World on Fire

[Shandriz]

Won a writing competition with this one. ^_^ Here you go, Azzy. Note: ANGST. Er, yeah.

It was a peaceful day, by all accounts. The morning sun shone brightly through the trees like beams of angelic light. Motes of dust floated slowly downwards, tiny specks caught only in each beam.

But he couldn't see those. He couldn't see the cold stone floor he felt beneath him, or the steel bars locking him inside this prison. He knew they were there simply because the day before he -had- seen them. He had a vague idea of what was going on around him now, though.

Sorain was probably being scolded for losing his temper like that. Scolded, no more. As though it were simply a minor breach of protocol that had resulted in the loss of both his eyes. In fact, this whole situation was a breach of protocol. The reason he had been brought here was a flimsy excuse to have him killed. As if that hadn't been enough, the idiot had then lost his temper when the ceremony was taking place. Injury added to insult.

Not that any of that really mattered to Falcon. All that mattered to him was already gone. It had been a day just like this when she died. Beautiful and full of sunshine. The perfect sort of day, he thought, to mark her passage. As much as he would miss her, he was glad that it had been beautiful on the day she died.

He had died that day as well. Alive in body, maybe, but inside there was nothing. A hollow vessel. So, in a way, he was grateful for the release that was soon to come. Had his eyes not already been wrapped up to stop the blood oozing from the empty sockets, had they not been literally gauged out by a man jealous of the love he shared with Willow, he would have shed tears of joy.

To finally be released, allowed to join her...there was no greater gift Sorian could have given him. Not that he would have lasted that much longer anyways; his dark magic had been proven biologically dependent on her light magic.

His eye sockets hurt. It had only been a day since the incident, and the pain had mostly subsided, but wouldn't go away before it was time to go.

Click

That was the door. He could hear voices, though he didn't care enough to sort through them and distinguish who they were. One of them was Sorian, of course. He didn't have to listen to the voices to know that much.

"All right, 'Falcon' it's time to go." The man in charge of his execution. Finally, the release. He could taste it, it was so close.

Falcon stumbled to his feet, hands placed over his eyes subconsciously in an attempt to make the pain subside. He had to be able to concentrate enough to walk.

The hallway went on forever. There was a guard on either side of him, though they ended up guides more than guards. He was in no position to resist, even had he wanted to do so.

It was cold, and he imagined it was dark, but for the lanterns. He could feel their warm flames gently heating his cheeks. At this point, he was nearly unrecognizeable from the powerful Dark mage he had been only a few months earlier. His cheeks were sunken and hollow, his skin pale. He had even managed to lose weight, though he had never had much to spare. His hair was oily and messy, having been unwashed over the past few days and unbrushed in even longer. When you factored in the part where his eyes had been violently slashed out the night before, he certainly didn't resemble the proud warrior he had once been.

It was right that he should die now, like this.

Forever. They'd been hobbling around this cursed hallway for hours. Willow was waiting for him-- how dare they make her wait? They needed each other-- she was suffering without him. She had to be. And they were stalling! Couldn't his legs move any faster?

They stopped. He could hear the heavy door creak open, could hear talking going on around him, though the words wouldn't stay around his ears long enough that he could recognize them. They didn't matter anyways.

His guides shuffled him into the room. His hands were already tied behind his back, but they had to untie them in order to get his arms behind the stake. He offered no resistance, and in fact barely noticed what was going on.

Slowly they tied his arms around the stake so tightly his back was pressed against it. There was no need to blindfold him, as was tradition, because the bandages covered what had once been his eyes.

Then there was silence for a while. Utter, prolonged silence in which he had no idea what was going on around him. Then began a low chanting, and he could feel the warm heat of the flames licking at his feet. The chanting became louder as the fire rose higher. His thoughts, however, were so far that the screams escaping his lips as his body ws scorched seemed to escape from other lips.

[Azurel]

Hot!

I'm gonna wait til you sign back on to glomp you and tell you how I felt.