Post by Daniel MacNamara on Jul 22, 2020 19:32:52 GMT -5
“Sometimes, the only thing we have left when we hit rock bottom is solace in the fact that our bodies bounced a little higher off the bedrock when we slammed into it.”
Those were the first words he’d spoken aloud in a day or so, his cigarette and whiskey cured voice rasping outwards into the ether as he sat alone upon that mossy boulder like it was a throne, like he belonged there. The flame haired boy that sat on a throne wrought from mossy stone in the middle of a forest, the red headed child that carried a crown that was more like a crutch than an adornment at this point. His father’s sword was embedded into the soil in front of him, the steel jutted from the soft soil of the earth unmolested while the hilt of the weapon remained loosely in Daniel’s hand like a forlorn scepter.
He was The Wayward Prince after all, was he not? Crowned by no one, poised to rule nothing. It was poetry, he supposed. Sword in one hand, crown loosely kept in the other. Oh, what a wretched sight that he supposed he was, not that he cared anymore. He’d hit the very bottom of his career in just a few days he supposed. There was no gold around his waist, no flag to fly, no purpose to carry the burden of. What he was now, in that moment, was someone with nothing in particular to lose. Of course, everyone thought that they had nothing to lose until they were shown just how wrong that they were, didn’t they? Danny was amused by his own bullshit, he always was, and this time was no different.
Or maybe it was, who knew. The boy carried himself differently, lately, that was for certain.
“We’ve all been there though, haven’t we? For some of us, it doesn’t matter because there was no bounce. There was no crunch of bone or ripping of sinew from the impact because it was a short fall. For some of us, those falls were career ending, they were the end of us. Most won’t ever get it, because they never reached close to the top. The Summit of the mountain doesn’t have enough oxygen for everyone to survive it, much less thrive there, it’s why so many die when they reach it, because they were never equipped to handle an environment that by its very treacherous nature wanted them dead.”
The crown was sat down in his lap, the sword hilt released. He swept his legs upward to prop them upward on a higher area of the rock as he shifted to sit sideways, tugging his pack of Seven Stars from his jacket pocket.
“You’ve fallen from high places, Kaelan. You’ve come crashing down in flaming fucking glory. Each time, you bounced a little higher than the last, and each time you lost a bit more of yourself with each smack into the bedrock. You’ve lost things a person shouldn’t bear to have lost, but you’ve also gotten up each and every time. It’s a marvel, watching how you crawl to your feet each time, eager to do it all again. Is it being a slave to consistency, an innate need to punish yourself, or is it some form of horrible willpower that just can’t be broken? I don’t know, Kaelan. With it, it seems like it can be anything. You refuse to die.”
Those shoulders lifted, and then they dropped all the same in a shrug before he plugged his mouth with the filtered end of that unlit cigarette before igniting the tip with his butane lighter, inhaling deep to make that cherry pop against the dying of the light in the sky.
“I have that same, annoying, quality or so I’ve been told. The refusal to die. It’s why we keep surviving the fall from the summit. It’s why, I suppose, that we’ve found eachother here, because Union Battlegrounds hasn’t found someone else that can put us away permanently. God’s blood, they want to put me away permanently, especially after I embarrassed them. Embarrassed them by doing something that you said I’d never do, do you remember that?”
Daniel’s lips turned into that tight, grim, line of a forced smile as he sucked down a lungful of cancer and inhaled it deep before releasing it from his nostrils in gray plumes.
“You told me I couldn’t beat the Union Battlegrounds champion in the battle between NVR and Battlegrounds simply because the 4CW Representative had failed to do so. If they couldn’t, how could I? I did it, though. Of course, I did. Kismet, Fate, Karma, or perhaps it was just the prior planning laid out before my victory. Call it what you want, but I snatched victory where everyone said I couldn’t. You underestimated me then, even if that victory tasted like ashes in my mouth. Even if NVR didn’t care about my sacrifices to take that win. They certainly didn’t celebrate it, did they? I’d gone too far, I was the bad guy, and they couldn’t accept that. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe you were right, Kaelan. Maybe you saw the fall coming before I did.”
Gnarled, twisted, fingers lifted the crown up from his lap, running his thumbs idly across the details of the adornment, tracing them out.
