☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות
"I CAME TO KNOW what your absence always means. Cliff. Every day knived sharper and doused in electricity."
"I CAME TO KNOW what your absence always means. Cliff. Every day knived sharper and doused in electricity."
I cannot remember a time when I was not – like a dull knife. Lacking a property that was somehow fundamental. You would think that you couldn’t notice the absence of something you’ve never felt, but I knew that it wasn’t there. I knew that it was wrong, and I was wrong, because I could see things in other people that I never felt myself, and I-
If I were more prone to metaphor, I would say that I have always possessed a certain hunger. A ravenous one. It grows by the year.
(I am not more prone to metaphor.)
At sea, the storm is growing. I can see the black crest of the tide rushing up further and further on the shoreline, a dark blemish against the bone-white sand; lightning cracks against the waves in crooked bolts of white and violet, and I can see dark sheets of rain coming in towards the shore. I pause in my collecting, mottled seastone of my coat blemished with salt and dirty water and sand, and I take inventory of the kelp that I’ve collected. I have more than enough, and, with the storm fast approaching, I know that I should make my way home as quickly as I can.
Still. I find myself standing on the rocky shore a bit longer, tangled colors of my hair whipping around my face. My hooves sink into the sand as shallow touch of the tide rushes back and forth around them, and it almost feels like I am moving as each passing wave pulls sand out to sea. I do not know why I remain there a moment too long – I only know that I feel more kinship with the stones and the merciless water than any desert-born girl ever should.
(Not born, if you believe the stories, but I will never tell you the truth. Not born – carved, created, even crafted, but never born.)
When a black head splits the surface of the waves, I know that I have made a mistake.
I’ve heard stories of kelpies, but I have never met one. My life has been mostly-sheltered; I have kept the company of murderers and thieves and cruel noblemen, but they are only ever horrible in ordinary ways. I think that she is beautiful, in a certain way, as she steps clear of the sea. She would not belong in my family’s art gallery, but she is beautiful in the way that any predator is beautiful, from the cold fire of her eyes to the glint of her teeth. It is the beauty of pure efficiency, of something built and crafted to be exactly what it is-
And, although she creeps closer to me, curls her body around mine like a snake, the wet press of her skin on mine, I do not move. I do not flinch away. I am suddenly reminded of myself, year’s ago, when I met Ishak; I am reminded of how it felt to stand in the face of a blade without moving. I do not move.
She tells me that I should run – that I should leave before the tide comes in or the storm hits. Unless, she says, I want to learn the force of the sea. I do not tell her how I have never wanted for anything, not like I should, how there is something hollow inside of me where want should be, and I do not run.
(If you run from a sandwyrm, it will chase you until you die.)
“What do you mean,” I breathe, and the slow turn of my head is like the cock of a hunting mantis, “learn the force of the sea?”
I have inherited several of my family’s flaws – but I think that the worst of mine is my curiosity.
@Leto || >D || shira erlichman, "ode to lithium #107"
If I were more prone to metaphor, I would say that I have always possessed a certain hunger. A ravenous one. It grows by the year.
(I am not more prone to metaphor.)
At sea, the storm is growing. I can see the black crest of the tide rushing up further and further on the shoreline, a dark blemish against the bone-white sand; lightning cracks against the waves in crooked bolts of white and violet, and I can see dark sheets of rain coming in towards the shore. I pause in my collecting, mottled seastone of my coat blemished with salt and dirty water and sand, and I take inventory of the kelp that I’ve collected. I have more than enough, and, with the storm fast approaching, I know that I should make my way home as quickly as I can.
Still. I find myself standing on the rocky shore a bit longer, tangled colors of my hair whipping around my face. My hooves sink into the sand as shallow touch of the tide rushes back and forth around them, and it almost feels like I am moving as each passing wave pulls sand out to sea. I do not know why I remain there a moment too long – I only know that I feel more kinship with the stones and the merciless water than any desert-born girl ever should.
(Not born, if you believe the stories, but I will never tell you the truth. Not born – carved, created, even crafted, but never born.)
When a black head splits the surface of the waves, I know that I have made a mistake.
I’ve heard stories of kelpies, but I have never met one. My life has been mostly-sheltered; I have kept the company of murderers and thieves and cruel noblemen, but they are only ever horrible in ordinary ways. I think that she is beautiful, in a certain way, as she steps clear of the sea. She would not belong in my family’s art gallery, but she is beautiful in the way that any predator is beautiful, from the cold fire of her eyes to the glint of her teeth. It is the beauty of pure efficiency, of something built and crafted to be exactly what it is-
And, although she creeps closer to me, curls her body around mine like a snake, the wet press of her skin on mine, I do not move. I do not flinch away. I am suddenly reminded of myself, year’s ago, when I met Ishak; I am reminded of how it felt to stand in the face of a blade without moving. I do not move.
She tells me that I should run – that I should leave before the tide comes in or the storm hits. Unless, she says, I want to learn the force of the sea. I do not tell her how I have never wanted for anything, not like I should, how there is something hollow inside of me where want should be, and I do not run.
(If you run from a sandwyrm, it will chase you until you die.)
“What do you mean,” I breathe, and the slow turn of my head is like the cock of a hunting mantis, “learn the force of the sea?”
I have inherited several of my family’s flaws – but I think that the worst of mine is my curiosity.
@Leto || >D || shira erlichman, "ode to lithium #107"
HE FEEDS ME RED MEAT / HE WATCHES THE BLOOD POOL IN MY MOUTHlaughs at my red teeth❂please tag Ruth! contact is encouraged, short of violence
