WEIGHT
Written on October 2, 2024 (♏︎)
Author's Notes: Written for Whumptober 2024 for prompt No. 2: Trust Issues (Role Reversal).
Izlude had not known what death looked like--not truly. He had seen bodies shrouded and coffined, of course: lepers and lameters ornamented for the grave that they might walk into paradise whole. He had not seen battle, however. His father had been unwilling that he should bear the stone from Orbonne that spring. Izlude knew nothing of true warfare beyond the sparring field.
He knew not what to expect at Riovanes. He had not understood what it was to see the human form so thoroughly disassembled to its rudiments: to be revealed as a machine wrought of so much offal and bone.
It did not frighten him at first. The things on the flagstones were not people when he saw them. The stench of rot on the fly-clogged air would have made him ill were there anything in his stomach--but he had fasted since Matins.
When he saw the green-swathed lump by the steps, however, sickness nevertheless rose in his throat, and the debts of a night's sleepless prayer came crashing down upon him.
Izlude did not look again; he was not strong--not as she had been. Any further image he carried from here would but weigh down his purpose.
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