real boy. You are a collection of solid shadow and dust from the members of your ilk, from the friends that you outlived. You are built up on ancient, archaic bones and whispered indications of a powerful and glorious burden. You are young blood's flesh in a body that will live to see the dawn of 3009. They want to call you Eryk. They want to call you berserker, Eryk.
ii. The Northerners want your glorious burden to be their deadly solace. You can be all that you can be if you lose yourself within this godforsaken bloodsport. This is now you're war, Eryk! I'm not even from here. But, Annika is of the North and she just wants to hold your hand and eat you alive. Follow me to the pond just up the creek, Eryk. Let me bury you beneath the River Styx, Eryk.
iii. You are not their warrior. You proved that when you struck down two of their kind. Now you just have to give them a story, something they want to hear. Tell them it was the village. Tell them it was the witch-hunting humans that murdered a son and a daughter of the North. Not you, Eryk. You would never. And it's not true that in the depths of her demise, she asked you to help her. Save me, Eryk. That's not my name. It never was.
---
And I suppose I don't even really know you, but I was only able to write this after reciting the whole of "Et tu, Brute?" thrice over. So, thanks, camerado
YOU ARE READING
the age old story of, "how did you come to be so evil?"
PoetryIosef. Anton. Stasik. Kirill. Arkady in the South. Eryk in the North. The Darkling forever.
