Falls

“Half of nothing, and half of something.” A lazy return in a low tone, a cool twist of the dark head towards a shadow that creeps towards him. They are lingerers, hiding in the dark and fleshing out the islands for what they were.

Devoid of any kind of meaning.

Half of nothing, and half of something. Nothing- a metaphor for the blackness that swallows one side of his head and the emptiness that remains in what had once been a great empire of which he had been prince. Something- both the dark creature that had slithered out of the darkness to confront him, and a deep, screaming want to do something, anything to scrape back what had been his.

What was his.

What is his.

The stranger is ominous, slinking through the shadows and in colour a wide contrast to Anawar- painted and white and black and so carefully drawn in the image of his father.

A looked like a dead man at the bottom of the sea.

There is a stink like blood on the man, whether he imagined it or not, Anawar breathes deep and relishes the taste. Not because he was sick and loved the violence, but because it tasted of want. “Are you looking for something too?” Perhaps they were kindred souls. Painted black by the loss of their past, but equally tied together in a sort of brotherhood that even Anawar, amongst the squabbling of his brothers and sisters, was painfully unfamiliar with.