[prompt] you were a child who was made of glass you carried a black heart passed down

[apostatised]

It's an old story.

An old tale that Martel wants no part of; the archetype of the fallen at peace only in death, at least, remains at peace. The tragic villains of legend don't have to face irrefutable proof that truly, truthfully, after their passing the world does go on, perhaps a little better than it was before. Names out of stories don't swear at having to budget for a household they never anticipated having. Figures out of history don't think about consecrations and weddings and the possibility of fatherhood, of finding again the faith they'd convinced a world and themselves they didn't want, didn't need, didn't have.

They're unhelpful bastards, that lot.

Redemption isn't what Martel wants. It is not something he can have; therefore, he does not want it. Life would be more annoying than it already is if he went about wanting things he can't have - because there are no things like that, only things he didn't want enough. (His own logic twists knots inside him and he's lived this way for so long now that he hardly recognizes what he left behind in himself, that he forgets simply by not wholly comprehending what it is he's striving for.) What he wants is to find a waypoint between the man he became and the man he could've become, in another life.

The life he lived is over. There are no second chances there; what there could've been he'd spurned, and the end of it was the best he could have hoped for. Better than he'd thought to hope for. It was, though, an end and for reasons he doesn't pretend to understand (we are cursed and he couldn't tell her no) he is not over. He's memories in one world and rumors in another, but he isn't over.

The runner from Koleika's clan is shown up to his study by Afangor, with a message for Martel and a mildly perturbed look for the seemingly glass torches lighting Martel's work.

Nothing is ever really over.


prompt: when a woman loves a man excerpt [3:3]
word count: 338