I call my ankles by your name. When my mother dipped me in the river, she was introducing us.
Every emotion has a taste.
Rage is cinnamon whiskey or the tart blood that rushes out through clenched teeth over broken gums.
Sadness is: burning mesquite heavy on the tongue, and the humid air by the sea (where our funerals were held).
Love is: sweat gathering at the edge of the lips, subtle salt, and gingerbread from wintertime.
Hatred is: the hardest to describe, like too-strong salt, like the sea, gritty between teeth and skin. Like iron. Like copper.
(Do not ask me why love and hate are both different forms of the same thing).
Those are not all emotions. There is no flavour for joy; no taste of excitement; no sweetness to envy; no bitterness to regret. Every other emotion becomes not a taste but a colour: the blended shades of gray that exist just after the sun has set, and the sunset has bled from the sky all beauty.
Tonight, however, I taste nothing. Solterra is too arid. Winter keeps the air cool enough that I do not sweat. I am clean, and smell more of linen than anything remarkable, than leather or steel. It was not as difficult as I would have expected, to escort Adonai from the Ieshan estate to the border of Solterra’s crown city. Just outside the city gates, Damascus awaited.
When we arrived, the dragon dropped back onto his haunches, and held out two massive hands. The effect of crawling into them would forever unnerve me; although through our bond, I felt no resentment. He simply opened them to allow us passage; and then those claws descended with the utmost care, until Adonai and I were both cupped between them. The world narrowed; within that monstrous grasp, there was little space to be anything except for lovers.
Our limbs were one; where something of his ended, something of mine began. Wings and elbows and knees knocking; my horns soft tap, tap, tapping into his. I knew I ought to have said something charming; later I would regret my silence. But then Damascus coiled his quadruple wings and sprung from the earth; the wind rushed into my ears. With Adonai’s hair whipping wildly into my face, I closed my eyes: but through my Bond, I saw all that Damascus saw.
The desert like a scar upon the earth; the rugged city of Solterra growing small; the dunes that became a sea and then, eventually, bled into the water of the true ocean. I felt the pitch of the wings. Damascus’s great breathing; the way we began to descend.
Yes, I knew. Speak to him. Say something to that wide-eyed wonderment. Turn your face. Kiss his cheek. Anything. Anything but rigid, militant silence.
Damascus lands much the same way he had ascended; with a great coiling of muscle he absorbs the impact in his hind legs and balances out with his tail. The dragon is forced to take several long, vaulting steps on his hind legs before balancing out with his wings. Then, with care remarkable for such a tremendous beast, he settles his hands upon the earth and parts them.
I step out with care. At last, I turn to Adonai and offer him a shoulder to balance on as he descends. We had timed it perfectly. The sun is setting, and the sky over the sea is the colour of a slit throat.
I smile when I see his expression; but the gesture is one that does not resound within my being, that does not meet with the veins of my heart. Externally, I know, it is perfect. Had I not told Ruth, his sister, the trick? Practice, I had said, in a mirror.
Practice, I think. Practice, until you believe it yourself. My smile is bright, and mischievous, and it reaches my eyes.
(I wish I could tell him that everything I had ever hated came from the sea; I wish I could tell him that even the taste of it in the air reminds me of all that had ever gone wrong in my life. Looking out at it, I can only imagine a blood-red stallion running just at the edge of the surf, away, always away. Looking out at it, I can only reminiscence soldiers standing shoulder-to-shoulder as they faced the heaving monstrosities that slunk from the depths, as amorphous as water itself, beasts so terrible that even remembering them casts shades upon my soul. I wish I could tell him that I had seen more men than I could count gutted in the waves; and that the water, then, frothed and turned pink. I wish I could tell him I had once fallen from cliffs like those in Terrastella, and the fall should have killed me; but instead the only man I would ever love (who was not a man at all) had pulled me half-dead from the water, and brought me back to life. That was the only time his lips had ever touched me--)
My voice is small and boyish and nearly sad when I ask, “Do you like it?”
What I do not say, but dances in the depth behind my eyes: It explains all I am that I never can.
Angry. Restless. Roaring.
The waves are rhythmic; the ocean is much calmer here than Oresziah. I step forward with him, until we are ankle-deep in the still-warm sea. It does not matter that it is winter.
Quiet. Solemn. Aching.
I had never known a sea to be warm, before this. The sun winks lazily off on the far horizon. Damascus lays down on the sand behind us and exhales a cloud of red vapour; it is harmless, and dancing, and meets the waves only to dissipate.
Unpredictable. Soothing. Apathetic.
I cannot tear my eyes from the sea that I do not recognise. But, somehow, at last I look at Adonai. It is from beneath my lashes; shy and dark.
I am dying, too, I want to tell him. There are different kinds of dying. Sometimes, the dying thing is being strangled by something inside. Sometimes, the dying thing isn’t the body. Sometimes it’s the soul.
I don’t have the courage. It wouldn’t matter, anyways.
The ocean is beautiful; he wouldn’t believe me, that it could be anything but. I smile, a charismatic gesture, a grand gesture. “Is it what you expected?” I ask.
If this is repentance, it tastes like sun-baked sand. If this is repentance, it tastes like tears held back.
