Fallen
by Ari

They stood
alone but
together
on that great plain.
long-boned backs
unbent
even as the blood still
leaped from the stretched
mouths of all their
hope and came to pool
in an eddying gasp
at their feet in supplication.
a single, shredded feather suspended
in brackish thickness--the last Loyalty
the last Sacrifice--They stood
even as the biting iron of
their weapons and wit
crumbled to
heaps of liquid chalk and
coated their mouths.
the last great strains of harps and human breath
could be smelled
on that terrace
on that plain
Felt
in those bones

They stood
near to one another but
without the contact of flesh to flesh
in the smoldering sun of those
lion-headed
Desert Mountains.
Heartblood laquered on their lips
(it was crusted silk)
but they would not speak--
merely stood
with their slat-ribbed
chests erect and
unheaving--
each one's unshed tears
stinging the other's
freshly gilded wounds.
the air was heavy --pregnant--v withv that terrible birdsong taste
that bitter draft
andv They knew.
Each could feel it
tongues of frozen thought
congealing their veins to
icy anticipation. Fear
--futility--
it can be eaten:

Shemyaza, Azazel. Beloved; Briar -bound Lords of the rebel Watchers.
Pain-kissed Sons of a Distant God.

Be as they were.

Bleed for discord.