The bonfire was easily twice my height. I don’t think I had ever seen a fire so large, or so many of them. They were strung out along the coast like beads on a necklace. They were so captivating, although I find myself at a lack of words to describe how or why. Earlier that night I swam out in the dark water to view the spectacle from the sea. I tried to imagine what a kelpie would think, to see the blazes for the first time. I secretly hoped I might find one, drawn to the light on the cliffs, but as far as I could tell I was alone in the water.
I was drying out and warming up by one of the fires when a boy stumbled up to the warm glow. I could immediately tell he was very drunk. The smell of wine hung in a cloud around him. On closer inspection his lips and legs were stained with the drink, a deep purple-red that reminded me of violent sunsets at their very last moments.
I myself had sipped some wine earlier in the day. I had been curious, and there was no one to stop me. It made me feel dizzy and at the time I had not desired more. But one stolen glance at the boy’s smiling wine-dark lips and I wanted what he had. I wanted his buoyancy, his confidence, his sea-swept ease of being. I wanted to believe it was the wine which gave him these things, and so it could give them to me, too.
I only wanted to be someone other than myself when I was around other people. I think that’s why I was most comfortable alone.
I felt nervous talking to anyone that wasn’t old... but I stubbornly fought such nonsensical emotions. To do anything else would be too much like validation. I cleared my throat, telling myself it was smoke that made it suddenly hard to speak. “Did you know you’re supposed to write down your worries and throw them into the fire?” I had to raise my voice to catch his attention over the crackle of the fire. “I think it’s supposed to... make you feel better. Lighter.” He didn't seem to need any help with that though. I angled my head and returned my gaze to the fire as though consulting its opinion on the matter.
Personally, I found the activity a little childish-- I was only there for the warmth.
Such is life
Short as a day;
Full of strife,
Work, thought, and play
the salt is on the briar rose
the fog is in the fir trees.
Don’t get too close to the fire, Casp.
Why - worried I might fall in?
More like combust.
Caspian snorts a laugh, though he doesn’t deign to respond to the bat as he nears the fire. Benvolio isn’t truly worried, anyway; overhead the paint can hear the faint click of his sonar as the bat swoops intricate patterns in the dark. Really, it’s the cliffside he should be careful of, as the wine has rather interrupted his equilibrium - but he’s run up and down this coast as nimble as a goat since his first day standing, so that doesn’t worry him either. (Little does, especially tonight.)
There is a girl by the fire, a unicorn. The paint leaves some room between them, a quarter-curve of the circle, but his gaze lingers on her even before she speaks, because she’s young, and pretty, and a stranger. Oh, Caspian does love the festivals, bringing new blood into town. He’s just sober enough not to stare, and looking, somewhat mesmerized, into the belly of the flames when she clears her throat.
He’s glad for the excuse to look at her again, wondering where she’s from, what she might be looking for tonight. Tourists were always easy marks, susceptible to one thing or another - though maybe not when his legs were stained with grapes, and probably his teeth as well.
She beats him to speaking, but only just. At her question (once his mind interprets it, running a few beats behind as it is) he grins, nods. “Aye,” he says, pitching his voice louder as well, though as drunk as he is it’d be like a shout in a quiet room. “Your worries to the fire and your wishes to the sea.”
At her following statement, he laughs the same way he had at Benvolio, only the snort is quickly followed by a hiccup. That is a little embarrassing, but maybe she’d missed it over the constant snap and hiss of the flames, or the murmur of the sea, or something.
“That’s what the wine’s for,” he says, and is relieved when it isn’t punctuated by another hiccup. “So which did you come for?”
It was good he didn’t look right at me for too long. If he did I probably would have ran, stupidly cautious as a doe, not looking back until it was too late to see he never meant me any harm. In hindsight, I was so very trigger shy. But that’s just youth, and I can’t blame myself my softness.
The reflection of ambers danced in the light of his eyes, their lives so short and beautiful I was almost envious. I had always been well aware of the many years ahead of me (in fact it made me sometimes reckless, untouchable, full of the certainty I could be hurt but never killed, not yet) and sometimes the weight of my unlived life, the expectation, the obligation, it all made me feel like I was made of stone.
