#BreakingPoint

[trekahouse]

You were created to be like no other, so why waste precious time trying to compare. There is no comparison, when you embrace your truth.

Treka L. House

[ryes-up]

Breaking Point || Open

Days passed, perhaps weeks. Rye had lost count. The day after the King had slain twenty-six human and hob servants, Rye had woken to find Lorelle already gone. She left behind only a letter and a handful of polished stones, which Rye buried with each of the slain servants.

Though servants in Belladonna were often buried in mass graves, Rye felt it disrespectful, and dug twenty-six graves for the slain. It had taken him several days to tend to all of them, some animals having started to find their way to the land and find their own fate at the end of Rye’s knife when they expected the lifeless bodies to be their next meal.

Somehow, each morning he woke, the loss felt fresh again, as she crossed the threshold to go and continue digging graves outside. Rye lost track of how often he had needed to stop, sit and mourn anew for the cruel fate the King and found befitting of the servants, all because Rye refused to return his friend to the imprisonment of the castle.

Rye would not be sorry for it, though. Sorry, as Lorelle had put it in the letter she left behind for him, was only to be said when one wouldn’t make the same decision, given the wisdom of hindsight. It was something she wrote that her mother had told her. He would have still not returned Robin to the King, though he’d have attempted to do something to keep the servants away from there, somewhere safer.

It must have been at least a week after the servants’ bodies no longer lay in the dirt and grass, even the blood stains beginning to wash away with the rain night before. Rye found himself at a loss. The numbness had started to fade, and the anger set in. The betrayal and pain. The disbelief in his own naivety, in believing the King could be the kind of protector to the Unseelie kingdom that he had been to Rye for centuries.

He would never be. He was incapable of it.

It had taken Rye far too long to realize it, but he did now.

With the last body respectfully buried, and the servants’ guest house meticulously cleaned, more for a lack of ability to sit still than anything, Rye made his way back into the main house. It felt hollow now, despite the fact that he was often there alone, when Keelin was busy away on errands. Rye tried to shake away the feeling in vain, and went upstairs to his rooms.

The upstairs consisted of very few rooms, compared to the space he was given at the castle, but he preferred it here. Through the bedroom and off to one side stood two wardrobes. One held clothes, as he suspected most wardrobes did, but today he opened the other, which he hadn’t opened for some months.

The inside of the doors held hooks, on which one side hung his shield, the other a quiver of arrows. Along the bottom of the wardrobe were baskets containing dozens more arrows, mostly that a few of his servants had carved and sharpened for him. On the back of the wardrobe, hooks held up a sword on one side, and a bow his Wolf mother had helped him to carve before she’d died in the war.

Today his eyes were only for the bow and arrows. One day soon, he would train with his sword. He hadn’t picked it up in far too long, though he refused to give name to the reason he felt he needed the practice.

But today, he needed the bow. He needed to remember and feel the Solitary blood in his veins. Claim it, as he had once claimed the royal, Unseelie blood that coursed through him. Blood that had done nothing but hurt, torture and kill.

Rye reached out and picked the bow from the back of the wardrobe, running his hands over the wood and trying to recall the way his mother’s hands had felt over his, guiding as she taught him the proper way to carve a bow that would be light and easy to wield in his swift and agile fighting style, but strong as the oak that they had sat under.

Letting out an uneasy breath, Rye took the quiver of arrows and slid it over his shoulder, turning to leave for the stable before he had a chance to think too carefully about what he was really doing.

For it didn’t matter that he chose not to seek out the halfling in the shadows today, who had asked him for his betrayal of the King. Perhaps he would next week, or the week following. But not today.

Rye tied his hair back with a ribbon that had been given to him by one of his former servants as he made his way out to the stable. He refused to think too hard about it as he saddled Nissa, only hesitating a moment before picking up the bridle that had a metal plate over the center of it, to protect her forehead. The bridle that she only wore in war. His fingers brushed over the dent just inside of where her left eye would be. He hadn’t realized how close an arrow or sword had been to striking her that day, so caught up in the heat of battle that eh couldn’t even name which it had been. It wasn’t until he was wiping blood from his own armor and hers that he had seen it. For the remaining two years of the war, he had borrowed one of the King’s horses instead of taking her onto the battlefield. Now though, he put it on her. Not for protection, but so she would know.

Nissa had essentially, three bridles. Or three types, in any case. The old, worn leather one was for casual trips, often bareback through the Wildlands, when she would throw him into ponds and he would let her graze in her favorite field. The second was one she hated, jewelled and elegant, showing more of status than anything Rye wore. She was difficult, and disliked the bridle, but she knew her place when she wore it, head high, obedient and acting as royalty, for that bridle she only wore when they went to the castle. The third was this, the bridle of war, and of training. In it, she gave no difficulty. She was alert and never made a mistake, never faltered, took a wrong step or left Rye a moment of hesitation. This bridle meant life or death, and she gave it the respect it deserved.

So it didn’t matter, not today, that he couldn’t put a name to what he did. What he felt, or what he strived towards. Nissa knew it if he didn’t, or even if he did and refused to name it. He didn’t have to, not today. Because his lack of ability to voice the actions didn’t change what he did.

Today, he prepared for rebellion.

Nissa knew that, as she followed him out, head bowed to allow the faceplate to protect as much as possible, and to make any target from the front as small as possible. She stayed still as Rye mounted, not taking off as she sometimes did, this time waiting until he signalled her with two clicks of his tongue.

