CASPIAN
/
the salt is on the briar rose,
the fog is in the fir trees;
the fog is in the fir trees;
He has heard the story, or pieces of it. Of a river that ran beneath everything, and eventually fed the sea (this to him makes sense. It’s not hard to imagine that everything feeds the sea, eventually.
But it got conflated with the new-rivers made from the Flood just before he was born, when the gods came back and showed their displeasure with disasters all across Novus. And anyway, the old-mothers were full of such stories, and they all had dreadfully boring morals. No matter how interesting they began - a great wolf in the mountains, or a spider who spun the stars - they all ended with so that’s why it’s important to share or see what becomes of children who don’t listen to their parents?
Anyway, bits of the story are buried in his subconscious like a shell under a decade of silt. And they and every other story are forgotten when he sees the tree.
He and Benvolio had come with a group of friends and cousins, a ragtag band of Terrastellans that made the trek (a pilgrimage, really) together to see this wonder everyone was talking about. But the boy and the bat were alone, now, as the group had decided (without really discussing it) to set up camp a half-mile away and come to the tree singly or in pairs. It wasn’t their intent to treat it like something holy, but it felt right.
And Caspian was glad, as he stood below the multicolored shadows of its canopy. This was different than the arch along the pathway to Denocte; that had been beautiful, masterful work, but this was miraculous. There were no birds about, but there was singing in the air anyway, from the wind moving through those glittering glass leaves. He parts a trail in the golden, blowing grasses and walks a careful circle around the tree, saying nothing, not even in his mind. Benvolio is likewise silent, though he’s departed from where he clings to Caspian’s mane to investigate on his own terms; the boy watches the bat swoop and rise among the branches, though he never seems to touch.
It makes his heart hurt, looking at it, though there is nothing sad about it. It makes his pulse run a little quicker, though there is nothing scary, either. It makes him buoyant with wonder, and quiet with longing, and a hundred other things he can’t put name to. Briefly he considers taking a leaf, or a poppy, or some piece for himself (or for selling). But, uncharacteristically, he doesn’t. The memory of the gods is too close, here, and anyway it’s too…too…precious.
At last (though for over an hour he keeps glancing back, finding a new angle, a new shine) he turns away, back to the thin trail of smoke that marks their fire, and the other campfires from other pilgrims beyond it. Benvolio flutters back down to his shoulders.
Wow, says the bat, and Caspian agrees, “Wow.” And they step softly into the growing, ordinary night.
***STAFF EDIT
@caspian has been awarded +1EXP!