But I am not made of stone. I am flesh and bone and blood and heart, and sometimes when I find a whim I hold it tight.
I suppose Caspian became a whim of mine, that night. I liked his voice, his accent, the roughness of it like coconut husk rolled down my spine-- but I had absolutely no idea what to do with this liking. If I knew then what I know now, it would have been a very different course of events. But, of course, I didn’t.
“You mean did I come for worries or wishes?” I smiled, finding both equally silly. I didn’t see any reason to travel so far to relieve myself of either-- we had bonfires and ocean in Denocte. In abundance. “I just came to see someplace new. I’ve never been to Terrastella.” There was a contemplative quiet. “It’s not as different as I thought it would be.”
But that was not here nor there, and while heaviness was my default I did not want to weigh down the boy’s delectable lightness. I took a sly step closer. The fire felt warm on my chest. “And you? No wait-- let me guess.” I grinned, emboldened by his hiccups. “You’re here for the wine.” A heavy pause. I had not yet learned to flutter my lashes, so in that span of time I simply looked at him without blinking. “I haven’t had any tonight.” I cast a meaningful glance to his cup. I did not realize I could be manipulative, until I was-- and to my surprise, it came exceedingly easily.
the salt is on the briar rose
the fog is in the fir trees.
There is something charming about her matter-of-factness. Caspian has never been one to give the ritual quite as much weight as some of the tourists - and many of the locals - did, and though he hadn’t expected her to feel the same he finds himself glad when she does, and more curious too.
“You chose a good first visit,” he says, and slants a considering look at her. “Let’s see…bonfires and drinking and nothing terribly different means you must be from Denocte.” He’s pleased with his sleuthing, no matter how elementary, though almost at once he wishes he would have asked her for her own opinion on what was the same, and what different. He has been part of Terrastella his whole life, and to see it from fresh eyes would be a treat.
But he doesn’t, and it doesn’t really matter, and when she steps closer his smile widens to reflect her own. Caspian laughs at her assessment, and doesn’t even pretend to be wounded.
“I’m here for the camaraderie,” he answers, and means it - after all, there is something special about tonight, when he isn’t just some muskrat from the coast selling trinket to tourists and guiding smugglers to perfectly secret coves, but just another horse who calls Terrastella home, who has salt and swamp-water in his blood and stardust in his eyes and a thousand ancient drums beating his heart ever onward. It is good to see everyone together like this, even when he isn’t making money off those too drunk to pay proper attention.
But still he grins, or half-grins - a little fishhook-curl of one side of his mouth, as he meets her eyes. They are blue, almost as dark as his own, and they shine in the firelight, and he reckons they would shine out of it too. “But also the wine. It’s free, after all.” This may not matter to a princess, but it absolutely does to such as him. Caspian does not misinterpret her look, no matter how drunk he is; he offers his glass to her with all the gravity of a jewel-encrusted chalice. “Well, that’s just bad luck on a night like this - you’d better take mine.”
Somewhere in the night, he could swear he hears the tiny sound of a bat’s cough.
He guessed where I was from so easily! I laughed with surprised delight. There were really only three options for him to guess from, but I was impressed by how confident he was in his assessment of me. In fact there was a shadow to my laugh, for as much as I was impressed by him, I was disappointed in myself. I wanted to be shrouded in mystery like Isra; beguiling, less than solid. Instead my traitorous heart burrowed its way through my chest and onto my sleeve. Very fresh, trailing blood-- an easy target even for the most novice of hunters.
(I wonder-- Did they ever stop to ask themselves if it was a trap?
If I speak at times as though I don't know myself, it's because I really don't. I believe no one does. We change too much, too often. What I share with you are only memories, not promises.)
When his smile widened to match mine, it felt like a game. Like a gamble, only one of us could win. My heart beat just a little faster; I had always been fiercely competitive.
