The canyon walls glow a hungry shade of red-orange in the light of the setting sun. Veins of quartz scissor across the sandstone in a fashion that almost seems to mirror the grey man and his scars. As he walks he touches the walls and imagines how they were formed (slowly and under immense pressure) and then gradually shaped. Would a man be shaped in the same way, if he were to live for centuries? Against his cheek the air is dry and cool, almost like that of a crypt as it rises from the shadowed canyon floor.
It seems fitting, for someone on his way to see a ghost.
Even if she never really died, he believed her dead, and what are other people if not a flesh-colored vessel to hold all we think of them? He mourned her, and long after the time for mourning had passed he kept his grief close to heart. The only chance he had of escaping that grief was to leave Solterra, but that was the also only thing he could not do. There was too much work to be done, and far less willing to do it. Anyway, he had done enough running from the past for one lifetime.
The strange thing was, to learn his queen was alive provided only the most marginal relief. He had to see her for himself, he had to know it was truth and not an elaborate illusion, a trick of the light buoyed by hope or magic. Would she be the same? (of course she wouldn’t, he thinks– what they don’t say about phoenixes is that they never rise from the ashes the same bird that kneeled to the flame) Would she be disappointed in him? Well that too was a foolish question. Of course she would.
He ran off to love (which is easy to mistake for happiness. It is not– it’s much better) and in his absence everything crumbled. It all fell apart so quickly, everything he worked for– everything she worked for. Everything the two of them, and Bexley Briar, strove to accomplish together, all those carefully laid plans and unspoken dreams.
In the end, the fruits of their labor tasted of iron and ash.
Of course, it was foolish of him to expect anything else. Anything more. Life was a struggle, a fight to the very last breath. He knew that. But he was a drowning man who did not know how to die, and so he grasped at hope-- stubborn, persistent hope. He wanted their kingdom to be beautiful. We don’t need to explain where hope got him.
His thoughts narrow as the canyon widens to a sandy clearing. The last of the day’s light streams down, carving the still air into chunks of light and shadow. He steps into the sunlight. Before him, in a place he cannot see, something stirs. “Is it true that the burning one has returned?” As he calls to the darkness, his heart quickens against his will. He never learned how not to hope.
E I K
grief can be a kind of music
that knows how to rise like the sea
It seems fitting, for someone on his way to see a ghost.
Even if she never really died, he believed her dead, and what are other people if not a flesh-colored vessel to hold all we think of them? He mourned her, and long after the time for mourning had passed he kept his grief close to heart. The only chance he had of escaping that grief was to leave Solterra, but that was the also only thing he could not do. There was too much work to be done, and far less willing to do it. Anyway, he had done enough running from the past for one lifetime.
The strange thing was, to learn his queen was alive provided only the most marginal relief. He had to see her for himself, he had to know it was truth and not an elaborate illusion, a trick of the light buoyed by hope or magic. Would she be the same? (of course she wouldn’t, he thinks– what they don’t say about phoenixes is that they never rise from the ashes the same bird that kneeled to the flame) Would she be disappointed in him? Well that too was a foolish question. Of course she would.
He ran off to love (which is easy to mistake for happiness. It is not– it’s much better) and in his absence everything crumbled. It all fell apart so quickly, everything he worked for– everything she worked for. Everything the two of them, and Bexley Briar, strove to accomplish together, all those carefully laid plans and unspoken dreams.
In the end, the fruits of their labor tasted of iron and ash.
Of course, it was foolish of him to expect anything else. Anything more. Life was a struggle, a fight to the very last breath. He knew that. But he was a drowning man who did not know how to die, and so he grasped at hope-- stubborn, persistent hope. He wanted their kingdom to be beautiful. We don’t need to explain where hope got him.
His thoughts narrow as the canyon widens to a sandy clearing. The last of the day’s light streams down, carving the still air into chunks of light and shadow. He steps into the sunlight. Before him, in a place he cannot see, something stirs. “Is it true that the burning one has returned?” As he calls to the darkness, his heart quickens against his will. He never learned how not to hope.
grief can be a kind of music
that knows how to rise like the sea
@
Time makes fools of us all
