THE GREEN CANOPY'S NO SEA OR NET, BUT THAT'S ABSOLUTE --
confusion of thickets behind me; before me, open space.
I haven’t heard of that place before, she says, and I smile faintly. (I am not sure if the gesture is wistful or genuine – it feels bittersweet on my lips.) Of course, it is for the best, for us, that we remain separate from everything and everywhere else, but now that I have begun to see everywhere else, how could a part of me not mourn for our sheltered existence.
“It’s very far away from Novus,” I say, “and travelers aren’t allowed in very often – most of them aren’t very friendly.” That is probably an understatement, but I’m not sure that I should tell the girl that most of our interactions with strangers come in the form of them trying to burn the forest down to find the secret of immortality.
I do not suspect that an explanation would inspire her to pyromania – but it isn’t the sort of thing you discuss in polite company.
Her jaw drops at my admittance, and it makes my smile more heartfelt; the sight of her, bug-eyed with shock, is a bit amusing. (And adorable. I have always been fond of children.) What?! I mean - you've really never seen the night sky before? Did you not have one where you're from?
“Never,” I confirm. “We have one, I assume, but I could never see it. My homeland is within a great forest, where it is always autumn, and the branches of the trees are so thick that they block out the sky entirely.” I suspect that trying to visualize the Gold will go about as well for her as trying to visualize the sky would have gone for me, before I saw it for the first time, but describing it makes a blush of warmth rush up in my chest. I don’t miss home – except when I do.
Learning of my ignorance seems to set the child off, and she quickly launches into an explanation. I listen attentively – not just because you are supposed to listen attentively to children, but also because I do genuinely want to learn from what she knows. It's the coolest thing in the world, she says, eagerly. The moon is what my Court looks up to a lot. It's sooo bright and pretty. Our Court is named after the night time and our deity is Caligo. There are so many stories about her and the night and the stars. I think my favorite though is that all the stars up there are our ancestors looking down on us.
She says…a lot of words that I don’t recognize. Deity? Caligo? Stars? I blink, attempting to follow.
“Ah, you’re from…the Night Court?” I can’t remember the name of the land, exactly, but I have managed to piece together that the different nations are called Courts. Now, the next part – I launch into a question. “Deity?” I am not sure what the word refers to. Some mythological feature, judging by what she says next, but the title seems specific.
The stars, at least, I can guess. The little lights that aren’t the moon. What she says about them makes something inside of me grow warm, even warmer, sweetly mingled with some strange mixture of relief and longing. “You know, in my homeland, we teach that life and death come in cycles. Each time you die, you are born as something else.” I don’t speak of my own experience. Girl though she may be, I have no idea how she’d react to it. “I am sure that some of those…stars…are your ancestors – and I am sure that they are happy to brighten the night sky for you, whether they know it or not.” After all, even as a thing and not a person, even as a sword….had I not been happy to fulfill the burden that I was made for? Had it not pleased me to be carved, to be sharpened, to be coated in blood and violence?
I was not myself. I did not know a thing. When my old friends wept for me, I felt nothing - not empathy for their sadness, not pity, not even a sense of mourning for the life that we had lived together. Swords do not feel such tender things; neither do spear-tips, or arrows, or bows. I was, however, happy – in the only way that a sword can be, which is blood-red and singing – that I was of use. I am not sure what these “stars” feel, but I am sure that they are glad to fulfill their duty, which is, I can only assume, to brighten; and, for most things, there is nothing more than that.
(It is probably useless to debate it, with this face and this mind. Maybe I will understand again someday, and do it properly – not color all my memories with the now.)
@Maeve || <3 || "the cliff," gregory orr
"Speech!"
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
