Work Text:
someone dangled dogtags
‘fore his eyes,
iron pendulums of
hanged men.
almost silver,
those ash-licked chains,
glare of false moons
on his visor.
megszakad a szivem,
it had broken his heart, he said.
folded his soul in with the rest
when he let go.
Six knew no cold like the grim smile
given on the edge of the Ardent Prayer,
closer still to the hand of god than
the hands of Five when he sent him down.
bitter like the clouds over Visegrád,
bitter like the blood that crowned Kat’s
head when he hauled her
up from the rubble.
two more shots
for the two moons.
no more lights beneath
New Alexandria.
One and Four inhaled the tar
that Jun had known
from laying streets and
scaling heights
on rooftops high where the smoke
ran sharp and rife with ire
but couldn’t char the glass of tears
behind green scopes, he prayed.
there went Three, to guard the mind
behind the greatest gift to man, their
hope and their salvation; armored
Truth and Reconciliation.
Noble efforts, Noble corpses.
no Covenant could break
their vows; even the most
devout among Sangheili
would not dare desecrate what
bones had burned
for them to try, for them
to Reach.
when Six felt the cool earth
of Aszód
running rough under his blood,
he let himself remember
all those names
on all those tags,
six metals and
six chains.
and just like Five he thrust
their names
into the ground he marked with
shattered glass;
all their lives
tied up in tasteful smolder
buried but not broken
when came the final hour of
their one Long Night of Solace.