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His hair was like sand. The scorching hot sand of a desert. Sand that stuck to everyone and everything and wouldn't let go. Sand that you just had to give up trying to brush off after a while.
His sweater was red like poppies. Poppies and blood and the tips of his wings.
His wings were incredible. Large, red like poppies too, and blue like the ocean and yellow like sunflowers.
His eyes were as deep as galaxies beyond, his stare coating you like skulk from the deep dark. They held so much and yet showed so little. Like obsidian.
Poppy — eternal sleep
Lilac — first love, reminiscence
Sunflower — false riches
The man was trouble and chaos and secrets and plans and-
Some may say he was cold like the desert at night. You had to be, in these games, when allies were fragile things that fell through in the end anyway. There could only ever be one winner.
"You monster!"
Yet, underneath it all one could tell he cared. Even has he plotted your demise, he cared. And he knew, and it was scary how well he did, your every move, every action and thought–or so it seemed. He was a very observant man.
No wonder he won the first game.
The second game he was surrounded by allies, and here too he played them all like pawns in chess.
"You know, Mumbo, there's a way we can still be friends…"
–
His eyes are green like emeralds and cacti, both caught in the golden rays of the morning sun. He himself is radiant like sunlight.
His hair is brown like the bark of the dark oak he set alight oh so long ago
–
Souls linked together, coming back to each other in a cruel twist of fate
The universe thinks it's funny. It isn't.
–
Tick, tock.
This time they're on opposite sides of the bridge of bread.
–
Once more they're separate, and the one with eyes of emeralds and hands curled around sunflowers is left to himself. But oh, those above who watch it all grant him the glory, the taste of the win.
–
"Oh, what happened in third life?"
–
The whispers haunt him. They spill secrets to him like ink on a page.
He shouldn't remember. He shouldn't remember the other times, even if only fragments. The winner's curse wasn't supposed to allow that. Even so, he remembered.
He knew the man with hair like sand and eyes that knew universes of knowledge remembered more than he was supposed to, too. But maybe he was supposed to, in the end.
He saw the way he looked at him. There was more to it than remembering, he supposed. But what he could he say? It was the same for him as well.
–
He stepped out of the cabin, his foot landing not in the expected grass but in sand. Sand. Scorching hot sand that club to you like sweat. Yet, somehow, the sand felt like the echoes of a home from long ago.
The lighthouse was surrounded by sand too. Maybe it felt like home for him as well.
In a game that echoed with memories of the past, could anyone blame them for remembering what was to come home?
Written by a human in Ellipsus.