Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
That’s good to hear.
Zayir recognises the voice of someone who feels fondly—or at least as if they know it—of the desert, of Solterra. There is a question to be had there; a line of conversation worth pursuing, if only Zayir were a little braver, a little quicker on his feet. The strange admits it a moment later. Transplant. I live in Denocte now, but I was in Solterra for a while.
The other man’s admission makes him feel even more out of place. What have you seen or learned of my country that I now do not know? In Zayir’s prime, “transplants”—or more crudely, foreigners—had been even less welcome than they were now, he supposes. He knows this only because of his father, and Lady Marcisa Arisetta.
“Why did you leave?” He asks, after quietly staring out at the sea. Zayir does not look directly at Eik; he focuses instead on the physical things he has some semblance of control over, or at least can react to more comfortably. The breeze, blowing fine strands of hair into his eyes. The brisk, rhythmic current that reminds him of sailing and silver fish jumping high and bright from the cresting waves—
“Also yes.” Zayir responds, noncommitally. He turns his eyes back from the sea to Eik and finds they are engaged in a strange game of look-and-look-away. Eik is staring at the sea now, when only moments prior Zayir had felt the heavy pressure of his gaze.
Zayir has an opportunity to be blatantly honest; to be vulnerable. There is really only answer to the other’s statement—and Zayir reminds himself, it is a statement. With a sly turn of his lips, Zayir says: “And so are you.”
It is the sea that lulls the truth out of him. Each push and pull of the tide relaxes his fatigued muscles—the sound, too, is a sound of peace. Zayir adds, after a pause so long it seems he will not elaborate at all: “Home… doesn’t much feel like home, lately.”
His own accents, in that moment, haunts him. He feels it is so apparent, so blatant. He feels like it is Latin come back to life, or the dead speaking.
I should be dead, he thinks. And a gull laughs at his unspoken joke.
"Speech." || @
the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity
