perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage--perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that once our loves
- rainer rilke
- rainer rilke
The thing about the sea—it cannot devour itself. It can only rush and rage and beat itself against a shore it cannot overcome. There are days when it floods and lashes the land with hurricanes, or places where two great currents meet, but it is endless, eternal, warm water and cold water and deep water and shallow water, all of it moving and pulsing alone great thing. Orestes does not know her thoughts, but he looks at her with the expectant expression of a child convinced of certain beliefs. One of them is the confidence that always, always, there is this thing within him as well and if he let it—because Orestes sees it as a choice—it would consume him.
And so he does not let it.
He does not dwell too long or too hard on how there are some nights he wishes he could destroy more and create less. Nights where he wishes his nature was not to sacrifice; and then he remembers why those burdens are his and he cannot, will not, let them go.
And if I sad no? she asks.
But Orestes already knows. She did not have to say it. No, it is there in her gnashing teeth and drooping, gold-heavy flowers. It is there in the way her magic is electric, pulsing, living—and as she nears the world is only a suggestion around them, raven-black and wicked, rather than the concrete reality of what it would be. Beneath all of this Orestes believes there are still corn stalks swaying softly in Denocte’s night; there is still a pathway that must lead out of the twisting, devilish maze.
“I would say, alright.” Orestes voice has none of the violence of hers. He is still the sea that goes shush, shush, shush and always will be. The fear he felt, white-hot and blinding, was not for her; and as the flowers droop not with steel but with gold he finds himself, again, where he ought to be. Does she know she has made the prison of his past? Does she know that once he would have writhed at her feet and screamed, his skin twisting into a thousand different shapes he could not become, all because she invented a prison of gold?
Not tonight, however.
No.
Not tonight.
His illumination, brief, is just enough for him to see her face and glittering scales. It is just enough to see the face of a unicorn that does not feel like a unicorn and then, at her wish, the light stops. They are again in the dark; it is a thing absolute; a thing as alive as her magic; and what he has learned from Solterra, from Solis, is the wrongness of it.
But deep within Orestes, in a place almost forgotten, there is a quiet breaking of the sea against jagged cliffsides in a storm. He knows the turbulent nature of the deep, the dark. He knows the way the sea is indiscriminately cruel, a bit like life, and how that makes her beautiful. This unicorn with her dark, transformative magic makes him remember that. It is the gnash of her teeth not made for killing. He stands quiet for a long moment and he admires her flowers, and her darkness, and her rage. That is when he knows she is the Queen of Denocte, but he does not want to take those things from her; he does not want to challenge her darkness with a name, or her rage with an obligation. He does not name her “Queen” or “Isra” (as he’s been told). He lets the thing within her grow, and grow, and grow, and he admires her.
Yes.
Orestes admires.
Then, “You do not have to join me.” Orestes says it almost flippantly. His words come out breathless, however, because he has never been good at flippancy. Everything from Orestes sounds more like a prayer, or a promise. “But I am going to find my way out of this maze.” he steps around her, and his head is high but not arrogant, because he will always also be a prince.
He thinks a little too late at his own recklessness, the way this maze could become anything she wishes of it. It could kill him. But there is an old, familiar thrill to the idea; one he cannot help but acknowledge as quite enticing. There are many things he wants to tell her, and none of them will save her from her pain. He only walks a little ways off before glancing over his shoulder expectantly, boyishly. “Perhaps if you found your way out, you will find something else as well. Or you can stay here and be whatever darkness you wish. You can turn it to stalks of razors and let me cut my way through, or so many twisting, sharp plants.” Then he smiles, and it is a wicked thing, because yes
yes
yes
Orestes knows what it means to take a life and have his own taken. Has he not died? Does he not know how twisted a Soul can become when what they know is suffering, and tragedy, and heartbreak? He thinks of his people enslaved across the sea; he thinks of what it felt like the first time he realised he was Bound to one shape and one shape forever; he thinks of the moment he knew he failed, and he would not save them. He thinks of how he was captured trying to become every shape he knew how to become, and none of them were enough, he was not enough, and they pulled him from the sea in a writhing net and he was met with eyes as red as blood and hate, hate, hate.
So much hate.
And when he thinks of those things, there is no light in him to radiate for her. There is nothing in him but the hollow cavern at the bottom of the sea full of frightful things.
He says, “Perhaps, if the mood takes you, you can even transform me into a monster to defeat, to fight, to gnash your teeth at.” Even more quietly, more thoughtfully, he adds: “I do not want to be a monster, but that is what I will be if that is what you need.” It is what he has offered to all the aching souls he has ever known because, even know, he is their Keeper; and this one,
this one,
Orestes believes belongs to the sea.