“So it isn't always like this? It feels like everyone here is one big happy family.” Everyone seemed buoyed by the festivities, and even those who had too much to drink seemed harmless. Terrastella felt very… safe to me, particularly in comparison to the dark alleys and underground secrets of Night Court. I knew this sense of safety was likely an illusion, a trick of the bonfires as they cast the shadows far back from the cliffside. I knew that the warm glow was a false promise which did not guarantee safety, and I--
I had the strangest urge to take that light, and twist it, and paint myself with the brief darkness living in the flicker of the light. There was a howl always stuck in my throat, and as I felt recklessness wash over me it ached for release. But I contained myself-- for now. I washed down my urges with a gulp of the wine so generously offered, and tried not to cough as the alcohol tickled the back of my mouth. “Thank you, friend.”
In my mind the word friend had been shaped with more sarcasm or tartness. Something a little sly, a little wily. But on my tongue it only sounded grateful... Maybe even a little desperate. I felt a heat in my cheeks I could not attribute entirely to the fire and the wine. I was very grateful Furfur was out on the hunt, for I'm sure he would have laughed at me mercilessly. In those youthful days we found great joy in heckling each other.
Then there came upon us a moment of quiet that seemed to creep on just a little too long. I was very sensitive to what others might perceive as an awkward silence, so I hurried to fill it with the first thing that came to mind. “You smell like fish.” My heart leapt from my sleeve and off the Pristigia Cliffs, where it then sank to the bottom of the sea. Meanwhile my entire body went stiff with embarrassment.
I wanted to die.
I love the dark hours of my being. My mind
deepens into them.
the salt is on the briar rose
the fog is in the fir trees.
Her laughter feels like a prize, something he wants to earn again. The bonfire smoke softens the outside edges of things, and the wine softens the inside edges, and for the first time Caspian feels like it could be a special night. Not just in the once-a-year sense, but once in a lifetime.
But her question brings him down from that feeling, just a little bit, which frustrates him in a restless kind of way. Home is always a sore subject to dreamers and wanderers of Caspian’s caliber; no matter how well he knows the caves and the shoals and the tides and the cypress swamps, no matter that he loves them too, his thoughts are always out, away, beyond. “That’s the wine, too,” he says, not quite kindly, with a shrug of one blue-freckled shoulder. Then he sighs, which feels close enough to an apology to Terrastella. “Nah, it’s alright. All the trouble’s kept hushed here.”Better that way, Benvolio intrudes, and Caspian bites back just boring.
His grin isn’t gone for long - it never really is - and it resurfaces like a sun-slick curve of a dolphin’s back when she takes a gulp and calls him friend. “Cheers,” he says, and finishes whatever’s left in the glass until only sugar and shine remains, glowing with firelight.
Until she speaks again, he’s caught by the tongues of flame, tasting the darkness and reaching higher. Fire is a mesmerizing thing even to the uninebriated, and it takes the bat’s laughter for him to realize what she’s said.
He’s too accustomed to the comment to feel truly embarrassed, though it isn’t just the wine that makes his flush grow warmer. To be called fish-boy was one thing from the village children, whom he could (and did) ignore with great alacrity, but to be so accused a stranger, and a pretty one -
But Caspian recovers quickly. He looks at her, a brow raised, and turns his grin wolfish. “‘Course I do. That’s what all us kelpies smell like. And you smell delicious.” In his drunken judgement, he leans over and clicks his teeth playfully near her ear.
He studiously ignores the Oh, Caspian that sighs in his mind. And anyway, she does smell delicious - like woodsmoke, and wilderness, and the crisp leaves of autumn. Probably that’s all he’ll be left with, in a moment.
I was about to say “I mean-- you smell like the sea.” For his scent contained far more nuance than mere fishiness. His was the scent of brine and seaweed, the freshness and the almost-danger of the wild edge where the waves crashed into the cliffs. It was hard not to like those in-between places. Like the foothills that straddled the prairie and the mountain, or the tree line above which the armas were bald and rocky or else covered in snow. Or, of course, the ocean where it met the continent. The ocean being my favorite for it had a different mood every time we met.
But Caspian could not know what I did not say. All he knew was that I thought he smelled like fish. Bless him for rolling with my embarrassing attempt at… well, whatever that was. Flirtation? He was much better than I at this game. But I would learn!
