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Silvery sheens sharpened edges of black ink, pushing out of the endless darkness to taste the fresh ripple of fluid that carried salt on its waves. The waves clashed in duels of white - foam mounting against itself, blue almost pitched from where the celestial bodies looked on silently overhead. Reflected on each knife blade of navy was a blazing star; gleaming, long limbs from eons away reaching up akin to swallowing the moon whole.
Moisture dripped sluggishly down from clouds that had promised a clear night but failed to harbor whatever lies that their softness hid. That rain slid down thick locks of hair that furled on itself, shameplants leaves beckoning for its own comfort. It ran as wild and free as the ocean below the outcrop of rock that jutted out from his pavilion. Robes, usually so proud, were plastered into his body, seeping in cold until he drew bone weary. Rain kissed cheeks, his stormy gaze betrayed nothing as he looked up in the jibes of wet, pouring freely down from the sky that only held the cold certainty of another day.
Another day.
Telamon's features - held up to a standard that had been perfected alongside each calculated socket of joints that twirled with a swing of blade, did something alarming. Softened. Not in a tender gesture, no, moreso a release of a scowl that had been brewing resentment and rotting the edges of his mortality. He didn't go out into the night often. Especially not miserable, wet nights that made his skin feel leather and his teeth shiver in their gums. That was Builderman's job, to step out into the cold and darkness and brood, watching diamonds melt into golden shafts of sunlight that peeked over the cleft of the horizon. He seemed to be quite proficient at it, Telamon mused. Perhaps his burly friend thought enough meddlesome worry would get his projects finished any quicker.
Telamon dragged a bangled thumb over the dip of his ribcage, his midriff already itching with the need to feel air whistle in his ears. He frowned slightly, the scar on the corner of his mouth turning to a grimace. He hadn't come here to brood - not really. It was a.. want to understand what he saw in an hour like this. It disagreed with his nerves that he had chipped and scraped at until they paved a reputation of brutality. All of that melted away, however, as he watched each synodic season speed past without him even often stopping to simply.. breathe.
His wings twitched absently under the dampness, mortar thick on his tongue as resentment. His frustration only grew, buzzing under his skin. Is this really what mortals spend their days doing? Looking up at that dumb, round hole in the stygian sky that controlled their seas? He could've done a better job, he thought with unguarded jealousy as crashing water met the droplets dripping from clouds that should've just masked it already. Rows of bleached, luminous feathers shifted, jerking his feet from under where sucking mud had begun to drag them down..
He should dig his talons in the craters and use them as footholds. Should peel back each layer of asteroid bruised, ebony stained moon rock until it was nothing but a scratch.
Brown curls pale, dimples shadowed by his face, he pounded against the sediment, blood pounding in his ears in a wardrum. Spreading wings that licked the shoulder blades buried beneath scarred, sturdy skin, he spiraled into the sky.
Wind slapped in his face, tang of fish filling his senses. His eyes were blinded, tears pricking at the corner of his eyelids. His feathered appendages fumbled clumsily mid flight, in a desperate tussle for dominance over the current. Stars spiralled around him, blurring into smudges of pearlescent as he forced one smack of wings after the other, stubbornly refusing to be deterred.
The air was punched out of his lungs. His robes flapped in hundreds of different directions, freezing air caressing his exposed skin.
Beating forward, a loop of massive blood run airfoil, he found a rhythm that kept him afloat. Gliding in powerful pumps, he flew.
And kept flying.
Even when his face felt numb, even when the ligaments of his wings began to ache fiercely, he kept flying.
Once a crescent, now a filled out bowl of undiluted purity, watched him advance mockingly. Egging him on, wishing for this pathetic little deity to know his place and set himself back down on land. Dust stirred abound on its surface, where footpaths that never should've been traced if not for curiosity were permanently engraved in its surface. Don't look back, Telamon told himself. Golden ichor pressurized in his veins, threatening to snap brittle. The brown curled dirty set his jaw. This was beyond regular rage - this was something that had been building for eons now.
Not against the moon on a night that was pouring rain. Not on a pavilion that had been handcrafted, reverence radiating from every slide of utensil that helped shape it. No, this was something else entirely. Maybe Telamon's arrogance, maybe the grit that filled his lungs finally being knocked loose and shored up against a wide eye that couldn't fight back - but was so untouchable it didn't have to.
But he knew simply enough - he had something to prove.
To himself.
Exhaustion didn't slow his movements, in fact, it poured new energy into them. Each time his feathers were ruffled or eagerly invited to a new angle of breeze, he refused, keeping deadset on his target he knew he could never reach. Jibing and probing, tickles of annoyance blossomed into explosive water trailing off of his violent form ripping through the once peaceful silence. He wasn't just determined now, but desperate.
It looked so close, so patronizing. He reached out a palm to it, grasping. He wanted to feel the cool surface shatter beneath his fingers. Until his limbs sagged, heavy as lead from the strain that no mortal, and even a god couldn't endure forever.. and failed on him. Instead of pushing up, he was falling down, wings born from fire and ambition breaking from water and the mellow desire to simply exist.. antagonized by a deity with an insecurity. Slowly, his head fell. Not from submission, but from something far worse - shame. His rise to power was never something that anyone could be proud of. And what was he doing now? Trying to attack a silent face just because it turned to him; saw too much of his crimes?
Ruthless. Not the kind Telamon could puff his chest out and accept with a smirk on his scarred face.
His weight slowed..
Then hesitated..
Then allowed the fullness of the sweltering, violent skies to swallow him whole. To come out with wings that were less proud, to drown with hands that would soon know gentleness.