come away, o child
to the waters and the wild
He is not used to thinking about others, outside of himself. He is accustomed to mother, and father, and Hilde—and that is all. His tutors seem like components of the citadel’s architecture; the citizens filled with a strange distance. Even the Halcyon he watches seem as if they belong to another world, outside his own.It strikes him when she smiles that his actions might affect her the same ways hers had him. That there is something shared in that moment, and it belongs to them both but to no one else.
Not even Hilde knows her, not yet—although Aeneas is sure she will, because he cannot keep things from her. For this moment, though, this very small moment… he doesn’t have to share it with anyone.
Aeneas nearly asks, what do you know about death? He understands it only as a word. To her question he only says, “ I don’t know.” What he does know is both those feelings—sadness and fear—make the grass wilt beneath his hooves, or the moths die in the lamplight, when he draws from them their life-energy to fill his own.
But he doesn’t want to think about that, right now. He looks back at her; her light eyes; her blonde hair. She looks a little like his dad, he thinks. “Can I go with you, when you go? That sounds nice. Much better than being a Prince.” Aeneas blurts it without thinking—but is embarrassed, immediately, by the confession.
with a fairy, hand in hand
for the world is more full of weeping
than you can understand
