YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

Tonight it is very difficult to conceal the fact he has been wild his whole life. In a civilised world full of dignity, books, and tea he has adapted well. But this does not mean there is not a primordial part of him boxed away, dormant but not extinct. There are too many noises. There are too many people. All his time in the sea has not prepared him for such extravagance, such celebration. His had been a people who had hunted and sung and danced, but their dance was the sinuous movement of dolphins end-over-end, of whales leaping from the surface, of a school of fish that move as a single entity—

This, yes this is a collection of individualistic bodies, sweating despite the cold. There is music and cider and figures wearing masks. Orestes has never seen anything like it; it unsettles him deeply. 

There is also an aspect, however, that intrigues him. An aspect that calls to his wild urges and his wild soul to celebrate the simple, brilliant fact he is alive. There is an aching hunger within him, an emptiness that is full of forgotten memories and dreams. He stares at the celebration but feels other,  feels too far away. Orestes, gild in gold, is at once something that stands apart and an individual the festivities revolve around. Whispers follow him through the crowd, as he takes a cider and edges the circling dancers. 

That’s him, they say.

That’s the Day Court Sovereign.

I heard his name is Orestes.

I hear he’s a foreigner. 

He forgets them. He forgets what they say. Very few have the courage to approach him, and besides, there is only one person in the Court he searches for. 

Orestes is surprised at how difficult it is to find her, at first; and then he is not surprised at all. Just as the frantic nature of the celebration unnerves his wild edges, it must unsettle her disciplinarian ones. When he does see her, he feels a fool for not having noticed her all along; she is at the perfect strategic vantage, capable of seeing everything that occurs within the courtyard at once. 

Why does his heart beat so wildly at the mere sight of her? Why does he feel sudden underprepared? His mouth is dry, and all the things he had thought to say—political matters, her court, his court—do not find their way to his lips. Orestes goes to make his way toward her, but is sidelined by several dancing bodies—a heavily decorated woman throws a wreath of pine, decorated in brilliant reds, around his neck. He shakes his head but does not dislodge the new decoration. 

Eventually—despite the obstacles of many moving bodies, smelling of cinnamon, spices, cider—he finds his way to her, through the crowd. And already he is doing that very thing that will one day get him in trouble, that will one day condemn him—he is speaking from his heart, and says, “They are beautiful.” Orestes approaches from the side. He stands still for a moment, staring across her Court, and for the first time truly looks. The beauty of it nearly takes him. The beauty of it nearly breaks his heart. When Orestes glances at her again (or for the first time, truly, with no distraction) his expression still carries the love he feels for the vivacious life around them. 

Marisol nearly takes his breath away. Orestes would never have thought to see her so festive, with an intricately braided tail—and thinks again how illy prepared he is. He smells so much of the sand, the sun—and perhaps, forever, the sea—and his mane hangs long and wild about his face. Orestes is windswept and nearly feral, and his beating heart does nothing but make him glow brilliant gold, as if with blush. It takes him a moment to realise that the beauty she exudes is not from the decorations; it is from her happiness. 

Perhaps it is that, which emboldens him. “But be careful, Queen Marisol.” His eyes are as alight as the sea in the sun. “Your Court has sabotaged you… you are sitting beneath mistletoe.” 

Why is his voice so breathless when he says it? He tries to disguise the fact with a lighthearted laugh, but the sound comes a little too late, is a little too soft. 

YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

The reality is too often different from the expectation, the want. There is a part of him, full of uncertainty, that expects the disappointment of the actualisation of their meeting. Orestes would be lying to himself if he thought, for even a moment, he had not been looking forward to their encounter. He would be a fool to say the only reason he was there was to attend the Terrastella’s winter festivities and make a political appearance. 

Orestes, however, is not disappointed. 

No.

The air fills his lungs crisp and sharp and he is reminded of all the life inside him, chiming with the bright expectation of a bell. 

No, he is not disappointed.

Dancers pass his flank with iridescent ribbon streamers, and Marisol’s expression transitions from surprise to pleasure, soft and unapparent. Perhaps he even imagines it. Perhaps it is not there at all—

And children are laughing somewhere, with hot chocolate steaming in their grasps, the tinkle of chimes that dance and jangle in their long manes. She says—

You look nice and 

his heart stops.

Orestes smiles and it is the pure, bright expression of a young boy taken pleasantly aback by a gift bestowed upon him. Then he feels a fool for not complimenting her first—but does he have to?

