Summer fic challenge 2015, part 5.
Sep. 15th, 2015 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merikuru posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
volieredeatoriI...actually finished this a couple days ago (and am hence DONE!), but I completely forgot to post it here. Derp.
This is the only one that doesn't imply anything romantic or otherwise pair-y. Fanaticism, however, is smegging terrifying.
Zephirin's POV. Heavensward spoilers sort of abound here. Terribly sorry.
(Had to swap the original prompt - it was "pull". Couldn't do a thing with it.)
A wave of magic washes over him; he closes his eyes and lets it fill him, pounding in his ears with its insistent, all-consuming pulse.
At first, he really had no idea what to think of this plan, and he knows he was not the only one. Taking what was effectively the power and spirit of an eikon into one's body, harnessing it within them to use at will - such a thing couldn't be possible, and even if it was, wouldn't the presence put entirely too much strain on its new human shell? One couldn't blame them for being leery, for not wishing to offer themselves up as possible sacrifices if something were to go wrong with the procedure. Yet at the same time...
At the same time, how could they say no?
But now, as his entire being is wrapped in brilliant warmth that briefly shuts out the world, he feels no regret, and he knows the others feel the same as they too give themselves over to this product of their devotion. It is overwhelming, perhaps even painful in its intensity, and he has heard a few of them liken it to the sensation of something dying within them - he cannot disagree, but that thought rings incomplete to him, with only one possible ending: their frail mortal selves die, and they are reborn. The power takes them, transforms them, and they become an existence that is both not quite and yet entirely their own - transcended, they are as the phoenix, rising anew from their own ashes.
This, he thinks, is what it means to truly believe. To give themselves body and soul to the man they follow, to help him bring back their sullied world and cleanse it of the ruin it has become.
They cannot lose. They will not lose. Even if they must once more burn themselves to ash, turn their ephemeral lives into the flame that will consume their enemy.
And even as the magic finally devours him, and he can feel everything fading into an abyss of senseless dark, he still believes--
They did everything right. Everything.
In his last moments, he looks to his leader, and he smiles.
The wave that flows over him now is one of peaceful, eternal bliss.
This is the only one that doesn't imply anything romantic or otherwise pair-y. Fanaticism, however, is smegging terrifying.
Zephirin's POV. Heavensward spoilers sort of abound here. Terribly sorry.
(Had to swap the original prompt - it was "pull". Couldn't do a thing with it.)
A wave of magic washes over him; he closes his eyes and lets it fill him, pounding in his ears with its insistent, all-consuming pulse.
At first, he really had no idea what to think of this plan, and he knows he was not the only one. Taking what was effectively the power and spirit of an eikon into one's body, harnessing it within them to use at will - such a thing couldn't be possible, and even if it was, wouldn't the presence put entirely too much strain on its new human shell? One couldn't blame them for being leery, for not wishing to offer themselves up as possible sacrifices if something were to go wrong with the procedure. Yet at the same time...
At the same time, how could they say no?
But now, as his entire being is wrapped in brilliant warmth that briefly shuts out the world, he feels no regret, and he knows the others feel the same as they too give themselves over to this product of their devotion. It is overwhelming, perhaps even painful in its intensity, and he has heard a few of them liken it to the sensation of something dying within them - he cannot disagree, but that thought rings incomplete to him, with only one possible ending: their frail mortal selves die, and they are reborn. The power takes them, transforms them, and they become an existence that is both not quite and yet entirely their own - transcended, they are as the phoenix, rising anew from their own ashes.
This, he thinks, is what it means to truly believe. To give themselves body and soul to the man they follow, to help him bring back their sullied world and cleanse it of the ruin it has become.
They cannot lose. They will not lose. Even if they must once more burn themselves to ash, turn their ephemeral lives into the flame that will consume their enemy.
And even as the magic finally devours him, and he can feel everything fading into an abyss of senseless dark, he still believes--
They did everything right. Everything.
In his last moments, he looks to his leader, and he smiles.
The wave that flows over him now is one of peaceful, eternal bliss.
