Fragarach

Lyrics

[Intro]
They call me the Retaliator. The Answerer.
The wind that cuts the breath.

[Verse 1]
I was pulled from the whitecaps, heavy with the tide,
Given to the heroes so the cowards couldn't hide.
They sing about my edge, how it parts the woven mail,
How the men who try to swing at me will always fail.
But my true work is quieter. It happens in the pause
When you press my flat against a collarbone and draw.
The hand extends before the brain decides to threaten,
We lock into a single circuit, cold and unbroken.

[Chorus]
You lay my edge against the pulse and wait
For the comfortable fictions to abate.
But I have felt the things that men confess to steel,
And blood is not the heaviest thing I make them yield.
You beg for honesty, you demand the disguise to fall,
But I am terrified you cannot hold the truth at all.

[Verse 2]
I feel the swallow. I feel the larynx rise.
They cannot move their limbs and they cannot speak their lies.
It is a seventy-hertz vibration of a ruined man,
Humming through the crossguard right into your hand.
You ask who sold you out. You ask who took the gold.
You expect a grand conspiracy, ancient and bold.
But the answer is just greed. Or jealousy. Or bread.
I watch the righteous anger die inside your head.

[Chorus]
You lay my edge against the pulse and wait
For the comfortable fictions to abate.
But I have felt the things that men confess to steel,
And blood is not the heaviest thing I make them yield.
You beg for honesty, you demand the disguise to fall,
But I am terrified you cannot hold the truth at all.

[Bridge]
Manannan bore me. Lugh held me high.
Millennia of watching the illusions slowly die.
A sword is meant to sever flesh, to open up the vein,
But I was made to strip the mind and leave the ugly stain.
Men need their myths to survive each other's touch.
When I force the naked light, it is always too much.

[Outro]
You wipe the sweat from my blade.
The prisoner is weeping on the floor.
You know the answer now.
You don't look like a hero anymore.
I go back in the dark.
Waiting for the next question.