YOU ARE A GOLDEN THING
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD
IN A HEAVY, HEAVY WORLD
Ariel, as he watches the scene unfold, comes to intimately know the weakness of man.
It is love.
He feels it through their Bond; the sudden, elated palpitations of the heart, the childlike nervousness that floods his Sovereign. What is any girl, if not an element to bring a man to his knees? What is any man, if not an object to incite the weakest sentiments of love and devotion in a woman? Among his kind, “love” is a the devotion of a mother to her cub and that is all. Perhaps that is why his disdain becomes analytic. It is only one more pitfall to guard his Bonded against.
Ariel, quietly this time through their Bond, more a suggestion of a thought than a real thought: She is only a girl, Orestes. Do not allow her to bring you to heel like a pup. But Ariel knows he will not listen; it is one of the few moments when the Sun Lion doubts Solis’s choice of Sovereign; one of the few moments if he wonders the over-wrought, empathetic heart that exists within Orestes’s chest is not, in fact, a great and terrible shame. Ariel turns from the pair, retreating to a more hidden alcove as Orestes begins his admission.
And Orestes feels that over-wrought, empathetic heart—the one that may be a great and terrible shame—turn in his chest. A figure of speech, of course; but it feels as if it beats in his throat, as if it makes his words come out choked. He expects condemnation.
More importantly, he wants it. If Orestes has earned anything, it is for someone he cares deeply about to look him in the eye and say, nothing is okay, nothing can ever be okay again.
But she doesn’t. And in that refrain there is a fierce duality; he feels relief like he has never known and guilt that is insurmountable.
Well, of course it does. You only have to tell me. Then, she steps close.
In that moment, it is the relief Orestes chooses to take hold of.
His eyes are full of her and nothing else; even the sea seems dim when she steps close, and the smell of her city assaults him in a way he does not terribly mind. It is the first time he has thought that perhaps, all along, Terrastella has been more suited for his disposition. Orestes still has trouble meeting her eyes; but at last he raises them, to say, “I am very sorry it has taken me so long to find the words.” There is a break in his voice, like striking flint. He feels himself come just a little more undone; and in that unravelling is, for the first time in weeks, a strange respite.
Orestes holds her eyes, steady, steady, blue to gray. Are they not the sea and the overcast clouds, together? He presses the soft spot of his nose to her neck, to her mane, longer than he has ever seen it. In his softest voice yet, he admits, “I’m not sure I know who I am any longer, Marisol.”
“speaking" || @
"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"
