Vercingtorix
—
I
t’s okay, Elena says, in a way that makes it clear to me nothing will ever be “okay” again. Her eyes tumble to mine like a cartwheeling gull; they hold, and fall, and hold, and fall. I do not turn away, although there is a part of me that wishes to. Damascus’s presence is large in my mind, a pressing shadow against the peripheral of my psyche; the feeling of the abyss that is the dragon’s soul, and mind, and Bond. He says, to me and me alone, you have lived this moment and I have, a hundred times.There are nights where it is on the cliff-side, before the Last Prince and I tumble from the precipice.
Some days, it is when Bondike confessed, My father hid me, with magic, with sins. I am… my name is Boudika. It means victory.
Other times, it is when my father comes excitedly, offering me the position to captain an entire ship, to take voyages beyond Oresziah, to wage war elsewhere. And in these memories, there is always a red stallion in the background, always rumpled sheets, always the taste of soured alcohol--
I lost… Yes, I lost someone.
I cannot help but listen now. I cannot help but stand transfixed before this baptism of pain, the unbecoming of someone into someone else. I know this will change her for life, this confession, this realisation. There is a taste like salt in my mouth. I want to say, I have lost someone, as well. I have lost someone, and it was all my fault, and there is nothing I can do to change it--
Give me sympathy, please.
Please, listen.
I have to confess. I have to apologise.
I did a terrible thing, to someone I loved, to someone I loved more than anything. Please, listen.
I can help you. I know how it feels to be lost, and to be alone.
But my mouth is sealed; the words lost.
They belong to a piece of my soul that stitched together my Frankenstein dragon, built up of all my sins and shortcomings and tragedies. They belong to a piece of me, young and naive and childish, that will never have the power to speak again.
And for this reason, I listen. I listen and smother the compassion I ought to feel, the compassion I feel now only in shadows and rivulets.
I told him I would keep his secrets, she says.
I promised, she says.
The words pale in comparison to her actions. Her eyes are fixed upon me with the fierceness, now, of her own lies. The lies she tells herself; the acknowledgement, the coming to terms. Elena’s step towards me is like a glacier cracking. I think I should turn away, rather than stand in resolute, empathetic silence--I think I should turn from the gesture, that I should shun it, and instead I close my eyes when it comes. She is warm, and soft, and fragile. She reminds me again of Laoise. She reminds me too, of Boudika, when I had seen her in the prison--
“I hate promises, too.” I say, in a nearly silent confession. I am stiff and unyielding against her; but then I soften, abruptly, almost awkwardly. I pull her into the nook beneath my chin, offering solace. “There is nothing to be done for the past,” I say, more to myself than to her. “But if I have learned anything, it is that these moments dictate everything about the future--and you seem to have… you seem to have come to terms with something, and that is the most a person can do, to move forward.”
Have you come to terms with it, Vercingtorix? Damascus’s voice is thunder in my mind.
His wings crack out behind me; a vicious snap of membranous flesh against the air. In a tremendous coiling of muscle, the dragon launches himself from the beach and into the air, with a desolate screech. Have you?
Then we are alone on the beach. She is small and golden and sad, and I say, “That means, Elena, you don’t promise me anything either.”
And add:
“I have no secrets to ask you to keep. No faith to shelter within. And if a lie is easier than the truth? Tell it to me.” I am looking into the sea when I say it.
Always, into the sea.
How woeful, strange, are the alleys of the City of Pain,
where in the false silence created from too much noise,
a thing cast out from the mold of emptiness
swaggers that gilded hubbub, the bursting memorial.
