Vercingtorix
—
T
he lyre and Adonai’s ambient glow break something within me.I wish to say it is like a great rending of flesh; horrific, terrible. I wish to say the change is an arterial spray against all that I am, and cannot be washed out. That the break is like death, with a permeance, a definence. But it is not so. The break is hardly so final, so finite. Instead, it is the great creaking of rusted metal or groaning of wood swollen by the sea. The break is a mast falling upon a ship in a storm; a cathedral upon a cliff’s precipice that tumbles down and down again, cracking into the sea. A break that can be eaten up by time; a break that ivy might cover, or fish may inhabit. The thing that breaks sinks; it settles in the depths of me to rot. The breaking is what defines it; the breaking is what changes it from normalcy to tragedy. A ship to a reef. A cathedral to the empty haunting of dead beliefs.
I blame the ephemerality of this moment: it is the way Adonai becomes the center of my breath, my being, and my mind remains fixated upon each flutter of his lashes, each flexed inhalation at his side. This close, I discern he smells of parchment and clean sheets and, faintly, of blood. The last essence is the most familiar; the last essence is a reminder that every lyre sings for a funeral, not a love affair.
Strangely, I do not mind. Strangely, the break is almost a relief; the knowledge, sudden and terrible, that we are both doomed in our own ways. Please, I think. Let us not break each other.
Does my question frighten you? This undulation between coy and bold, between soft and savage. My smile is held like an ember in my mouth; burning; slow. As he tugs at my hair, I am endeared to him more than I will ever have the courage to admit. It hurts sweetly, delicately, and I find joy in the reminder I feel as any man does.
I know I should lie but somehow, in firelight and song, I cannot. “Yes,” my voice emerges breathless and raw.
Yes, the question frightens me.
Because, like the armoury, it demands I expose aspects of myself I wish were dead and buried. It means acknowledging the depth of my tortured eyes and the reasons for my weaponized smiles.
The question he asks is the most simple, I suppose. It betrays an aspect of society that I will never be able to forgive: men become what they do, and are defined by it.
“I was a soldier,” I say, simply. “But you already knew that.”
I can tell from his eyes the answer is not enough. I can tell from his ravenous expression he wants more of me and already a desperation sets in. I have little of myself to give. Yet, I find a way to add, carefully:
“Everyone, where I am from, was a soldier. We fought a generational, racial war. I was the last generation, before we won.” I laugh; it is not exactly mirthless, no, nor is it empty. I do not have words for the feeling that washes over me, next. “It was what we were raised for; but what do men, raised for war, become when the war is over?” In this I confess that I no longer know what I do, if he were to ask that.
It is the great injustice of my life, I think.
It is why I am gnarled like roots grown around a rock.
Those soft feathers, against my hard scar. The hunger is there in the star-bright expression of his eyes: I see myself reflected in his wide pupils, small and dark, and the light that washes over his face makes him seem both young and old at once. There is something about him that inspires confession: perhaps it is the docility of his sickness, the frankness of our first meeting when he said, a cursed prince lives in that tower.
“My father,” I tell him, of the scar. The truth is a betrayal to the one person I have ever loved, and the only person who ever knew the reality of the mark. “I spoke out of turn and he punished me as he saw fit.” The bitterness is gone, I am surprised. I only state a fact.
I cannot help the way I look at him, now: longingly. The one touch had not been enough, and left me hungry. But I do not trust myself to touch him as he touches me; I feel monstrous, being unable to remember not hurting what I have touched before. My mind fills of stolen memories: of chaste kisses turned ravenous, of burning beneath flesh like the body at the center of the pyre, boys who beckoned me with their eyes and promised love with their tongues, all turned to ash. Will I burn you, Adonai? If I touch you, will you break?
He takes the choice from me. Our horns clash, the gentlest of wars. Beyond the crest of his mane and the silhouette of his glowing wings, swords and axes and spears grin wickedly.
I am not like them. He agrees.
He is brave where I am not. His mouth nearly brushes mine; and his words are lost to the flames he ignites with the soft brush of his skin against mine, at my nose, my eyelids, my cheeks. He knows he is being cruel; when he draws away, I groan, a sound low in my throat and earnestly raw.
In that moment, he is more clear than I have ever seen him. It takes me the clarity to recognise that in the past there has been a sheen of something other, of clouds flitting over the sun. I am taken aback, nearly: but he presses on, bold as a lion. He compliments me and says the one thing I feared he would.
“I could show it to you,” I say, softly.
I know he will not believe me. I know he will fear being a hindrance; but the longing in his voice was enough to ignite a vicious want within me, a desire to create this fantasy. Before I can blink, we are nose-to-nose; the objects of war in the background disappear as he unfurls his wings.
It is only this:
Feathers, and light, and eyes that are Persian blue. They are the only blue I have ever seen that have not reminded me of the sea. They are almost overwhelming; but for once, there is nothing else. There is no fury burning just beneath the surface; no need for vengeance, no need--
(But, I think, this is exactly what I have always sought out. A way to escape myself, a way to let everything else fade--)
I try to convince myself this is different, by saying: “I have a dragon. We could fly there in less than a day, if you would like. I will show you the sea.”
How can I tell you that it is not beautiful, Adonai?
How can I tell you the sea is full of wretched things, of terrors unimagined?
Yet, I cannot bring myself to share my own hatred; I cannot let the bitterness colour the light of your wings, or darken the hope of your expression. So I do not. I do not. I remember the sea from a cliffside, staring down, blue and as tortured as I. “Let me take you.” There is a pleading quality of my tone, now; one that does not suit me, I think. But I press closer now, if that were possible; I raise my chin to tuck him into the alcove beneath me, and bury my face into the bliss of his wings.
(Just pretending, just believing, there is nothing beyond this).
Breathing, and knowing, it already flits from my grasp. Because one day, I am certain, he will wonder at more than the scars. He will see me not as a fascinating marvel separate from his life of princely duties, but as all the synonyms of soldier:
Killer. Infantryman. Murderer. Captain. Genocide. Comrade. Companion. Monster,
monster,
monster.
"Do you regret it?" she asks me. I stand at the end of the corridor of her prison, looking down the rows toward her.
She will die tomorrow.
I don't answer. I hate that silence more than anything else I have ever done in my life.
I could not say that the love I had felt had turned to hatred; and that hatred was furious, and inescapable, and would burn us both. It was better this way, I had thought. It was better if--
I open my eyes and, even seeing nothing but gold, the swords never disappear.
i would take the spear and return the lyre,
hear you sing memories of two boys skipping stones
across the sea, of the sweet crunch of figs between our grinning teeth
of your faltering breath, kissing the shadows of my face
but i can only stare at your golden back
as you march off to war
