YOU ARE LIKE A CLOUD SEEN BETWEEN BRANCHES
in your eyes the laughter and strangeness of a sky that is not yours.
She assures me that my treatment of this strange little thing has become far more appropriate. I lower my head to the sand again, my nose nearly touching the beach. I keep my distance – but it is hard to see him properly from above. “I do,” I say, when she asks me if I see. “He’s cute, like this.” In a certain, strange way, at least. He’s not like anything I’ve ever seen; there is something charming in that simple fact in and of itself.
When she speaks again, I lift my head – slow, so I don’t startle the little creature.
It’s a crab, she says, and I repeat the word to myself inside of my head. It has a shell on top, and then those claws to help protect itself. A shell! I’ve seen them on beetles before, and a few other insects, but they were nothing like this – the shell on the crab looks as though it is practically made of stone. (The claws are a bit easier to wrap my head around, though they are still unlike any claws that I’ve ever seen.)
“I see…” I say, though I’m not quite sure that I do. It is so hard to believe that there are so many other things outside of the Gold, so many things that I have gone so many lifetimes without ever seeing. “A crab,” I repeat, slowly, rolling the word over in my mouth. Crab. Crab. Craaaab. I hope that it sounds right, but it is so hard to be sure.
At my introduction, she laughs, and her voice is soft and gentle against my ears – I still feel a bit embarrassed, but I decide that I like the sound of it. She says that she is glad to have met me; I can’t help but agree. “I’m glad to have found you, too,” I say, genuinely.
Elena then remarks on the rarity of knights in this land, and I make a mental note of it; I can’t imagine a land without knights. At home, we are fundamental, but here, knights aren’t. How strange. I wonder what the outsiders have instead. I dip my head. “Yes – though, I suppose I’m not much of a knight here, without my order.” A lone knight is not much of a knight, romantic though the notion may be; and, in such an unfamiliar place, I don’t feel worthy of the title at all. (I have been so foolish already.)
Elena. Her name is Elena. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Elena.” She mentions, then, her cousins, who are knights like I am; but I thought she mentioned that this land did not have many knights. (Perhaps her cousins are some of the few that exist here, or perhaps she is a foreigner, like I am.) At any rate, I am curious. My head tilts. “Cousins?”
She speaks of bravery, and a smile twists my lips; it feels strangely wry against my mouth. “I’ve been called reckless more often than I have been brave, I think…but thank you.” Dying so many times will do that to you – each time I live, I think that I value the life itself less. The first time, it was frightening; I didn’t know what to expect. (To tell the truth – a truth that I usually avoid -, I didn’t even know if I believed I’d come back after I died, like the priestesses told me. It seems silly, now, but I wasn’t faithful, at first.
My oldest and dearest friend knew, I think. Sometimes I wonder if he felt the same way.)
Elena asks me, then, how long I’ve been here, and if I need anything, or if I know where to go. “I’ve been here a week, so I haven’t much gotten my bearings.” I consider, for a moment, telling her everything, but then I think better of it. I think it is just that she seems like the kind of person you want to entrust everything to; all of your deepest, darkest secrets. She’s kind. Genuinely kind. Still, I don’t know how to explain myself, or anything about my situation. I know how outsiders tend to view rebirth, and the priestesses, and I don’t know anything about the heir. “I’m…looking for someone, but I don’t even know where to start searching. The people who sent me here didn’t have any idea where they are; I don’t even know anything about them.” I pause, considering. I feel like it is only just dawning on me that I have been thrown into this wild, wonderful, wretched world completely blind. I know nothing; nothing at all. I am barely less ignorant than a newborn soul.
“I don’t know anything about this land, yet, either. I’ve just been wandering – I don’t suppose you have any advice?”
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"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
