// net.work

I once heard this poem.

( there's a crackle to rhysand's voice, layered like one might hear the rustle of leaves alongside the creak of an old, rusty gate. nature and unnatural — sickly, by anyone's count. )

Something about ... conflict is an organ, a heart in the contentedness of Fae. I don't remember it exactly. It was about how we fair folk are never peaceful because our true nature feasts on our own happiness, like a worm in the brain, eating the thing that keeps us alive. Searching out disease and inventing one when all is well. It always felt so defeatist, but now ...

( he trails off, distinctly lucid — rambling, maddened and madder and sometimes just mad. eventually he clears his throat, a hard breath rattling out. )

I think man and beast are not so different from the fairies, now. War comes. Whether you agree with it or not, it'll reach you all the same — V'rizz will not be dissuaded, not so long as the one he calls He seeks to rule. They're confident about Sedorum's success, so ... I encourage everyone in Taeum to be prepared. That probably went without saying. From what I gather, He doesn't want the Highest One dead, but the people down here yearn for blood, and I expect they'll have it by the field-full. I expect Death to memorize our names in a list of potentials.

... I had this dream. Before. ( he laughs. ) Of peace. If you knew my home, you'd laugh at me, I'm sure. But I dreamed it all the same. No more bloodied battlefields and no more searching corpses for the face of friends hidden in all the viscera. No more wasted years, fighting and dying and fighting again. Tranquility in the mountain tops. Balancing the stars on my fingertips.

It's just a pipe dream, isn't it? A joke someone made up. The fight never ends. The worm keeps gnawing until you die. Every orb I've experienced has demanded a blood tax, some violence in exchange for its power. I thought I came here to save lives, but really — I came here to save particular lives. Chosen lives. I came here to take other ones. ( louder, he laughs, the sound hollow with emotion. ) But, who the fuck am I, right? Get ready to fight. If not this war, then the next one. The one after that, and the next, and the next.