saudade

[Orestes]

BE PATIENT TOWARD ALL THAT IS UNSOLVED IN YOUR HEART
TRY TO LOVE THE QUESTIONS THEMSELVES, LIKED LOCKED ROOMS OR BOOKS WRITTEN IN A VERY FOREIGN TONGUE

The glen is silent. 

The valley itself is slender; the sun streaks across the snow covered earth in a jagged line.The light just barely crests the trees. Each side of the glen is barricaded by tall, arching evergreens and pines; they are solid white, covered in ice and snow. The wind does not reach the lower valley, but blows the frost from the branches in fine, fine dust. It drifts so slowly in the air it seems suspended, catching the sunlight in minuscule, orbital spirals. 

A herd of elk move slowly through the distant trees. A bull raises his head and the light catches on his antlers, which are burnished the colour of bullion bricks. However, they are not so bright as the stallion that passes from the shadows of the pines into the light of the glen. The elk bellows and the clear, piercing sound echoes in the silent morning air. 

Orestes is squinting at the sky when he breaks the pristine surface of the virgin snow—he is squinting as he enters the valley from a downward facing slope and takes in a sight he has never seen. Orestes had only experienced snow a handful of times in his life, and never to this extremity. His breath rushes out, a whoof, whoof, whoof that forms semi-opaque clouds. He hears a musical, crystalline tinkle of water and follows the sound until he comes upon a slender stream, cutting through the snow. 

It is so far from the desert.

It is so far from the sea.

For just a moment, 

just a moment,

Orestes closes his eyes,

and breathes.

He is not a banished prince or a sun king.

He is not Solterran, or Bound Khashran.

He is not a leader, or a saviour, or a sacrifice.

No. 

For just a breath, Orestes simply is. 

"THE POINT IS TO LIVE

EVERYTHING, LIVE THE

QUESTIONS NOW, GRADUALLY

WITHOUT NOTICING IT

LIVE ALONG SOME DISTANT

DAY, INTO THE ANSWER"

CREDITS