A Cracked Frame

[ShiroKirishiki]

---

My claws are shaking, for once. Usually, they itch.

Remaking someone usually quiets them, placates them for a time.

They never really shake, though. At least, not often.

They haven’t shaken this much since I confronted my sister,

or avenged my brother.

-

But they’re shaking again. Trembling almost.

Because he bled beautifully.

-

I fought him wearing Vult, wearing The Veil... With Veinrend.

I was wrapped in Her warmth as I danced with him—when I remade him, just a little bit.

Even when he yelled at me, even when he said I disgraced martial arts,

I didn’t shake with doubt like I thought I would—it was restraint.

Stopping from killing, instead just altering the shape just enough to make a mark. To send a message.

I made sure he could stand, that he would live.

-

I don’t know if it’s weakness, or intention.
I’ve never been able to tell.
Even as the ink sang—even as Vein and the Veil sang—I was wondering that…
wondering if what I was doing wasn’t right.

-

I’d never had such wonderful clay to work with.
His fury, the pain of betrayal, the hope that I would wake up if he screamed loudly enough…
It was like a symphony of truth I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Wasting such potential is a tragedy, so I made sure to take my time.
I want to find something like that again. I have to.

-

I will have more in the future.

The world knows the truth of Viritas now.

The song of ruin was sung, the land now blanketed in ashes.

Another song comes, the beating drums of war.

As it should be. As it was always going to be.

Meranthe, the land of hypocrites, now sings the song of our ruin.

It’s dissonant, a foul and disgusting thing.

False certainty, parroting the same verse over and over and over again.

-

It’s disappointing, really, but I must be grateful to them.

Even if they know not of what our purpose is, our truth,

they still will bring me test subjects to experiment with
and canvases to paint upon.

How strange, that one can offer gifts without even knowing it.

-

So be it.

-

I’ll carve their flesh into truth, and speak when silence is no longer is needed.

-

What I create will be so beautiful that even this world’s misguided hatred cannot unmake it.

-

If that makes me a monster, then so be it. I’ve long since known that.

-

Let them come with flames.

-

Let them come with judgement.

-

Let them come…and let them see.

-

The next act is long overdue.

-

And I cannot wait.

[ShiroKirishiki]

---

I have no words. They have failed me.

When I ascended those steps to a familiar field, the one where I made a fox bleed, my fate was sealed.
She did not wish to understand me. She wished to erase me, to remove me from the canvas.

-

She didn’t do it out of hatred. She didn’t do it out of anger.

She did it in mourning. She did it in remembrance.

-

She did it to bury the little girl that sniffed around the forests looking for trouble.

She did it to bury the child she failed to raise.

She did it to grieve.

-

"Yaeka is dead. Don’t use her voice anymore."

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Oh, Mydaea… Is this Your will as well?

-

To teach me something so beautiful, to make the pain sing better than any voice could? To carve it into my soul, and show me the truth that I had hidden from all along?

-

I’ve been called a monster. They’ve called us witches. Enemies.

But she—the one that looked at my twisted eyes and smiled—called me dead.

'But I'm alive...right?'

And maybe, just maybe, she was right.

I left part of myself in that ruined factory,

Next to the corpse of the half-angel that I laid low.

A piece of my soul, a piece of my past.

The part of me that kept it all from unravelling.

-

The part of me that Her Grace replaced.

-

Then….

Why do I still grieve?

Why do I still mourn?

Why does this pain still echo in every brushstroke I make?

-

Why do I feel so hollow?

'Does the answer really matter?'

If I am dead… Then I will haunt.

The silence I was given will be my final composition.

I won’t vanish.

I will echo.

---

Oh, Mydaea… Hear my prayer.

Let me disappear with grace.

Let whatever remains be worthy of witnessing.

Let the silence I carry mean more than the voice I lost.

-

Give this failure form. Make it become poetry.

If I cannot be heard, then let me be seen.

Felt instead of forgotten.

-

One day… I will find a way to speak again.

Not with words… but with silence that will leave the world breathless.

-

Oh, Mydaea…

I pray You will smile when You see it.

[ShiroKirishiki]

---

Shadows cast by candlelight stir.

Whispers adorn the air where silence once deafened,

the world within and without began to blur.

-

A black fox, accursed and maddened,

mutters prayers and etches her truth onto page

so that it might endure.

---

They bled correctly, but for the wrong purpose.
It nearly breaks my heart to see them come so close, only to miss the truth entirely.
I can feel it; Meranthe has the potential to be great.
They are like uncut marble, but they fear the chisel.
They think rigidity begets righteousness.

-

The girl, Sophie was her name, said something so wise for a girl her age:

‘The only truth in the world is change.’

-

For one living within Meranthe’s blinded masses, there is a glimmer of something there.
A potential for true meaning.

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Death. Life.

Light. Dark.

Everything in between.

-

There are many constants, but there is only one truth:
Beauty.

-

It transcends it all, admired and considered ‘right’ no matter what it does.
Even those that cry out against it cannot help but give pause if they only look at it for what it is.

-

Yet, I am painted the villain for making them beautiful.

They cannot see past the blood when I cut away the rot.

That ignorance, that blindness, will be the death of them.

Even the light of dawn stings the eye if looked at directly.

Why can’t they understand? Surely they do.

-

They who stand against titans and monsters, who bleed so wonderfully for their perceived truths, surely understand that pain comes before perfection.

-

…right?

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Perhaps one, at least, would understand.
The girl that stood against Aisenliche, who attacked me, despite the fact she knew it was futile.
Even if she is misguided, even if she is so close to understanding yet deaf to the faintest whispers…There is potential.

-

So I gave Alma a mark that whispers.
It will follow her like her own shadow.

-

I pray it opens her eyes.

I pray it opens her ears.

I pray it lets Her see.

-

The ground was stained in their truth.
I bled with them that night.
It mixed and painted the canvas perfectly.
Three flowers borne of their dances.
Each sung the same song, but in different tunes.
When they were all laid out before me, dancing in firelight, I could help but to stop and admire it.

-

The symphony of agony they created was

Divine.