orestes
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I
will tell you. There is a long silence before she says it, where she measures him with her eyes and he thinks he sees something girlish, something vulnerable, in those cool metal irises. She bites her bottom lip and while she is far too dignified to shift or seem flustered, Orestes knows the question is a difficult one, and what he asks must be an enormous weight. The only thing he can imagine that is heavier, however, is the withholding of it; of her truths. Orestes wonders the last time she shared this weaknesses with another; he wonders if she ever has. He smiles gladly when she kisses his cheek; Orestes understands the strength it takes to smooth away her fear, as one smooths out a wrinkled page. Her voice is too soft; the wind nearly takes it from him, disguised in a rustle of leaves. Orestes presses close to brush a strand of too-long hair from the edge of her eyes. He presses close, to offer the warmth of his body, the consistency of his gaze. Orestes is not afraid of her answer; there is a part of himself braced for atrocities, for the unforgivable, because he knows already that the worst she is capable of is not as terrible as the sins he's committed.
The world around them seems in constant movement as she contemplates; yes, their lives are full of the raucous voices of others in the orchard, the leaves in full symphony, the branches against one another. Yet where they stand, it is strangely still. Orestes pauses to pick an apple; perfect, brilliant red. His eyes follow every soft, curve, before he takes a bite and offers it casually to Marisol. The sweet flavour bursts on his tongue; it grounds him more resolutely beside her, in the moment shared between them. Perhaps the gesture appears flippant; Orestes does not mean it to be interpreted as such. Merely as another way to smooth her edges, to transform their interaction into something softer, quieter, kinder.
Admissions of truth do not, he thinks, have to be like the pulling of thorns. “Marisol,” Orestes says affectionately. “Do you think I love you simply because our sentiments are pleasant? That knowing one another is nothing but pleasant?” His smile is small, boyish. “Let me go first, and then… well, if it is too much, I understand.” What he does not say is that he does not think it will be too much. What he does not say is the entire reason for love is to mitigate the cruelness with which one views themselves; to sweeten that self-deprecation into something milder, self-reflection, understanding. Orestes confesses his sins to her in the light of dusk, in Terrastella’s fruit-rich orchard, with the birds loud in his ears and everything he has ever known far from him:
“I used to be a Prince.” Orestes does not say the only reason he remembers this is because it is fastidiously written down and now recollected as a history belonging to another man. ”And, as that Prince, I failed my people. I made a decision that effectively killed, or enslaved, them all. They succumbed to a genocide. I should have died with them, yet... for some reason, I was spared, and arrived in Novus. I have the blood of an entire people on my soul.” This, too, feels rehearsed; but there is an expression of anguish tightening his features, filling his eyes. It is that, the resounding pain he feels, that reminds him the words are not rehearsed. He had lived this tragedy, even if the memories are faded.
It flits from his eyes as a cloud does over the sun. “Anyways, that certainly isn’t pleasant. But it is a part of me, of who I am.”
There is a moment where he hates himself for what he is about to ask; a moment that writhes with self-deprecation, a bed of snakes in his chest. This is the moment he understands his own inherent nature. This is the moment he realises Solis has blessed him not only with a loss of memory, but with the whole of Solterran values. “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done, Marisol? If you tell me that, and I still love you, you will no longer have to fear sharing your demons with me.” The question itself is cruel; and Orestes has never been a cruel man. But his intentions… Well, what is it, that they say about them?
The path to hell is paved with good intentions.
Oh, and isn’t it?
He thinks, the worst think he has ever done is ask for peace.
It is a mistake Orestes doesn’t think he will be making again soon.
But that is a different conversation, for a different day.
