Work Text:
snow has a stench,
it smells like the dark plume of smoke that rises from obsidian fortresses, like trees the color of hot blood, like blindingly white walls of labs that had acted as your cage.
snow has a stench,
and you can never forget it, because the stench of snow is a harsh reminder of your past regrets and the ones you are currently making. when you follow the steps after her, that church acolyte, you can smell snow; when you're dying your horns bright teal to match them, you smell snow; when you help him or her or them, you smell snow. you're reminded that having others follow you is not something you can have. you are a follower and nothing more. you are a thing, a puppet, to be utilized and thrown away once you are in the hands of another, whether or not you've decided to walk into those hands.
the moment you spawned with the ability others call a "gift" you began to question whether or not the name "medkit" was given to you out of necessity — necessity because medkit is the name of your gear and everyone else around you are merely following the way inphernals work, or necessity because they need to pretend that they don't view you as anything but a 'valuable tool'. at times, this question is one of the many things that have brought you paranoia, and like everything else, it has the stench of snow.
snow has a stench,
it smells like paranoia materialized; do they genuinely view you as friends or family, or is it a facade? or is it your past crawling back up to you to eat away at the pieces of the puzzle — yourself — that you've failed to solve a million times?
snow has a stench,
and you can never forget it, because the stench of snow is a harsh reminder that even in the case where you tell yourself you've done good, you've still done harm. when your gaze catches a mere glimpse of hot pink you're reminded that that pink had once been a ruby red, alive and thriving and alive and evil. but now the pink is rotting away, dying, still evil, but perhaps much worse than it needs to be. albeit, it's best if that pink does die, but you're reminded that in some way, you are a killer. (a developing one, if you will.) it's ironic, the concept of a healer being a killer seems unheard of, but you seem to make the worst happen in the attempt of running away from "the worst".
in the cases where you're doing good, when you're fixing up his or her prosthetic or renewing it, you can't forget that stench. you're doing exactly what you were spawned for, and worse, you're offering yourself up to it. it's as if being a tool is inherent to your nature. when you're helping others whether it be through some form of engineering or medicinal means you smell snow, because you're reminded of what you did in the past, back at your cage, and you come to the realisation that you may be physically out of the cage, but mentally, and perhaps by nature as well, you have yet to break free from it. and perhaps you never will.
snow has a stench,
you tried to run from it, but with every step you take and every corner you turn you will smell it again. you are reminded of: your past, of your regrets, of the concept of you being a killer, and of the possibility of you being a mere tool, and nothing more.
tonight you will curl into bed, the sheets wrinkling under your desperate figure the way it did the night before; sweat will roll down your freezing cheeks as you keep trembling fingers on the ghost of your left eye, and another set of fingers in your subconsciously chewing jaw. you will swallow nails and pieces of skin in hopes you find some sort of reconciliation against the turmoil this stench has caused you, but to no avail. by tomorrow, it will restart all over again. stench, bite, and swallow. stench, sweat, feel. it will restart all over again.
snow has a stench,
and it has clung to you.