Prompt fic (original)

[icarus_chained]

Title:  Well of Eternity
Rating:  PG-13
Wordcount:  312
Notes:  Inspired by this image: http://shirotsuki.deviantart.com/art/Tied-To-Infinity-33013083, courtesy of hopeofdawn 

Well of Eternity

 

He knelt on the precipice, seared in transformation, his hands pressed to the earth as if striving to draw its stability up into himself. Behind him, the soulwell roared silently, tumultuous, unformed, a soaring fountain of light against the darkness of the Underground. He felt its touch along his spine, the feathered whisper of the flames, wrapped around him from the inside out. Because he belonged to it. Because the spirit inside him, the spirit of air and light and fire that rested in his heart, his soul, belonged to that great and all-encompassing well. He knew this to the core of his being, and accepted its call.

But she did not.

She was watching him, out there in the darkness. So close, her eyes shining with the soullight, the dim, reflective eyes of an earthdweller. He could see her, pale and ill-formed against the blackness, helpless and timid in the searing face of the flames. She was an ugly thing, he supposed, by comparison. Wretched and earthly, stained by the earth and the darkness, a being who had never seen the light, a being he terrified, a being who could never understand him or the well that called him to its heart. But she was so very, very beautiful, in his eyes.

He felt it begin. The last stages of transformation, the last fading of his earthly form as his soulflame burst forth, as it strained backwards towards its birthplace, towards the Well of Eternity. He felt himself fading, transcending, letting go at last. And he watched her, watched those dull, pained eyes fill with tears, watched her pale face crumple beneath her pain, watched the light fade inside her until all that was left was the reflection of what he was.

And the fires that had never in his life burned him, that uplifted him, suddenly felt as if they were tearing him apart.