Zeke
She should have. She really should have. But it was too late. The moment they first met in the coliseum, this fate was sealed. But even so, she followed it with her own choosing. So even as this energy filled her body, mind and soul to the brim, even as the dark organisms inside her pulsed and grew thick inside her.
She made her choice.
Now, their hearts could become as one. Her heart grew even closer to his own.
Who are you?
Imagine you are an empty hole floating in an empty space. Already, this must seem ridiculous to you. People are narrow minded and self centered, it isn't as easy to broaden one's horizons as one thinks. If you ask somebody to imagine a color they've never seen, or a flavor they've never experienced, they will likely stare blankly at best. You are you, and no one else, so it isn't as easy to put yourself in a foreign shoe.
But I would like you to try.
Try to think that you are nothing. No, less than nothing. Something that only exists to draw things untoto itself. Something that cannot recognize anything, but can take everything. Space is vast, empty, and moves acccording to laws beyond understanding. It must be hard to fully wrap your head around something llike this, but please try.
If you can understand the impossible miracle that is the Nexus, this should be child's play.
Now imagine something different. Imagine a flame. Naturally, fire consumes. It can warm others, or hurt others, but it will never stop consuming in order to do either. If it stopped, it would simply stop being a flame, and turn into smoke and ash. Now, assume that this flame could somehow come to life. Imagine that you were living fire, made only to grow and consume. Even if you wanted to stop, your body will not answer you. It will not obey. Even if you cry or scream, you cannot change your nature and remain yourself. Even if you wanted to be scared, you were not molded to bear such emotions. Your body is already controlled by something that isn't yourself, and is being drawn into an emptiness that you can never escape from.
Life, carelessly harvested, thoughtlessly created. Born only to burst and fade away, only to be fed to this endless hole. Could these masses of fire and pure life truly be called living? Could the void that is mindlessly absorbing such lives be called alive?
No. No, no, no, no, no. Whether a person is made from their choices, their lot in life, or simply makes choices without consequence, a creation with only one purpose and no choice of its own can never be considered an individual. It is a thing, a mistake, something that has no right to choose, let alone the right to be.
And yet it is. It exists. You exist.
And suddenly, there is a spark. An accident. The tower's engineers did not plan for this, but the mage who orchestrated this smiles. Because he has managed to create life once more. But even though it is alive, it can never be anything other than itself. And you realize that you were born empty. Broken. That those engineers, mages and scientists smiling have something you don't. Something you can never have. A choice. The only thing you were given is a mind and an endless hunger that can never be satisfied, and the power to take what is rightfully yours. Because you are alive. Because you were born into this world. But you can never stop. Because like the flame, once this void stops consuming others, it will cease being itself. And that is scary. That loneliness and silence of nonexistence, the hollow echo of an empty void. You don't want it. You'll never go back to being something less than a person.
So you make a choice.
To make that endless hunger your own, or to be an unthinking slave to it. And right now, Aruna felt every inch of that maddening desire. A wish so unnatural, so grand, it could never be satisfied. A yearning for more, to finally be satisfied.
Zeke's yearning was felt as her own. And the only thing in your mind, the only thing you desire, the thing you want to conquer this very moment...
...Is you.
His voice suddenly snapped her back to reality. She wasn't Zeke. She was herself, Aruna. Her body was grabbed tightly around the waist, and pressed against his own large chest. There was no heat or beat inside that dark beast, but his smile and eyes truly desired her. And a voidwoken dragon does not let go of his snack so easily.
Thus, his bare chest was exposed against her body, and she could see cracks on it as if it were some kind of shell. Most surprising were the tattoos crawling over his back and shoulder, like a raging dragon ravenously stretching over his flesh. It was almost beautiful, in a raw, primal sense.
And she too bore a mark. A darkness stretching over her womb like the wings of a beast.
