when all the ships have turned to ash
I will be left unharmed, alone
these boundless flames will come to pass
and with the waves I will go home
“I’ll never be enough for you, will I?” His voice is in my ear, too-soft. It could almost be a dream.
When I open my eyes, I know it isn’t.
It is one of those mornings where the sun comes through the window slanted; it catches dust motes like small planets, and warms the skin and sheets. I do not open my eyes, but I know he is already up. The night before had been a mistake. I had hurt Bondike before, but this, this was different—
“I see how you look at him, you know? We all see, how you look at him. You come to me, and I still haven’t figured out why. My guess is that you come to me when it becomes too much, you loving him, when you feel like you can’t. But what I don’t understand is why you can’t.”
He is up. I know he is standing up. I can hear him sliding the cloak of his uniform back around his shoulders. He is fastening the leather of his baldric. He adjusts the sheath of his sword with a metallic rustle.
“Dagda—wait.” I turn to look at him, over my shoulder. The sunlight is catching on him just like the dust motes. “Come back to bed, please?”
His smile is terse, almost polite. “No, I can’t. I won’t let you use me.”
He leaves and when he leaves, I am alone.
These days, I am more regrets than thoughts. Perhaps it is because I am the walking epitome of hunger; more likely, it is because I am the loneliest I have ever been. Before, there had always been someone else. There had been a salve for the loneliness, or if not a person, then an action. Here, there is nothing. I have not seen Adonai in weeks; and perhaps the fault is mine, for having grown distant…
But that is also because I had been dragged into the sea and changed forever.
I do not know what has me reminiscing Dagda; thoughts of him are thoughts that I try not to visit, if only due to the fact the sentiments within them are too tangled.
They are the thoughts that have me restless tonight. I have wandered up from the sea, along the edge of the Rapax. Damascus soars above me. With monstrous thrusts of his wings, the forest stirs. Along the bank, I watch the current of the water; the trout that flit like flashes of light instead of fish beneath the surface. They are enchanting and remind me, inexplicably, of hunting trips with my father when I had been a boy.
I know I am not alone, however, when I hear the steady beat of hooves against the stones by the river. Damascus careens above and lands with deceptive softness for a beast of his size, beside me. I cannot see further; there is a sharp bend of the river that is then lost to the trees. But then he walks around it.
What strikes me first is that he is handsome.
And that, in the moment, is all that matters.
I do not smile. My mouth is too full of teeth for that. But I say, more warmly than is typical, “You aren’t lost, are you?”
It is the beginning of a story, I think; a man kissed by stars turns a bend in the river and finds a water horse with a dragon of sins.
What, then, could go wrong?
I'll never be enough for you, he said.
I did not have the courage to tell him nothing--no one--ever is.
