She does not meet his gaze and he, too, looks away, not wanting to seem demanding or expectant or anything but here for her, with her. Eik tries to record everything to the finest detail in his memory as he waits patiently for her to gather her words, knowing full well how difficult that can be even on a normal day. Certainly, time will warp his memories, but right now everything is sharp and achingly detailed.
“…I thought that they would give us answers, but I only have more questions”
He nods- he words seem to have been the general consensus from the regimes as they threaded through the woods back to their people. Those three big letters, juggled (without much skill) from horse to horse: w h y. Eik, too, had dared to hope for some answers or a bit of guidance—anything but more gods damned (or in this case blessed?) questions. Despite his hopes he had not expected answers, knowing the sting of disappointment that would follow. “At least we’re still alive.” he offers a tentative, humorless smile. “We’ll get our answers one way or another, or we’ll die and it won’t matter anyway.”
He realizes that he hasn’t learned about what the citizens of Novus think of the afterlife or lack thereof, but now doesn’t seem like the right time to bring it up. Another day, maybe. It is his turn to answer now,
his turn to hesitate.
Eik always valued the truth above all other things, yet he was always better at speaking candidly to strangers than friends. You can be anyone to a stranger, but a loved one… sometimes they need you to be something you’re not. Sometimes they just can’t understand the difference between who you are and who you seem to be.
(you don’t mean to keep secrets in your heart-- they keep themselves)
He’s kept face through the trial of the gods, and after as they gathered their people round to share what had happened. But it is just the two of them now, and with a single sigh the mask crumbles to an expression of exhaustion, frustration, and fear, restrained only (barely) by an odd sort of detached calm. "I am afraid of what will happen when the gods become tired of this place and these people." One word- afraid- casts a long, flickering shadow like the half-melted candles at Solis' broken feet. His gaze rests on those candles but his mind is elsewhere- he's thinking of the sun god running rampant across Novus, he's thinking of a fire that would consume all the world.
A breeze picks up and stirs his thoughts like fallen leaves- It never changes, this pattern woven in time-- I want to run, but where could I go that they could not follow? And how could I leave everyone, how could I leave you? He thinks of all the faces he’s come to know and respect here, one by one they parade through his thoughts like a herd of ghosts. When they are gone, all that is left is Eik and Seraphina and the wind gently caressing the broken statue of a god.
But oh, Eik was not built for fear. When it comes, he shoves it away to odd compartments inside of him, wherever it can be hidden, because he does not know what else to do with it- and, forgotten, it festers like an untreated wound. It rots, and the rot grows, and the more he tries to ignore it the worse it gets.
(Calliope had saved him for a time-- oh Calliope, who could bring the gods to their knees-- but faith can only go so far, and the feelings she stirred up in him only grew rotten)
He was not built for fear so it does not last. As soon as he speaks that one word- afraid- it is released, like a breath he did not know he was holding until it is gone. His next words are quiet and tense as a drawn bow. "I am angry." His chest quivers with a rage that he barely understands, the sort of smoldering rage that is born only when sorrow becomes too much to bear.
"I met a god once, dressed in horseflesh." He looks to Seraphina again, trying to catch her mismatched gaze with his of solid, gleaming black.
(they are all different heads on the same body, monsters in the skin of saviors, dreams that we believe into being.)
He remembers being devout, in another lifetime. Back when his legs were too long for his body and every season was winter. He had freed himself from that trap before Seraphina was even born, and he’s been running ever since. There are only a few things he knows for certain, and this is one of them: “Nothing good comes of their meddling.”
- - - - -
I am keeping quiet
E I K
But one day, the forest will talk about me
art by Pherigo
@
Time makes fools of us all