Does it not show in his eyes, in the way they do not simply look at her, but threaten to consume? Does it not show in the way he fights the urge to let them linger at that curve of the neck that, on another woman, might appear fragile—but on her is strong, and still somehow delicate? Does it not show in the way he takes careful note of her braided tail, and thinks, not for the first time, there is something poetic in how she smells of leather and dust and sea-salt—always a warrior? 

Does it not show in the way he is nearly breathless, his face bright with something that is not the glow of his magic, saying softly, “Thank you.” 

If he were not so captivated with the way she makes him feel, he might have noticed her slight hesitation and the way the tension leaves her in a sharp exhalation. Is she blushing? Is she as taken aback as he is? I suppose they think they’re looking out for me. Maybe they would feel better if they had a king, too. 

He thinks of many things in that moment and settles on a smile that is a little harder, a little more mischievous. It is not the smile of the sun prince but of what he once had been—an amorphous creature, unconfined by any laws, in love with the feral hunt. He asks, “And would you feel better, if you had a king?” There is a moment in the silence that follows, and in that moment—

In that moment, he wants to add: but you do not need a king. But it would be doing her an injustice. He notices the way her voice is soft, and Orestes would not be surprised if it is a tone she has never heard in her voice before. The hard, mischievous edge is abruptly replaced by something softer, something gossamer, the whisper of a breath shared in candlelight—this is a shape he does not know so well, any longer, soft and smooth as still water. 

Orestes came with a ruse of political propositions. He came to discuss trade, events, how to grow the relationship between their courts—

but when she stands he is so distracted by the elegant strength of her legs, the bright flash of one white heel, that those thoughts are undone. Any other day, he would have asked about her slender white hound, or the affairs of her court, or her books or blackberries or, or the cliffs of Terrastella, what it feels like to fly —

anything, anything.

His eyes are caught up in the tinsel and glare of the festival, the brilliant  candlelight, the sound of the dancers. His eyes are caught up in the beautiful braid, the thick darkness of her hair, the way her eyes are the colour of pooled ink and there is something roiling within him, something he has never felt in such a capacity.

Have you ever seen the see in a storm?

The way it breaks against rocks, against itself? The way it is gunmetal and sleek, turbulent water? The dark pit of the unfathomable, untameable? Those are his eyes, looking at her, wondering at everything she is and all he does not know. 

Always his heart has been an easy thing. Always it has come so naturally, with no weight; nearly flippantly. It had been easy for him to love his people, Solterra—but this is different, and he does not know why, or if it only that the song she sings is one he hopes to answer, to finish, the resolve.

What does it feel like? the mahogany mare had asked in the desert.

He had said, an unfinished poem and here, this moment, 

is it the final line? 

Come.

When Marisol says it, it feels as if he never died. It feels as if there is only tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and a thousand more after that. 

She tugs at the leaves of the wreath, she pulls him close. He wishes, briefly, they were swimming and there was water between them instead of air. Then, he might not feel so drawn to the heat of her chest. Then, he might not be so distracted by the soft—so soft—feel of her skin. 

Orestes voice is feather-light but somehow heavy, heavy, heavy. “How close?” He is close enough his lips are at the small of her ear, nearly touching, nearly touching… he inhales her, sea-salt and steel and something soft and warm, something like leather. He is close enough that he knows he wants more. 

He wishes it were the cider in him that made him so bold. 

But it is only him.

It is only Orestes, who says in a voice husky with want:

”I have another poem for you, Commander, Queen. Marisol.” He thinks of what it would feel like to undo the braid in her tail. Orestes recites, roughly: "It is by Rilke:

I want to unfold.

I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,

because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

and I want my grasp of things to be

true before you. I want to describe myself

like a painting that I looked at

closely for a long time,

like a saying that I finally understood,

like the pitcher I use every day,

like the face of my mother,

like a ship

that carried me

The wildest storm of all… It takes everything with him to draw back just enough to see her eyes. It takes everything within him to not kiss her then and there. 

“Could I ask you for a dance? Or... or...” 

Orestes wants to show her the sea and everything that is dark and wild within it, but does she not know? There is a voice within him, a prince’s voice, the voice of all he has ever known, saying, you could show her more. He could show her, he could show her—

And Orestes's tongue is tied with all the things he would like to, and all the things he would like to learn. 

