Losing too is still ours; and even forgetting
still has a shape in the kingdom of transformation.
Eik knows a thing or to about missing one’s home.
First, there was the land before Novus, the frozen landscape with a great tree at its heart. The first tree, if the stories were true.
Second, there was Solterra. The Solterra the three of them made: Seraphina, Bexley, Eik. It wasn’t perfect, but it was theirs. It was progress, and although his dreams for it would only ever be just that (dreams, dreams, dreams) he fought hard to make a home for himself amongst sand and strangers.
Third, there was Isra. But we already know that story.
So when he says “I understand,” it is easy to believe him. The words ring plain but true.
A pygmy dragon flies just overhead, gleaming obsidian in the firelight, and as Eik’s eyes follows it he smiles sadly, and speaks. “It all seems like a dream now. We… just sort of ran into each other, one night in the plains. We were both sleepless and wandering, and it took us far from home...” It was snowing. She looked so small, with the white piled around her like a blanket. He was afraid to touch her, afraid to even breathe, lest she shattered like glass or just faded away, like a silken dream, like water through his fingers, impossible to hold.
“She was softer.” It is as much as he could give her. Eik couldn’t explain it to anyone, the difference between Isra then and now. The difference in himself. If he could, it would be something like this:
Sometimes, sadness becomes so broad and so deep that beneath the weight of itself, it transforms into something entirely different. For Eik, the sadness just became more sadness. A deeper, darker shade of blue.
For Isra, the sadness became anger. And ager became rage.
It didn’t matter, of course. He understood, of course.
It hurt a little, of course, but so did everything.
He often wishes they could have just stayed there in that moment, wrapped in gently falling snow and bison dreams. Maybe a part of him did, and that’s why the memory seems so much like a dream now-- it’s suspended in amber.
Sleep is still so very far away. But Eik wants to go home anyway, to bury his muzzle in long dark hair, to breathe in lavender and cloves. To kiss the warm scent of cider into skin taut with rage and sorrow.
“Well, I’ve taken enough of your time for one night, Warden.” The word is said with a little more warmth this time. Eik nods his head politely and steps toward a side alley that bends its way back to the heart of the court. “I’ll be seeing you around.” He smiles briefly, then turns and walks down the dark street. So steady and certain, even a stranger watching would know: that man is going home.
of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous curve
@Morrighan hnnn I am so rotten at closers. sorry for the wait, and thank you for a lovely thread! <3
Time makes fools of us all
