#I may have T3CHN0 brain rot but i also have depression

[kentuckywrites]

A Dance With Memory

There are no answers in the stars. There are memories in the colors. Life clings to him, desperate, wanting.

A short character exploration of Pongo as a break from T3CHN0.

Something drew him to the lucid forest one night. The fireflies whispered ancient myths in his ears, the butterflies promised lives that they had never seen, buried deep below their glass wings. The trees bent down to greet him, an extension of his will, and no creature dared to disturb his path. 

The energy mist climbed the sky, so desperate to become constellations, so desperate to join the stars in holy matrimony. Why didn’t the night accept them beyond a temporary release? What had the mists done to anger the twilight, what half-baked apology had they given for their transgressions? Thankfully they knew their quarrel was locked in the night and not with him, not with any creature of this planet. They saw his safe passage to the edge of the waterfall, overlooking a vast stretch of ocean. Stars reflected, transcribed within the waves. Yet the stars remained untouchable. Nothing could become a star, nothing could reach them. 

Inhale. Exhale. Warm air, characteristic of this place, full of life and longing. He closed his eyes. Inhale. Exhale. His feet began to carry him along the land, and with every step, every memory that came to haunt him, the ground grasped starlight for the briefest of moments. Purples, blues, greens, pinks, reds, yellows. Not in that order, no, he would open his eyes and see there was an understanding to them. And so, the dance began.

Yellow became the past. Not his past, but equally his, an incomplete ownership. People entered his mind that he had never met, yet he knew their names, the sounds of their voices in his ears, their smiles and how they held themselves. This was a wistful feeling, a nostalgia he clinged to as tightly as life clinged to him.

Red became the war. Rings of fire scorching the earth, sending those people from his disconnected past to their graves, or in many cases sending them amongst the harsh winds of change, ashes to be scattered and forgotten with the passage of time. In a way, this was the past - orange formed below his feet as he danced, the realization apparent - but in a way, this was his present. Those rings still stood. The fires still burned. All this time, and he hadn’t found a way.

Pink became his birth. A planet with one wish, a wish to live. Threats from all walks of life, threats that it couldn’t face alone. A body formed, a wish passed on, a dream composed from a symphony of pain and an endless wisdom that was forged only through a ticking clock. He remembered his first kiss, the planet’s gentle gift of life entering his body, and nothing else mattered in that moment. He awoke knowing he was loved, though not by whom. Certainly not himself, the empty shell with only a dream to his name.

Green became life. The life he could never erase, the life that gripped his heart to the point where it ached and ached and drew blood from beneath his skin, the life that would sew his wounds back up and draw wounds again, the ever vicious cycle. Life would flow through his fingertips and heal the injuries of fallen friends, life would extend a mercy to them because he commanded it to be so. And yet, any commands to stop his hurting fell on deaf ears. He learned quickly that life would never be his friend. He got used to the pain and expected nothing, nothing.

Blue became the transformation, the sorrow, the pain. A need to pass life to others denied, erased from his body as quickly as he’d been given it, forced into the belly of a monochrome monster. He remembered how a bullet entered his skull and he was given a taste of freedom, metallic, a lifeless body falling backwards off a bottomless chasm into darkness, and suddenly returned to his old form as if nothing had ever transpired. He was never the same after that. He knew now what it meant to die, what it meant for life to leave him behind. He grew afraid of the chasm he’d fallen into, was the excuse he gave. In reality, he yearned for it. He stayed close to that chasm for months, and the day he finally broke free of life’s chains, he realized just how badly he wanted to live.

Purple became him. It became the stardust he trailed behind, the dreams of the planet that created him. It became the armor he wore, the weapons he wielded. It became the wisdom that wasn’t quite his, but passed down from a nonexistent generation, and it became the words he spoke, the advice, the cries, the screams, the pleas. It became his sight, and in his eyes, the stars found a new place to call home. Somehow he had pleased them, somehow they wanted to join him. Were they friends? Temporary? Would he outlive them, or would they outlive him? Life was unkind to him for so long, and yet…was it selfish? Wanting to keep living? Would he live for these stars? What would happen if the stars died before he did? What purpose would he serve then?

He stopped dancing, watched the trails of light he’d forged fade into the night. The stars swallowed them whole. He stared at the sky, the abyss, and it stared back. He had no answer for it. All his wisdom, all his pain, and he had no answer. He hoped, prayed, wished, dreamed, that perhaps the stars would approve of him simply…trying. Not succeeding, necessarily, nor failing. Trying. Trying to live as if life wasn’t insistent on his living, trying to live as if life hadn’t given him a predetermined reason to live. 

The sun chased the stars away by the time he exited the lucid forest. He, an immortal man, would have to face them again someday. But for now, it was enough. He was enough.

#xenoblade x #A Dance With Memory: Short Story #I may have T3CHN0 brain rot but i also have depression #I just needed to step back and hang out with pongo for a bit #he's so much deeper than I think anyone understands #i just...i love him. he's everything. #no OC will ever matter to me as much as he does.