“Or whatever you would like.” There is something brief, nearly innocent, in the flash of Orestes's teeth when he smiles. "Let me do something for you, Marisol."

Let me take the burden from your shoulders, he wants to say, but does not. Let me give you the gift, just for a night, of no burning duty. 

Perhaps someone is looking.

Perhaps someone sees them, standing so close.

Solterra and Terrastella. Day and Dusk. The sun, and the soft comings of night. 

YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

Marisol does not answer his question with words, and Orestes does not even believe he had expected her to. But her heavy eyes are answer enough; a silent communion exists within the iron-weighted expression of her gaze, in her slow and steady blink, her charming smirk. Orestes thinks of wolves beneath a winter moon; he thinks of the bright flash of their teeth and lolling tongues, and how they bring down the great stag only with the brightness of their eyes to speak.

Yes. It is a fierce image; bloody and strange. The capacity for violence; the hard intimacy of the hunt; the difficult to read expression of a thing at once beautiful, and tragic. 

Marisol says, then, My family says it was bad luck. Orestes is taken aback; he did not even realise the staring could have been the glance of the superstitious. 

“They were fools.” Orestes cannot help the bluntness, whetted like a blade. “It is beautiful.” Perhaps he is so dismissive of the superstition because he believes, instead, strongly in fate. In the preconceived plan that everything, even as it happens, had been thought of long ago. He softens his voice. “My people called marks like yours angel’s kisses, where you’ve been touched by—“ 

He doesn’t finish. Perhaps it is the noise. Perhaps it is the way everything except Marisol appears to blur and change and shift, a bright and exceptional display of vivacious colour. There is an almost-hunger to the celebration, an almost aching, as if the very heart of Terrastella throbs beneath their hooves. 

It is daring. As close as you want. Does she not know? Does she not feel the way he burns, the way even as she says it his mouth drops just a bit lower, just low enough that when he speaks again he touches the small of her ear and brushes her neck, near her short-cropped mane. Orestes is too attuned to her to not notice the way his breath makes her shudder; and there is a part of him, perhaps a little wicked, that delights in it. 

He feels on the precipice of wilderness, even in the crowd—and he wants to take her with him, to a place where they could simply be. The heat of bodies all around remind him nearly of his own people, in the sea, when they swam together. His next blink is languid, and the carefully erected borders of his self-control seem now to blur, to fade. Orestes did not realise how heavy his own burdens have felt until now. Orestes did not realise how alone he has been, until she smiles at him with a familiar shyness. Yes, but not here. 

She could take him anywhere, in that moment, with the way that she looks at him as if surprised, as if a light has turned on inside her, a flame lit. Orestes wants to peel back the layers of Queen, Commander, Halcyon, Dusk, until there is nothing but Marisol. He wants to ask, and ask, and ask—and give, and give, and give, until he is not Sovereign, Prince, Day, but only Orestes, Orestes Orestes. 

He follows her, close, close, close. Touching, Shoulder to shoulder, flank to flank. He cannot help himself. He nips playfully at her ear, swift and gentle. There is a mischievous light in expression that underplays the severity of mere moments prior; and a part of him, boyish, trembles with both uncertainty and want. 

Another part of him, larger, more mature, warns against every step further into the corridors of Terrastella. It tells him he is a Sovereign, and such a position has no room for fancy, for romance. 

The wildness in his blood is louder. The need, for just a moment, to feel like someone worthy of something so pure and kind as this.

“Tell me,” and again he is breathless, and his mind thinks of all the ways he knows how to dance. Orestes must think of anything else, and so he asks:  “What is it like to fly?”

Those memories of another life are already gone, where with a thought his amorphous body might have become a gull, a sea eagle, a sandpiper. His heart is too full in this moment to recognise the sadness of it; his heart is too full, nearly with bursting, at the possibility of asking her not only this, but everything, everything, everything.

Orestes does not know where she leads him, but they pass through hallways with flickering torches and on and on into the building. Terrastella seems, to him, cool and blue in contrast to Solterra’s brilliant sandstone and arid heat. There is a chill in the air that only enters the desert at night and he feels it creep along the nape of his neck despite the way his body, his magic, radiates heat. He looks at her; it is a seeking look, a piercing look. There is a moment, with that coldness in him and the warmth of her against his side, when he feels the aching in his heart quell. Just for a heartbeat. Just for a breath. He is simply there, in the moment, discovering what it means to be a man instead of a Soul-keeper, a Prince, a King. 

