HEAR WHAT IT SPOKE
UNDERNEATH
It seems to him that there are many things Eshek is not. But he had only tipped in hooves in her dark, spiraling waters.
So when she says it is everything, he looks again. More cautiously this time, he braces himself and then pins her mind like a spider beneath a magnifying glass. (a swarm of bees hums- come closer) squeezing firmly (dig deeper) but not so much that she breaks,
And he dives in. At the same time, he takes a step forward. The light that she shines sinks into his dark eyes where it does not escape. Her mind is a dry, rustling darkness, an ancient shadow that has outlived the light from which it was cast. She is familiar, so familiar! His ghosts gather round as gentle as butterflies and without seeing he feels them smile-- not at all sharp and wicked and eager the way they grin at him but gentle, like a greeting. Like a homecoming.
He extends his nose. When she exhales he is reminded of fruit rotting in the sun, offerings left on a forgotten altar. "I think you're wrong," he speaks simply, had never learned to speak any other way, even as an emissary. (devour me) When he finally reaches across those last few inches to touch her, it takes deliberate effort not to shudder at the feel of her skin.
He thinks she is wrong, he thinks Eshek is not everything, and he wants to show her why.
First he shows her what love feels like. The light of it (a pure light, nothing like the mockery that leaks from her eyes) though it is not the brightest-- indeed, surrounded by her infinite darkness, from far away it might seem as insignificant as a single star pulsing weakly in the vast night sky-- it illuminates the crevices of her mind, the spaces between the stacks of bones. It pulses, brighter and bright with each strobe, and then before it grows too bright (he is a private man, after all, and only shares enough to make a point) he shows her hope: far-flung, teal, glowing. Hope made only brighter by how far it is risen, sloughing ash like a dragon does its skin.
Last he shows her a memory. He is standing at the edge of a cliff, watching the waves toss themselves upon the rocks below. Marveling at how easy they make it look. The wind tugs at his mane not today and the sun warms his back not today and somehow, not just that day but every day after, life persisted against its better judgement. And life was all the more beautiful for it.
When he turns off the light of thought and and feeling and memory, the darkness seems to ring with loss-- can she hear it?-- does it matter?-- and he realizes those damn bells are still ringing, too, and the sound of them itches beneath his skin unscratchable.
"You don't belong here." He only needs to murmur now, close as they stand, and in his haggard eyes is something resolute. All the scum of the earth flock here now like a pilgrimage, and Solterra buckles with the weight of them but the wind whispers not today and the sun warms not today and he knows that if the days upon them should become the last in his too-long life, he won't leave this world before ripping the unholy light from Eshek's eyes.
@Eshek
Time makes fools of us all
