YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD
Orestes knows. Orestes knows because he knows the way the sea breaks against the shore, no matter how many times she has done it before. Orestes knows, because there is a certain tragedy to loving something, wanting something, when a lifetime—an eternity—has said it is not meant for you.
He sees it in Marisol's eyes; in the way they are the soft colour of a steely sky, ready to rain. The gunmetal of the sea in a storm, but softer, fluid. He has never seen her eyes look like this; and he doubts they ever do. Orestes feels it in the way she is taunt as a bowstring and abruptly, against him, supple. The feel against him is still a question mark; but the question of the sea and the shore, the question of everything he has ever known, arching to say again, again, again? The sound of it, of her aching, is enough for Orestes to draw her closer. He makes a small sound in the back of his throat, nearly a shhh but not quite. Let me put you back together.
Marisol begins to speak, and he is not sure what will come when she says:
You were not tactless. I was only afraid.
Orestes does not say anything for a long moment. He keeps his face tucked against her shoulder and feels as she presses harder against his side. He breathes deeply, steadily, until their breaths begin to sync. Orestes rests like that, breathing with her, as the sun dips from the horizon and the light goes from gold, to purple, to blue, to dark. Orestes watches the colours as they pass over her skin, as they tell time.
Orestes can smell Terrastella on her; with the cliffside sea and the pine and something soft but strong, something he cannot name. There is something vaguely calming about it, not lavender or sage but something like it, something dark and smooth. It reminds him of when he had visited her court; it reminds him of the drunken festivities, the taste of hard cider, the dancing. It reminds him of how he had not felt alone. Orestes does not draw away to meet her eye when he says: “Marisol, it is no sin to feel fear.” This he whispers against her skin; this he says as the gold light of his tattoos fills the air, and turns her gold too. “I understand why you are afraid.” Perhaps there is a part of him that understands more than he admits.
Because he feels it now.
He feels it in the way he does not want to push her, or rush her, or see the expression of hurt on her face. Orestes does not want to draw that broken sound from her voice; he does not want to make her breath catch with anything sad, anything tragic. He is afraid of a misstep; but he is more afraid of the loneliness that wells within him like the deepest pit of the sea. He feels it in the way his mind is, at once, on a thousand other things. He is trying to remember what he had been searching for in the journal; Orestes knows there is more he ought to be doing to promote economic growth in the market; and yet she is here, and she is everything those obligations are not. Breathe. And so he does, and forgets everything but those breaths, slow and smooth.
Orestes does not know how long he stands like that before he says, in a tone for secrets and bedrooms and dreams, “I once read, somewhere, that there is nothing that prepares you for the burden of command. No matter your passion. No matter your resolve. There is always some component of sacrifice; at first it is your time, and then it is your personal life, and then it is your every waking hour. It is the beautiful privilege of leadership; and I would never change it, or trade it, or wish it away…”
As Orestes speaks, it feels almost like a story, a fable; for a moment it feels like something he has already lived. "The legends, the fairytales, they do not tell you the suffering of the hero. There is no legend that describes how there are a thousand and one moments that he almost reaches out; nearly speaks up; and all for him to say that it is too much, and he cannot bear it anymore… through no fault of his own…”
The sun is completely gone, now. Orestes knows if he were too glance out the window there would be some distant red tinge on the horizon, but it is not bright enough to penetrate the study. Instead, everything is illuminated by the faint golden glow that comes from within Orestes. He closes his eyes against it, and focuses on those measured breaths, on the shared inhalations and exhalations. “I understand why you were afraid, Marisol. Why you are still afraid. You cannot commit yourself to someone, to something, when the weight of your court is upon you. That is your responsibility, your duty, and you cannot stray from it. And it is also mine.”
It is now, and only now, that he draws away; Orestes does so gently, with the elegant grace of something leonine. He admires her for a moment; a smile surfaces for the first time, a little sad, but there is only happiness in his eyes. "Marisol, please know, I would never ask more of you; I would never place more weight upon your shoulders. I only hoped that, perhaps, we might share some of our burdens. It can certainly be lonely.”
Orestes’s voice catches, then, on that word.
Lonely,
the word that belongs to the ache that has never left him, the hollow and resonant emptiness that exists within his heart, his brain. The place within Orestes full of tragedy; of sorrow; of bitterness. It is not something he likes to remember.
It is a remote area within him, full of the smells, and sounds, and sights of the sea. The place that is half-forgotten memories that are blended with a sea of sand, a burning lion, a hungry people. Orestes turns away form her, briefly, to light a lantern. It casts a flickering, bright light about the room full of silence. It weighs on him, and weighs on him, and weighs on him. And at last Orestes asks:
"What is the point of it all, Marisol, if we do not also allow ourselves to live? What is the point of our sacrifice, our burden, if we only guard the lives of others? You are alive. You are more than a Commander, a Queen. Don't you feel it?" Although his tone is not unhinged, there is something within him riling now; bright as a spark. "There is passion, and life, and need beyond command, obligation, responsibility... There is poetry, music... passion." His voice cracks and for a moment his face flushes with frustration; he cannot say what he means, in the way that he wishes to say it.
@
"SO EDEN SANK TO GRIEF
SO DAWN GOES DOWN TO DAY
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY"
SO DAWN GOES DOWN TO DAY
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY"