Orestes says, very earnestly: “Walking with you tonight is the first time I have not felt alone in this new land.” At once there is something sad and happy in his expression. "Thank you for that, Marisol." I don't know if I deserve it. 

YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

Orestes cannot remember the last time he felt young; he was born old, always with the weight of something unbearable upon him. The word rings in his mind. Chosen, chosen, chosen. His entire life he had been chosen to bear the hurts of others, and most days Orestes did not mind—it was a privilege. But in the darkness of Terrastella, in the soft blue light of the setting sun and the embrace of night, he feels not only young but hopeful. It is a warmth in his chest, an exploding star. It is flowers blooming in spring, and the flight of a bird, and the strange electricity that exists between them. It is there, everywhere his flesh touches hers; it is there in the way none of it feels like flesh, but the resonate call of life, life, life, something animated and pure, rushing as swift and sweet as a mountain brook.

The castle is unlike anything he has ever seen; the customs are strange to him, and he marvels at the conifer, adorned with strange  and flashy tinsels. The festive brightness of the poinsettias delights him as it might a child; and when she sets down the porcelain he starts, so enraptured with the scene. 

Everything is torch-light soft. The hard edges he has grown accustomed to in Solterra are less sharp; Quiet, and cold, in a good way. Like the freedom of running, but much, much more. It is beautiful. It makes you feel… very small. I think that is a good thing. 

Orestes smiles. It is a sad, but knowing, type of smile. “I would like to fly very much, I think. That is what the sea used to feel like to me…” He trails off, because now is not the time for such reminiscing. Although honest, Orestes is surprised at how easily the admission slips from his tongue; he is surprised that is so easy to bare such a vulnerable, intimate piece of himself.

He wonders if she realises what a large piece of him, it is. 

Of course, Orestes.

When Marisol says it, Orestes knows that she does. 

The food and drinks are forgotten; the brilliance of the conifer, no longer of concern; it is only her. 

Orestes looks at her; and he does so with a feeling in his heart as if he is plunging, again, into the deep of the sea. The part of him that suffers, the part of him that bears the weight of Solterra and his past both, is small and silent. There is just a thing like a soul sighing; there is just a finality of yes, yes, yes as she moves to press against one white curl, then his neck, shoulder, the small of his spine—

he can feel her heartbeat as if it is his own. 

He cannot tell her how much the vulnerability she offers means. Orestes does not have words; he holds it against him with all the tenderness one would a bird. Her breath makes chills down his spine. Orestes curls his head and neck around her own, a near embrace, and steps forward to make her step back. “Like this.” And his voice is dark; his voice is the whisper of sheets against sheets; the sound of a page turning against itself. Yet, there is a part of him still hesitant, still halting; the idea that too much, too soon, you are a sovereign and so is she, the sun, the sun, you have no right to feel this way—

And then Orestes presses two steps forward, and draws one step back. He entices her to a dance, with glittering, sea-deep eyes. 

A heartbeat between them, birdlike. He wonders if she can feel the way he just-so-slightly shakes. He leads her with the press of his body; the strong curve of his neck, the pressure of a leg here, or there. Orestes marvels at how she responds, how the dance is sinuous, nearly like battle—but softer, gentler. Orestes wonders if this is close to what it feels like to fly. For a moment Orestes moves forward, his shoulder against hers, and leads her into a flourishing spin. There are small, intimate touches—curious, polite, the touch of his muzzle along the arching curve of her neck, his cheek against hers—brief, so brief—or a brush of his lips, just so, along her shoulder.

Orestes does not know how long they dance; long enough that he does not feel like a Sovereign, only a man, drunk on the idea of possibility. He does not know how long the magic light from the conifer twinkles upon them; or how long the poinsettias watch. He only knows that for a moment, poignant and eternal, the weight of the world is not upon his shoulders. 

Only this one thing, right here; only this beautiful girl. 

And at last he pulls away; at last he pulls away. 

But not too far; just far enough to look her in the eyes. Just far enough to say, “Marisol,” breathless, and 

and think of how his heart is in exquisite pain, 

a sort of aching, longingly; 

like looking at a sunset,

or running along the border

of the sea and land. 

“Mari.” 

Not Commander. Not Queen. Please, let me show you

how to be just a person, just alive. 

