YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

The sensuality of the sea draws ardor from him in the same way a fresh wound draws blood; it dances; it covets; it rises in eagerness only to withdraw with shy sensualism. Perhaps Orestes asked her here for that very reason. The fickleness reflects their tentative affection; bold to reticent, outright to withheld. There are questions he assumes she will ask, perhaps on his prolonged absence or distant nature. It is not her, but a part of him riles with envy and the question whether her skin will smell like salt.

Orestes might explain more if only he knew how; if only he understood it himself. Instead he waits, and hopes she comes. Instead he waits, and stares at an impassive sea, one that flirts at his ankles, one backed by Terrastella’s ominous cliffs. They are just dark enough to evoke something primitive within him; a visceral fear, tied in no comprehensive thought, only the feeling he should be afraid of such a height, such a jagged edge…

Yet Orestes waits at their base, on a small beach that during high-tide must become nothing more than more sea. There is no sand; instead, rocks shift under-hoof. His eyes follow careening gulls; and then the sea; and then the sky. Ariel lounges on a distant rock spire; he, for once, is not luminous. Out of Solis’s territory and beneath the undercast Terrastellan sky, the Sun Lion looks nearly nondescript. He says nothing, but Orestes knows his thoughts are dubious. Matters of romance, to the lion, appear a waste of time. But Orestes cannot agree—although there is a part of him deeply uncomfortable in front of the spring sea, in another Sovereign’s land, with a creeping apprehension of the cliffs shadowing him.

Please come, he thinks. The invitation, sent by raven, had been brief. But they had minimal interactions since Orestes—

Well, since…

He swallows. The gulls careen overhead. The sea goes shush, shush, shush.  


  “speaking" || @Marisol

YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

Orestes does not expect her to arrive.

It does not suit a king to pine so, Ariel comments as Orestes catches sight of her, a dark silhouette nearly indistinguishable from the cliffside. He watches steadily as she nears. I cannot help it, Orestes thinks. You know that.

And Ariel, from where he lounges, rises only to recline again on his haunches. The lion possesses enough impassive majesty for the both of them, as he appraises Marisol’s gradual approach. A bleeding heart for anyone and everything.

Orestes says nothing; whatever courage he possessed drains from the expression she wears, the slight and nearly imperceptible tremble of her limbs. He would like to convince himself it is the brisk breeze that evokes such a reaction; he would like to convince himself it has nothing to do with him. But everything is in her voice when she says where have you been.

Although the golden sovereign cannot pinpoint how he knows or when it happened, Orestes is quite certain this is not the first time in his life he has disappointed someone he cares deeply for. It will not be the last. 

  “I have no worthy answer.”

Nothing more than a man with his feet in the sea.

It is true. 

Orestes feels very small beneath the cliffs; he feels even smaller beneath her gaze.

At last he sighs and the sound is quiet, broken.  “I woke up one day this winter and couldn't remember where I came from.” Orestes glances towards the sea, unable to hold her gaze. He is not the same man as when they first met.   “My memories were tied to magic belonging to a different world and… they’ve been fading all along. Now? I only remember waking up on the shore. I’ve been trying… to remember… and the harder I try the more it seems to vanish...”

Orestes trails off, a dreamer’s voice—and then abruptly he is brought back to the present. When he glances at her, his expression is raw.

He has mentioned this to no one else. That vulnerability frightens him. But rather than voice the fear, he says:


  “But that does not excuse my distance from you, Marisol.” He would apologise, but Orestes knows there are things that cannot be said sorry for. There are things the only answer to is ownership and so he stands, ready for a storm.

  “speaking" || @Marisol

YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

Ariel, as he watches the scene unfold, comes to intimately know the weakness of man. 

It is love.

He feels it through their Bond; the sudden, elated palpitations of the heart, the childlike nervousness that floods his Sovereign. What is any girl, if not an element to bring a man to his knees? What is any man, if not an object to incite the weakest sentiments of love and devotion in a woman? Among his kind, “love” is a the devotion of a mother to her cub and that is all. Perhaps that is why his disdain becomes analytic. It is only one more pitfall to guard his Bonded against.

Ariel, quietly this time through their Bond, more a suggestion of a thought than a real thought: She is only a girl, Orestes. Do not allow her to bring you to heel like a pup. But Ariel knows he will not listen; it is one of the few moments when the Sun Lion doubts Solis’s choice of Sovereign; one of the few moments if he wonders the over-wrought, empathetic heart that exists within Orestes’s chest is not, in fact, a great and terrible shame. Ariel turns from the pair, retreating to a more hidden alcove as Orestes begins his admission.

