never regret thy fall
O icarus of the fearless flight
Memories of childhood are still and distant; at the oasis, with the chime of the water, Zayir can almost hear the laughter of better, brighter days. But not quite, no; it is only water. It is only dark, empty sand that is already sifted through the hourglass. So is he, staring at this white-and-bay creature, corded and familiar and wrought in an image so like his own.Do you hear it?
The laughter?
Of course she doesn’t and, anyways, he is hearing only the water. Or so he tells himself, when he gazes into her eyes and wonders at what gazes back. There is something there, he thinks, mirror-like and strange; something that sees him as what he is. His exaggerated pleasantries twitch her lip. Anyone native to Solterra, my lord. Zayir smiles, too, and the smile belongs to a man dead in his soul despite being so boyish, so genuine, so charismatic. “You’re no fun,” he says wryly, as child does anyone who vanquishes myth.
They are too much like dancing falcons, spiralling around one another. They are too much like vipers encircled; like cobras entranced. He knows why when she shares her name and all of it crashes upon him violently.
“Halla.” Zayir repeats, with knowing in his eyes. “Halla of the Arete.” The catacombs had done strange things to all of them.
You are Solterran, then.
He wants to say, Don’t you remember my father?
Instead Zayir smiles, more wryly still: “Only half.”
"Speech" || @
for the greatest tragedy of them all
is never to feel the burning light
