Ashton Irwin Imagines

BGM - Beauty Is Strength (FIOAMA 2)

Parte dos

Ashton:
You paused, crown only a hair's length from your scalp. It was a different voice, not like the one you heard before, coming from somewhere behind you.

You raised the crown, and the figure on the throne disappeared into a bright beam of light. From there it expanded outward, eating away at the iron throne and the stone walls. It burned away your embroidered dress, leaving you again in a nightgown staring into nothing.

Then there was a different eye, like the last in size and depth but this one was a different color. Hazel, reminding you of wild honey, slowly flowing down the side of a tree from a busy hive. Perhaps this man was a brother to the last?

"Who needs power when you can have beauty? Join me and watch as all fall to your feet in awe."

You felt yourself begin to absorb the bright light, pulling it into yourself until even the beautiful eye was gone. It was dark outside, but internally you could feel the waves of light ripping and moving within you, soft like silk and warm like a happy memory.

"Beauty comes from within."

A pinprick of light right over your heart, a determined and strong glow that began to expand across your skin. It traveled down, across your chest to your stomach, then up to your shoulders and neck. Everywhere the light touched you could feel the change, you were growing taller, your skin was smoother and more healthy. All over you could feel more physical strength as your muscles became more toned, and even your teeth adjusted in your mouth as your smile grew luminous. Your hair grew longer and healthier and your body seemed to no longer have any physical imperfections, no scars or wrinkles or bags under your eyes, just smooth youthful skin.

Then the light extended from your fingertips in thin, concentrated threads and began to surround you, weaving and knitting together a dress of liquid gold. It dripped and wove and moved all on its own, soft as a meadow breeze and fiery as the sun's rays. Your toes lifted from the ground and you found yourself hovering, floating just above the solid black, it rejected your radiance as oil does water.

"Look before you, look at how they fall to their knees and weep," the voice's low dulcet tones summoned a vision of you before a crowd. Your toes just brushing cobblestone as the people around you fell before you, weeping and reaching out to touch the hem of your golden gown. They couldn't look into your face, it seemed to cause them pain, but one of the pleasant sort that only made them want to look more. They crawled forward on hands and knees, trails of tears as they packed in as close to your feet as they could and pressed their foreheads to the ground in reverence. You looked down at their trembling heads and straining backs and then back up to see that the crowd disappeared with the horizon. None stood before you, they all fell to their knees.

"Beauty," the voice repeated, "is strength."

And at your side you could feel something shifting, the wind pulling itself in, the sunlight bending slightly as if something, someone was trying to appear. You never saw more than a momentary golden hand, as bright as the sun itself, before the third appeared.

"Beauty fades while wisdom persists," he spoke and banished the golden hand. You looked back but the crowd was gone, the voice seemed to make the people hollow, fragile things that cracked and crumbled into a dust carried away by the wind.

"Join me and find that strength lies in the power of the mind, not the body." This time the words stripped you of your glow, of your gown, leaving you plain and in your nightdress again, standing in the void where these beings seemed to live.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and voting!