(Like salt. Always, like salt).
Rage is cinnamon whiskey or the tart blood that rushes out through clenched teeth over broken gums.
Sadness is: burning mesquite heavy on the tongue, and the humid air by the sea (where our funerals were held).
Love is: sweat gathering at the edge of the lips, subtle salt, and gingerbread from wintertime.
Hatred is: the hardest to describe, like too-strong salt, like the sea, gritty between teeth and skin. Like iron. Like copper.
(Do not ask me why love and hate are both different forms of the same thing).
Those are not all emotions. There is no flavour for joy; no taste of excitement; no sweetness to envy; no bitterness to regret. Every other emotion becomes not a taste but a colour: the blended shades of gray that exist just after the sun has set, and the sunset has bled from the sky all beauty.
Tonight, however, I taste nothing. Solterra is too arid. Winter keeps the air cool enough that I do not sweat. I am clean, and smell more of linen than anything remarkable, than leather or steel. It was not as difficult as I would have expected, to escort Adonai from the Ieshan estate to the border of Solterra’s crown city. Just outside the city gates, Damascus awaited.
When we arrived, the dragon dropped back onto his haunches, and held out two massive hands. The effect of crawling into them would forever unnerve me; although through our bond, I felt no resentment. He simply opened them to allow us passage; and then those claws descended with the utmost care, until Adonai and I were both cupped between them. The world narrowed; within that monstrous grasp, there was little space to be anything except for lovers.
Our limbs were one; where something of his ended, something of mine began. Wings and elbows and knees knocking; my horns soft tap, tap, tapping into his. I knew I ought to have said something charming; later I would regret my silence. But then Damascus coiled his quadruple wings and sprung from the earth; the wind rushed into my ears. With Adonai’s hair whipping wildly into my face, I closed my eyes: but through my Bond, I saw all that Damascus saw.
The desert like a scar upon the earth; the rugged city of Solterra growing small; the dunes that became a sea and then, eventually, bled into the water of the true ocean. I felt the pitch of the wings. Damascus’s great breathing; the way we began to descend.
Yes, I knew. Speak to him. Say something to that wide-eyed wonderment. Turn your face. Kiss his cheek. Anything. Anything but rigid, militant silence.
Damascus lands much the same way he had ascended; with a great coiling of muscle he absorbs the impact in his hind legs and balances out with his tail. The dragon is forced to take several long, vaulting steps on his hind legs before balancing out with his wings. Then, with care remarkable for such a tremendous beast, he settles his hands upon the earth and parts them.
I step out with care. At last, I turn to Adonai and offer him a shoulder to balance on as he descends. We had timed it perfectly. The sun is setting, and the sky over the sea is the colour of a slit throat.
I smile when I see his expression; but the gesture is one that does not resound within my being, that does not meet with the veins of my heart. Externally, I know, it is perfect. Had I not told Ruth, his sister, the trick? Practice, I had said, in a mirror.
Practice, I think. Practice, until you believe it yourself. My smile is bright, and mischievous, and it reaches my eyes.
(I wish I could tell him that everything I had ever hated came from the sea; I wish I could tell him that even the taste of it in the air reminds me of all that had ever gone wrong in my life. Looking out at it, I can only imagine a blood-red stallion running just at the edge of the surf, away, always away. Looking out at it, I can only reminiscence soldiers standing shoulder-to-shoulder as they faced the heaving monstrosities that slunk from the depths, as amorphous as water itself, beasts so terrible that even remembering them casts shades upon my soul. I wish I could tell him that I had seen more men than I could count gutted in the waves; and that the water, then, frothed and turned pink. I wish I could tell him I had once fallen from cliffs like those in Terrastella, and the fall should have killed me; but instead the only man I would ever love (who was not a man at all) had pulled me half-dead from the water, and brought me back to life. That was the only time his lips had ever touched me--)
My voice is small and boyish and nearly sad when I ask, “Do you like it?”
What I do not say, but dances in the depth behind my eyes: It explains all I am that I never can.
Angry. Restless. Roaring.
The waves are rhythmic; the ocean is much calmer here than Oresziah. I step forward with him, until we are ankle-deep in the still-warm sea. It does not matter that it is winter.
Quiet. Solemn. Aching.
I had never known a sea to be warm, before this. The sun winks lazily off on the far horizon. Damascus lays down on the sand behind us and exhales a cloud of red vapour; it is harmless, and dancing, and meets the waves only to dissipate.
Unpredictable. Soothing. Apathetic.
I cannot tear my eyes from the sea that I do not recognise. But, somehow, at last I look at Adonai. It is from beneath my lashes; shy and dark.
I am dying, too, I want to tell him. There are different kinds of dying. Sometimes, the dying thing is being strangled by something inside. Sometimes, the dying thing isn’t the body. Sometimes it’s the soul.
I don’t have the courage. It wouldn’t matter, anyways.
The ocean is beautiful; he wouldn’t believe me, that it could be anything but. I smile, a charismatic gesture, a grand gesture. “Is it what you expected?” I ask.
If this is repentance, it tastes like sun-baked sand. If this is repentance, it tastes like tears held back.
(Like salt. Always, like salt).