And Orestes feels that over-wrought, empathetic heart—the one that may be a great and terrible shame—turn in his chest. A figure of speech, of course; but it feels as if it beats in his throat, as if it makes his words come out choked. He expects condemnation.

More importantly, he wants it. If Orestes has earned anything, it is for someone he cares deeply about to look him in the eye and say, nothing is okay, nothing can ever be okay again. 

But she doesn’t. And in that refrain there is a fierce duality; he feels relief like he has never known and guilt that is insurmountable. 

Well, of course it does. You only have to tell me. Then, she steps close. 

In that moment, it is the relief Orestes chooses to take hold of. 

His eyes are full of her and nothing else; even the sea seems dim when she steps close, and the smell of her city assaults him in a way he does not terribly mind. It is the first time he has thought that perhaps, all along, Terrastella has been more suited for his disposition. Orestes still has trouble meeting her eyes; but at last he raises them, to say, “I am very sorry it has taken me so long to find the words.” There is a break in his voice, like striking flint. He feels himself come just a little more undone; and in that unravelling is, for the first time in weeks, a strange respite. 

Orestes holds her eyes, steady, steady, blue to gray. Are they not the sea and the overcast clouds, together? He presses the soft spot of his nose to her neck, to her mane, longer than he has ever seen it. In his softest voice yet, he admits, “I’m not sure I know who I am any longer, Marisol.” 

  “speaking" || @Marisol

YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD

I know who you are. And—I love him.

The confirmation of her love should be what assures him; it should be the thing that seals all his cracks as if with concrete, to prevent the bleeding of his heart, the fissures of his soul. But the affirmation causes his guilt, his sorrow, to well. In a voice thick with emotion, Orestes says,  “Thank you.” There is some comfort in the fact she smells of anything but the desert; but the sea will not leave them, he knows, and in the constant song of the ocean at his flank—he wonders if he has failed his ultimate atonement, which is suffering. Does loving her means he loves the others less? Orestes still knows these things: he had been a guardian, a keeper of souls. They had trusted him, and he had loved them, and Fate had given him an impossible mission; he could not save them and, even knowing that, Orestes still believes he could have. If only he had done something differently—if only he had tried harder…

And now, all of that is gone not only in actuality but in memory. Who was he meant to save? What could he have done differently? Would the forgetting mean he was destined to repeat the same mistakes, only with Solterra to fail this time? 

But Marisol says she knows him.

But Marisol says she loves him.

Even knowing he does not deserve it, Orestes’s relishes the sentiment. He pressed, now, his forehead against her; he inhales her warm scent and after a long moment the tension ebbs from his shoulders. Orestes chooses to accept it; Orestes chooses to believe, quite fragilely, that he deserves this love. Despite everything. Despite what he can remember, or can’t. Despite Solterra. Despite Terrastella. Despite the gods, and magics, and everything that can and does go wrong.

After a long moment, Orestes opens his eyes.   “Thank you,” he repeats, more strongly, and draws away so as to meet her gaze.  “I love you, too.” 

He loves her as one loves salvation; as one loves the raft upon which they cling. Yet Orestes does not admit that; nor does he even, perhaps, realise it.

  “Perhaps—“ he hesitates, before regaining confidence.   “--Let us return to the cliffs above? Maybe we can visit your Court, and—“ he does not say, hope it does not go as poorly as last time. For the first time he allows a delicate, mischievous edge to take over his expression. “Perhaps I can make up for lost times.” 

Meanwhile, Ariel has already begun his journey up the cliffside. In his own emotion, the Sun Lion glows too brightly to look at directly; and through their bond Orestes feels not only his disapproval, but his anger. Orestes's bonded has expressed more than once his disapproval for the relationship; yet there is something, too, like a momentary blockage between them.

Ariel will never admit that while Orestes cannot remember, Ariel does through their bond. Everything Orestes had felt, had known, had transferred to the Sun Lion. But how could Ariel admit he knew, intimately, all of Orestes's past?

It was better left dead; and so the lion leaves and Orestes ignores the tension between them choosing, instead, to smile even as he knows, deeply, and fearfully, just how fragile such happiness is. 

  “speaking" || @Marisol