He learns a lot from what she doesn’t say.
The hardest things are like that; too deep and raw and slippery to simply lay out on the table. Something like that, it's easier to speak around it, outlining, defining with negative space. The burden of interpretation rested on the listener to translate; they could understand, or they couldn’t.
Eik understands, but he doesn’t.
See, he was made with the opposite of intent. Chaos, violence, wanderlust. He was a weak seed, in a field of thorns, and he grew to be unexpected and mediocre in every sense of the word. (Look close, the story is etched in skin. The best fighters did not wear as many scars as him; the worst did not survive.) But he knew what it was like to struggle against your purpose, to live and breathe at the heart of war’s storm. So he nods curtly; a gesture so slight it could almost be mistaken for an accidental twitch, or the shooing of a fly. But she would know it was neither of these things.
Talk rolls on as around them the marketplace ebbs and flows like a river. The scent of baked apples fills the air just as the regent says she hopes for change, purpose, serenity. This he understands, and he smiles sadly.
But what did he hope for?
... Something simple, surely. A landscape entirely silent except for the wind’s song trickling through it. A place for his bones to rest undisturbed, to sink quietly back into the earth. And something not so simple. The world-- for his children. The world without fear or hate or the god’s intent. His hopes soar higher than he dares confess. They sit there unspoken in the wooden rafters of the godless church he built. Breathe in deep; salt in the air, sawdust on the hands. Warm sunlight filters peacefully through the rainbow-colored glass--
Dreamers will dream.
He smiles, thinking of all the seeds the old oak plants after the fire. Death and deathlessness. He humbles himself, reigns in his dreams (or else just hides them, plants them deep). “I hope to meet my grandchildren someday, and to watch them grow up in a kinder world than I did.” A simple hope, and not so different at all from change, purpose, serenity.
He feels a certain sort of comfort settle between them. An understanding that relaxes him, just a little. “On that note, I should probably find my daughters. Good night, Antiope. And--” As he steps away he catches her gaze and holds it. “Thank you.” And then he is gone. An unremarkable man, easily lost sight of in the reckless, swirling crowd.
"A thousand dreams within me softly burn. From time to time
my heart is like some oak whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn."
art by Pherigo
@Antiope closing this here <3 I would love another thread with them when he's back!
Time makes fools of us all
