[P] The Praise of Thunder

[Eik]

Eik is not afraid of Calliope's touch, but he respects the distance between them and all the silent things which fill that empty space. He even craves it sometimes, the distance that speaks louder than intimacy. The safeness and the wanting of it.

"There is more than a single storm on the horizon." The sound of her voice sets his hair on end. He does not speak, he simply nods his head. As a boy he had always enjoyed watching the storms roll in, no shelter but his family pressed close to brace each other against the squall. In his mind, wide open and too big for his world, there was something both exciting and comforting about it all.

And then he grew up, and each storm became just another reminder of how easily perspective can change.

"what do you know of storms, stallion?"

He does not consider the tone of her voice or her haunting smile. What does he know of storms? As much as any beast of the earth who has felt the whip of the wind and the angry rumble of thunder. And perhaps more. What he does not say is that there are unseen storms that whirl beneath the skin. He does not say each storm has two names- the secret name and the one we speak. There are too many things he knows, too many words swallowed so he may say instead, slow and calm, what seems to him the only thing worth saying: "The storm always passes. And another always takes its place." It is the way everything is in this infinite world: spinning, balanced,, cyclic,,,

((we dive into the pattern (it swallows us, greedy yet patient, with a purr) and floating we realize the soup of the universe is full of things lost and found once more. In this upside down place, the water is orange. And when you sink here, you fly))

What is it we are trying to say? He pictures all his inadequacies unfolding before him-- the extent of them is overwhelming, and for a moment there is an angry, frustrated tightening of his lips. He wants to ask what she knows of storms, but how would he ever understand? What can we do when language is not enough? He searches and searches, all his questions rising into the dark and hungry horizon before he can speak them out loud.

Before them, and seemingly very far away, the festival stirs sleepily. Here and there, gentle dreamlike laughter rises above the masterful plucking of a harp. Somewhere a young man retches in the bushes, setting a flock of indignant sparrows in flight.

There are so many words in the unicorn, calling to him with a persistent tap tap tap on the inside of his head. But he knows too well that unlike blood, words must be freely given. "Would you tell me a story?" He asks, finally, the storm lending him electricity. He braves a smile, weak and short-lived. "Would you tell me your name?" He feels something like shyness, like modesty, and then the nervous discomfort that follows unfamiliar feelings. 

The wind kisses his cheek with the promise of rain, and he finds himself in a state of anticipation where one ought to feel dread.

-     -     -
There is no better way to know us
E I K
than as two wolves, come separately to a wood

@Calliope