“I was awarded this, you know. Something earned by beating the rest of the costumed princes. By tearing through them. They weren’t easy to beat. Each man was a warrior unto themselves. After all, anyone who says a former DTW World Champion can be overcome easily isn’t someone who’s ever had to face one. You know that intimately, of course. Still, I came out of that fight the final victor, the one who was crowned. Maybe there’s more to this than just gold. Maybe it is my rite of conquest, Kaelan. The Wayward Prince was a title I wrapped myself up in as a joke, but it seems to be sticking. Another strange coincidence we’ve found ourselves in. The Warrior Prin-- Well, you’re styling yourself as Queen now, aren’t you? The Warrior Queen, The Wayward Prince. We’re both insufferable, we both refuse to die, and the world very clearly has no need or want for us, but we both find ourselves unable to let go. To walk away.”
Snort. He finally lifted the crown and let it slip down to his forehead, the red of his hair swaying just above the gold. For a moment, Danny looked like more than he was, especially as he slid his feet from the stone and planted the heels of his boots into the ground. Sword still planted in the ground in front of him as he looked ahead almost forlornly with those blue eyes.
“The Wayward Prince against The Warrior Queen. Irish, trying to kill Irish. It’s a fantastic little tale that they’d weave, isn’t it? Serving us to the masses to do our best to kill eachother so the plebians can slake their bloodlust off of what’s left of us at the end of it all. That’s our story though, isn’t it? To entertain and bleed, because we’ve never been good at anything else, because we’re incapable of living out a life of peace.”
He flicked on the ashes on the ground, but he never looked away.
“I used to say that this wasn’t me. I tried to deny what I was. I tried to deny who I was, but the more I grasped for the light, and the more I gasped for clean air, I realized that the parts of me that I tried to deny, are the parts of me that kept me alive. They’re what made me stand after my fall, they’re what drove me to get up, to fight again. I don’t know what drives you, Kaelan, but I have a feeling that I’m going to find out soon. We’ve both been to the summit, we both came crashing down from there, and now it’s time we climb back to the top. The only question I have is who’s going to use who’s bones to carve their way back up that mountain. I don’t intend to have my guts used as rigging line, so I’m afraid that I’m going to have to use yours.”
Breathe. Out came the smoke. His eyes still staring ahead.
“Up the mountain we go.”
Those were the first words he’d spoken aloud in a day or so, his cigarette and whiskey cured voice rasping outwards into the ether as he sat alone upon that mossy boulder like it was a throne, like he belonged there. The flame haired boy that sat on a throne wrought from mossy stone in the middle of a forest, the red headed child that carried a crown that was more like a crutch than an adornment at this point. His father’s sword was embedded into the soil in front of him, the steel jutted from the soft soil of the earth unmolested while the hilt of the weapon remained loosely in Daniel’s hand like a forlorn scepter.
He was The Wayward Prince after all, was he not? Crowned by no one, poised to rule nothing. It was poetry, he supposed. Sword in one hand, crown loosely kept in the other. Oh, what a wretched sight that he supposed he was, not that he cared anymore. He’d hit the very bottom of his career in just a few days he supposed. There was no gold around his waist, no flag to fly, no purpose to carry the burden of. What he was now, in that moment, was someone with nothing in particular to lose. Of course, everyone thought that they had nothing to lose until they were shown just how wrong that they were, didn’t they? Danny was amused by his own bullshit, he always was, and this time was no different.
Or maybe it was, who knew. The boy carried himself differently, lately, that was for certain.
“We’ve all been there though, haven’t we? For some of us, it doesn’t matter because there was no bounce. There was no crunch of bone or ripping of sinew from the impact because it was a short fall. For some of us, those falls were career ending, they were the end of us. Most won’t ever get it, because they never reached close to the top. The Summit of the mountain doesn’t have enough oxygen for everyone to survive it, much less thrive there, it’s why so many die when they reach it, because they were never equipped to handle an environment that by its very treacherous nature wanted them dead.”
The crown was sat down in his lap, the sword hilt released. He swept his legs upward to prop them upward on a higher area of the rock as he shifted to sit sideways, tugging his pack of Seven Stars from his jacket pocket.