And then, full of daring,

thinking of what it feels 

like to fly, 

he kisses her. 

@Marisol || "speech"

YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

Orestes’s entire life has been one endless sprint down a dark corridor toward something good, something lighted, something golden—

And always it stretches further, further, further away. So close he can see it, at times. Close enough to touch, to taunt him into belief that for once it is his, and he may hold happiness in his grasp, in his heart. 

Then, he opens his eyes again; then, he realises it is gone. 

No one gestures of y— 

Another unfinished poem. The joy he feels for a moment is impenetrable; it is a star exploding behind his closed lids. The soft feeling of security, of acceptance, of an end to the echo that is his own loneliness. He feels fiercely mortal and is gladdened by it; the electric heat between them, the endless heartbeats—

Then she pulls away. 

He is reeling. 

The feeling that builds within him is as if he’s stepped off a ledge; his stomach is in his throat; his heart is beating between his ears, loud, so loud. Can she hear it?

It is the look she gives him, that reminds him he is not meant for such soft, gossamer privileges. His stomach drops again; Orestes's blood feels cool, cool, cool, and the passion of a moment prior is replaced by sudden, terrible resolve. He knows this look. 

Dazed. Stunned. Fearful.

He withdraws—and he hates himself for it, but there are pebbles trembling at his feet; his tattoos are glowing, glowing, glowing more brightly than the heart of a fire, than a welded sword. He feels hot. He feels burning, and his voice is hoarse, “Marisol.” 

It is the look she gives him, fleeting, the look of a woman already half-gone that reminds him he is not meant for anything except for the ache, ache, ache of duty.

And is this not your punishment? 

To think you could escape it? 

He remembers Solterra’s burning lion. 

Sit. Sit, and remember you are ash. 

Her voice is full of pain—the same pain in his heart, or a different kind? He wants to ask but cannot bear it. He had pushed too far, had stepped to close; had been something, he was not meant to be. (Happy? A man, a mortal? A dancer instead of a Prince?) 

I think your people will begin missing you soon. 

Perhaps that would have been enough. Perhaps that would have been bearable. 

But it is not when she winds the green ribbon about his throat and kisses him, soft and as brief as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. 

Somewhere, distantly, he can hear the party. The high jubilation of the celebration in the voices of her Court, where he does not belong. His magic is weak so far from his desert home; and the light that radiated from him in happiness turns cool and silver in his sorrow. He pauses, a thousand things on his mouth—a poem, any poem—but no thought manages to survive long enough to be said. 

Orestes watches her go.

He watches her go as he 

has watched everything leave him; 

with the same inevitability of sand through clenched fingers, of water through cracks, of something whole escaping something broken.

If he were another man he might have been full of anger; of confusion; disbelief. If he were another man, the rejection would have been a shard in his chest. If he were another man, he would shout an apology to chase her as she turned fro him. If he were another man, he would pursue her, would quote more poetry, would... be something other than he was. (And how he wishes he could.) 

But Orestes only ventures to the table where she set their drinks; he throws both of them back and, with her no longer in sight, turns to walk down the same corridor they had just journeyed through. 

Perhaps it is because he has loved so many wild things in his life that he is able to let her go. Perhaps it is because he knows, in the same way he has always known his fate, the he is only meant to hold the heart’s of others. Anger wells within him, sharp and unforgiving; but it is anger at himself, anger at his own stupidity. 

He had thought—

He had thought, for just a moment—

He had thought he could do something for himself. The words resonate within him as he is buffeted by the dancing crowd, as he pushes his way through the mass of celebrating bodies toward the exit, and further, further, until he is trotting through the dark streets of Terrastella and out, out, out into the prairie beyond, searching for the stars to lead him home. 

But the night is cloudy and cold. Orestes’ breath comes quickly and for a moment he does not know which way to go. There is so much—there is so much—

Why would you think, for even a moment, that you deserved those moments? 

Orestes thinks of the feeling as they danced; two entities of a whole, complimenting, emphasising, becoming. 

But now, Orestes is alone. And his mind is painted with the expression on Marisol's face, and a dozen others, when he fell short of what they had needed. The green ribbon feels warm and condemning about his throat; but it is with one more breath that he resolves himself to be, again, a Prince. As old, and full, and sad as the sea. 

He begins to trot toward Solterra. 

@Marisol || "speech"