Laceaga was never an artistic sort.
His childhood was a ragtag montage of training with his brother, strained breath, and collapsing — fatigued on his bed. He could likely count the number of times he even bothered to look at any artwork.
It was in Duliae's mansion, a small portrait haggled from some far traveller that sat on a wall dominated with larger, grandiose paintings. It only caught his eye because it was so little it looked insignificant relative to the rest. There were stairs and walls and stairs that were also walls and people living in their lives on the ceilings and the not-quite floors. Frankly, looking at it for too long gave him a headache and a half.
His employer called them 'gravity wells', where each humanoid figure would enjoy the pull of his own imaginary planet even if it meant living upside-down on the rooftop of another humanoid. When Laceaga scrunched up his nose and looked away, Duliae tried one last time to explain the lithograph to him.
"The artwork's a study of relativism and the individual's focus on himself despite it," he said.
"I still don't get it."
"No one 'gets it', dear Laceaga."
The blond turned to gaze at the same image and his usual faraway but calculating smile curled on his lips.
"It's an impossible space," Duliae explained.
//
His tongue was heavy with her name and Laceaga knelt to gaze at her lying down. A human he brought down to Gha'alia and subsequently fell for. He thought the blunt-eared were weak but maybe he was weaker to be fool enough to love her.
Two figures walk on the same stairs, in the same direction. One ascends, the other descends, this reciprocal doubling is a contradiction that makes opposites become synonymous.
A kidnapper and his victim fall in love.
Pathetic.
The bitter thought curls up like a wisp of smoke in his head. The smoke billows and grows until all he sees is that same muted grey the sea was when he brought her onto The Bastion. The same sea he was concerned she'd jump into, but all he thought about then was the cold pouches of coins.
He should've known better. Should've known better. Should've known anything is better than betting on happiness in an impossible place.
Not when he'd live for so long and she'd live for so short that her entire life was a blink of the eye in an elven lifespan.
Not when she was the tragic distortion he grew to love in an impossible space.
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MAKE THE DEVIL PRAY // Ebon Light
FanfictionA human woman unwittingly had ancient marrow in her tea (she thought it was spice). Elves take her captive, hoping to study the effects of their lost marrow (she will make the devil pray to god). // Assorted short-stories, one-shots, poems, and mem...
