YOU ARE LIKE A CLOUD SEEN BETWEEN BRANCHES
in your eyes the laughter and strangeness of a sky that is not yours.
Elena, just in time for a second to appear, tells me that I will find that the beach is full of crabs, if I return in the future. I stare at the second creature eagerly, noting all the ways that it differs in shape and size from the other, and I wonder, for a moment, about what other strange, wonderful, and possibly snippy creatures I might encounter on my future journeys to the beach.
(I have to enjoy them while I last, after all. I can’t possibly stay in this world forever.)
“I’ll have to come back soon, then,” I say eagerly, looking at the second crab, as the both of them scuttle away from view. The ocean washes up around my hooves, and around hers, and it threatens to pull the little things out; I didn’t even realize that it had gotten closer until I felt the chill of the water and the gentle press of foam on my skin. I wonder why. I don’t ask yet, because I don’t want to interrupt the flow of our conversation with more probably-foolish questions, but I do wonder about it.
I didn’t realize that the ocean moved - I suppose it explains the wet sand that’s far up the shore. I’m not sure if it’s wonderful or utterly perplexing or both.
She assures me that I can be a knight wherever I wish, and she suggests starting an order here. I don’t actually have a response to that, but I feel my eyes light up; the idea of starting an order in this apparently-knightless world seems wonderful. (Not to mention that it might help me search, I’ve missed my old position as the Green Knight.) She says that she always welcomes knights in her company, and I grin, and make a mental note to ask her about her knightly relatives later. I wonder if outsider knights are much different from us, or if we are much the same.
When I admit to my confusion, Elena assures me that she, too, took a while to gather her bearings in this world, and then, to my shock, she asks me to let her help me find the heir. Part of me is hesitant; part of me is suspicious. I know better than to tell outsiders much about us, after all. They always want more than we can give.
But she seems kind, and her kindness ultimately wins over my skepticism.
“Thank you,” I say, softly. I can barely comprehend just how nice everyone has been to me in this new world, so far; it isn’t what I expected of outsiders at all. (After all, before this, I’d only really encountered them on the battlefield, and being impaled on a sword or burned alive didn’t leave the best first impression. Their violence had always been unprovoked; I never understood it, and I don’t know if I ever will. The closest I came, I think, was after I lost my mother, the first person I ever lost. That was the first time I could put a word to it: desperation. Death makes people utterly desperate.) “I’d truly appreciate that – I have to find them. My people are relying on me.” I don’t know if she can help, but maybe, just maybe she can; at any rate, she certainly knows more about this world than I do. Elena asks me, then, if I need somewhere to stay, and I consider my answer briefly, hesitating. I don’t want to trouble her, and that sounds like an invitation – and it isn’t as though I can’t fend for myself, for now. I am used to spending my time outdoors, but I’m not used to the weather here, or the outdoors. Hesitantly, and quietly, I respond with a, “I…I believe that I do.”
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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