The clack of his teeth just inches away from my ear sent goose pimples down my neck. I laughed, my embarrassment quickly fading and amusement taking its place. “You’re terrible and I don’t believe you.” And then I realized how close he was standing and I felt a little breathless. Like there was something heavy pressed against my chest. “I was just kidding, you know. About the fish. I don’t know why I said that... You smell nice.” I barely registered the words slipping out of me, they were just noise. I hadn’t realized before then how space and silence complemented each other, how the less space there was, the more I felt like I needed to hurry and fill the silence.
A neater solution would have been to take a step back, but I didn’t particularly want to do that.
I opened up my mouth to say something else meaningless when somewhere in the distance a wolf began to howl. My wolf. Calling for me, long and loud, in a language that swayed me more than boys and wine and fires. I turned my head and looked deep into the darkness as though I could see into the night’s mysteries, my brow furrowed in a stern line.
When I finally turned back to the boy and the firelight, it dawned on me that I was afraid of the person I would become if I stayed. I was not ready to give up a piece of my heart, and his grin was quickly breaking down my hastily-built walls. I was not ready to be anything more than just a girl roaming the world with a demonic wolf-pup at her heels. “My wolf is calling. It might be a prank, but it could also be something interesting, or he could be hurt...” Despite my love of brevity, I often used too many words to say sorry. I do not remember how long I hesitated before speaking again; I got myself all tangled up in his eyes and time got soft.
“So, um, I’m gonna go now. If you’re ever in Denocte, ask around for me. My name is Aspara.” I bumped his cheek with my nose in a rough and hurried goodbye that was too embarrassed to be a kiss, and I laid the rest of his wine gently on the ground. As I slipped away I only looked back once, and I caught his gaze with a grin before I gave myself to the night.
I love the dark hours of my being. My mind
deepens into them.
@Caspian always a joy to write with you <3 and I realized I never shared where the thread title is from!
"She stared at the conched hillside / as though the season became her. / As though a threshold was opening / Somewhere inside her, no woman more beautiful than she was. / No song more insistent than the beat of that white foot, / As she stepped / full of desire. / Her golden shoe like a sun in the day’s deep chamber. / I remember the way she looked as she stood there, / that look on her face."
— Charles Wright
the salt is on the briar rose
the fog is in the fir trees.
To her credit she takes it well, though he could have done with at least a moment of belief before the laughter; but Caspian settles back, just a little, at the sound. She has a good laugh, he thinks, one he wouldn’t mind hearing again.
“You’re terrible and I don’t believe you,” he parrots back to her, but his smile has settled back into its usual self, and for now at least he isn’t offended. Maybe that will come later, with sobriety and a headache in the blurry morning - but maybe not even then. The paint is not a man easily knocked down; he is too young, and the world too full of possibility.
But even he falls silent and still at the sound of the wolf.
It is not an entirely new noise, not here where everything was still a little wild at the fringes, but it still raises the hairs at the back of his neck. Caspian does not look into the darkness, though, but at the unicorn, with the firelight glancing off her horn and her eyes now dark and deep. He can tell the interest there is something more than curiosity, or fear - still, when she says my wolf, an eyebrow arches without his asking. “You have a wolf?” he asks, and it plays pranks? wants to follow, but does not - anyway, Benvolio would probably play pranks, if he were bigger or bolder.
(Hey,) says the bat into his mind, and Caspian thinks you know what I mean. And come on - a wolf!
“I hope he isn’t hurt,” he says, but there was something wild and beckoning in that howl that young boys like himself were not immune to, and he almost - almost - asks if he can go with her.
But then she touches his cheek, and she is going already, and he is too drunk to follow with any kind of grace. So he says “I will,” and then calls “I’m Caspian!” after her into the darkness, which holds the moon-color of her like an after image even when the sound of her hooves is swallowed up by distance and the crackle of the fire. He watches where she vanished until Benvolio swoops down out of the darkness and clings to his mane, then he returns to his wine, laughing softly to himself.