“You’ve fallen from high places, Kaelan. You’ve come crashing down in flaming fucking glory. Each time, you bounced a little higher than the last, and each time you lost a bit more of yourself with each smack into the bedrock. You’ve lost things a person shouldn’t bear to have lost, but you’ve also gotten up each and every time. It’s a marvel, watching how you crawl to your feet each time, eager to do it all again. Is it being a slave to consistency, an innate need to punish yourself, or is it some form of horrible willpower that just can’t be broken? I don’t know, Kaelan. With it, it seems like it can be anything. You refuse to die.”
Those shoulders lifted, and then they dropped all the same in a shrug before he plugged his mouth with the filtered end of that unlit cigarette before igniting the tip with his butane lighter, inhaling deep to make that cherry pop against the dying of the light in the sky.
“I have that same, annoying, quality or so I’ve been told. The refusal to die. It’s why we keep surviving the fall from the summit. It’s why, I suppose, that we’ve found eachother here, because Union Battlegrounds hasn’t found someone else that can put us away permanently. God’s blood, they want to put me away permanently, especially after I embarrassed them. Embarrassed them by doing something that you said I’d never do, do you remember that?”
Daniel’s lips turned into that tight, grim, line of a forced smile as he sucked down a lungful of cancer and inhaled it deep before releasing it from his nostrils in gray plumes.
“You told me I couldn’t beat the Union Battlegrounds champion in the battle between NVR and Battlegrounds simply because the 4CW Representative had failed to do so. If they couldn’t, how could I? I did it, though. Of course, I did. Kismet, Fate, Karma, or perhaps it was just the prior planning laid out before my victory. Call it what you want, but I snatched victory where everyone said I couldn’t. You underestimated me then, even if that victory tasted like ashes in my mouth. Even if NVR didn’t care about my sacrifices to take that win. They certainly didn’t celebrate it, did they? I’d gone too far, I was the bad guy, and they couldn’t accept that. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe you were right, Kaelan. Maybe you saw the fall coming before I did.”
Gnarled, twisted, fingers lifted the crown up from his lap, running his thumbs idly across the details of the adornment, tracing them out.
“I was awarded this, you know. Something earned by beating the rest of the costumed princes. By tearing through them. They weren’t easy to beat. Each man was a warrior unto themselves. After all, anyone who says a former DTW World Champion can be overcome easily isn’t someone who’s ever had to face one. You know that intimately, of course. Still, I came out of that fight the final victor, the one who was crowned. Maybe there’s more to this than just gold. Maybe it is my rite of conquest, Kaelan. The Wayward Prince was a title I wrapped myself up in as a joke, but it seems to be sticking. Another strange coincidence we’ve found ourselves in. The Warrior Prin-- Well, you’re styling yourself as Queen now, aren’t you? The Warrior Queen, The Wayward Prince. We’re both insufferable, we both refuse to die, and the world very clearly has no need or want for us, but we both find ourselves unable to let go. To walk away.”
Snort. He finally lifted the crown and let it slip down to his forehead, the red of his hair swaying just above the gold. For a moment, Danny looked like more than he was, especially as he slid his feet from the stone and planted the heels of his boots into the ground. Sword still planted in the ground in front of him as he looked ahead almost forlornly with those blue eyes.
“The Wayward Prince against The Warrior Queen. Irish, trying to kill Irish. It’s a fantastic little tale that they’d weave, isn’t it? Serving us to the masses to do our best to kill eachother so the plebians can slake their bloodlust off of what’s left of us at the end of it all. That’s our story though, isn’t it? To entertain and bleed, because we’ve never been good at anything else, because we’re incapable of living out a life of peace.”
He flicked on the ashes on the ground, but he never looked away.
“I used to say that this wasn’t me. I tried to deny what I was. I tried to deny who I was, but the more I grasped for the light, and the more I gasped for clean air, I realized that the parts of me that I tried to deny, are the parts of me that kept me alive. They’re what made me stand after my fall, they’re what drove me to get up, to fight again. I don’t know what drives you, Kaelan, but I have a feeling that I’m going to find out soon. We’ve both been to the summit, we both came crashing down from there, and now it’s time we climb back to the top. The only question I have is who’s going to use who’s bones to carve their way back up that mountain. I don’t intend to have my guts used as rigging line, so I’m afraid that I’m going to have to use yours.”
Breathe. Out came the smoke. His eyes still staring ahead.
“Up the mountain we go.”