He took time to readjust to how it felt, riding in this saddle, bow in hand, arrows at his shoulder. He rode without holding onto the reins, drawing an arrow and stringing it through the bow, taking steady breaths as his muscles remembered how to steady his bow on a moving horse. His first arrow missed the tree he was aiming for, but the second landed perfectly. By the eighth, he was guiding Nissa at a canter back down the trail they’d cut, tearing the arrows from the tree bark without slowing.

Nissa pushed him as much as he pushed himself, galloping under low branches to force him to duck, as if evading an imaginary enemy. She turned on sharp corners, testing his balance in the saddle as he shot arrow after arrow.

A smile pulled at his lips, in spite of everything. This felt so good, after not having trained with his bow for so long. It felt good to be out there, not training with a sword on dummies or against another knight wielding a sword. But just him and Nissa, wind whipping around them as he shot arrows through the trees.

He wasn’t a Solitary fae. He would never be, but these moments, he could pretend. He could fool himself into believing in the freedom of it. Of this.

The next time Nissa ran under a branch too low for him to duck, he grabbed onto it and used the momentum of her canter to swing himself onto the branch. She didn’t slow, in fact he heard the pace of her hoofs speed up as he crossed easily through the tree, slipping lithely from one branch to the next. He closed his eyes to focus on the sound of her gallop, and timed it just so, swinging down from a branch and into the saddle as she raced back under the tree again. He landed in the saddle just a little off-center, but righted himself easily.

He took another arrow and pulled it back in the bow, aiming for a tree in the distance, but a sound made both him and Nissa turn, the latter halting at Rye’s command. In the rush of training, Rye instinctively pulled the arrow back, aiming it towards where the sound had come from, before his mind caught up with him, and he lowered it, though didn’t remove the arrow from the string.

“Who’s there?” he called out.

[killer--b]

Motivation for a rainy Tuesday #BxP #BreakingPoint

[trekahouse]

Never put pressure on your natural talents, it's unnecessary.

Treka L. House

[zodiacmind]

The sign that pushes you past your breaking point!

[indigojayy]

At least we both know I tried ...

[sokol-the-grinder]

Breaking Point

It wasn’t common for Sokol to seek out solitude—if such a thing was possible with people coming and going. Even when he had visitors he spoke little while placing the majority of his focus on some little project to keep him occupied, or while diving shoulders deep into the neck of a bottle. It was the only way he could get some proper sleep without worrying about being awakened by flickers of memory that were still trying to come to him. He didn’t want to think about it or be reminded of the utter helplessness he had felt under the attention of his tormentor. He wanted a peace of mind and knew only one way to get it.

The need to find answers steadily became a main goal; people, locations, anything that would lead him to putting a rest to these particular troubles. Once that threat was eliminated perhaps he’d be able to get more than a few minutes’ worth of sleep. Bain provided very few answers and Vlad even less. Of all people Sokol expected to have information it would have been him, but all the man provided was nonsense among slinging around ‘boy’, or ‘kid’, or some other demeaning snipe at his youth.

Then…something came through with all the abruptness of literally falling into his lap.

He hadn’t questioned the messenger when he picked up the file. The other claimed he worked for someone they both knew and that was fine with him. After weeks of searching, anything was better than nothing. He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly when he took the bus to the location. Knew that he should have been more aware of his surroundings, but luck was on his side it seemed. Luck and frustration. All that was there was a message; Stop looking.

Whether it was a warning, a ‘friendly’ suggestion or a lesson, he didn’t know and not even the long walk back toward the safe house cooled the irritation that was brewing under the surface. Nor did the stop at the bar for a few drinks, or the fight he picked that ended with two broken noses and fractured ribs. It would have ended with all three in jail if it wasn’t for the undeniable need to avoid just that.

Despite the waver in his step and the pain in his face, he manages to light up a cigarette on his way to the dry cleaning building without running into something or someone. Wiping blood from his face with the sleeve of his jacket, he wandered into the safe house and made his way toward Lady Liberty. His night had been cut short and he intended to finish it with a few more bottles and a night of gaming.

[onefractionofmind]

Who should I forgive?

You, who broke my heart? Or Me, who let you broke it?

[lovelygirlp-blog]

Pretend it doesn’t affect you until it doesn’t

[idriscainwolfe]

Breaking Point || Vidris || Nov 21st

Idris: It's fine, Viggo. [It is never easy to say these words out loud, even in a typical setting, without his face burning. But now, there is another reason for such insistence, reason that cannot be expressed but is crucial and desperate just the same. Heart pound erratically against his chest, as hazel eyes stare up into the uncertain amber orbs. Bare knuckles caresses the sunkissed face in an effort to reassure, while its owner tries to present to Viggo a convincing smile.] I'm okay with this, really.

[eric-sadahire]

You think Sigmund Freuds' friends were ever like "Hey man, shut the fuck up!"

[zodiacmind]

The sign that pushes you past your breaking point!

[yours-truly-yourself]

“Everybody’s got a breaking point, Nobody wants to see that side of me, Stop pushing ‘cause I won’t back down, Nobody’s gonna bring that outta me”

[trekahouse]

Though I may seem difficult, my only desire was for you to love me sincerely. For you to love me faithfully. For you to love me unconditionally. For you to love me freely. For you to love me with blind, understanding eyes. With a love so simple, much would surely follow. That's all I ever wanted --love.

Treka L. House

[jessiepandamonium]

Saw this on a friend's Instagram<3