HEAR WHAT IT SPOKE
UNDERNEATH
He had not expected her to receive him. Oh, she does not turn from his light and his little trinkets of memories but instead she opens herself to him! Opens like arms or jaws or thighs, makes him feel wretched and lost, a little boy in a landscape beyond dreams putting black flowers into his mouth. Somewhere the moon is shining violet.
"You are young." He makes a sound. It is like a laugh and a cough and a gasp at the same time. But mostly a laugh, a barking laugh, empty of humor or joy. His bones already ache unless drenched in salt water and his back already feels bowed from the weight of the years he's lived. If this is youth, how miserable age must feel.
And yet-- she does not feel miserable to him. Or does she? He is confused by her shadows, her light, and whether her welcome is friendly or hungry. He is disgusted and angry and uncomfortable.
"Of course I belong here."
Of course she belongs here.
Of course. A river would not change its course, a blade would not bend, a truth would not cease to be true simply because he wanted it to. What ever gave him that sense of entitlement? Was it love? Or loss? Or maybe all of it, all the ways he's been torn apart and pieced back together again, all the blades pushed into and pulled back out of his chest, all the sand in his wounds and the heavy, thankless stone eyes of his country.
He thought-- it was so foolish, but he had thought-- no, he believed that he could be so full of anger and so full of grief, so overflowing with these black-eyed emotions that weakness would become strength. Diamonds are crushed into existence by the weight and the heat of this world, so why not-- so when will it be enough-- so what--
He draws away, feels the air rush in dry and warm where her skin once pressed against his. "What are you?" He takes a step back, breathes in Solterra, feels a little more grounded and a little more lost. "I don't understand," he shakes his head the way a bell might toll. The way it does toll, relentlessly. "help me understand."
@Eshek
Time makes fools of us all
