Somewhere along the line all the quiet became natural for him. Sometime between listening to his flowers as they stretched and grew and bloomed and watched the people of his court struggling to do the same. Somewhere between war and peace, between the destruction of a fire and the new growth that follows in its wake. Somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, the ones he was not sure would follow.
He is not sure when it happened. Maybe it had always been there, another part of him that was hidden beneath the petals he had draped around his heart as a shield. Maybe it happened when he was drowning in the rot of a dying stag, and all he wanted was to feel one more breath of air filling the creature’s lungs. But when he thinks, he can remember it before then — when he listened to the trees welcoming home. When he walked in a golden rain shower with a stranger (and never once did he stop to wonder at the war they would fight in together, years later.) When he felt the earth leading him to a secret he did not know he needed to find.
Somewhere, he had learned to speak the language the earth speaks. And in the process, he thinks he has forgotten the language of his own kind, of his people, of his friends.
But he does not know how to unlearn and relearn anymore.
He knows he should be a better king, a better father, a better gardener of this court he thought he could grow. He should do anything but lift his head to the winter like a birch tree welcoming the death of its cousins. But he does it anyway when he pulls his shoulder from Andras’ and looks into the sky like he can see a warning there, or a promise, or a sign for what is to come.
It reminds him of how it feels to want. Of how that wanting can destroy a world as soon as rebuild it.
He knows it. And Ipomoea will not decide for him because of it. And he wonders when he began feeling less like a man, like an orphan, like a king — and more like a god.
“Take some time. Sleep on it, if you need to.” He brushes the words across Andras’ temple the same way he brushes the snow from his holly bushes. “You can give me your answer in the morning.”
A smile then, the closest thing to a real smile he has been able to form in too many days. The sunlight glinting off of the ice makes his eyes sting when he realizes he has been staring at it for too long. He is always looking at the frost now, at the ice wrapped around the life of his garden like a noose, and wondering, wondering, wondering if the world was only a thing made for consuming.
He wonders when it will be torn apart like a fruit, and if he can stop it.
“Until then, perhaps you can walk with me?” Already he is brushing the ice and the frozen earth from his knees, and heading back towards the warmth of the castle (he is sure Andras would appreciate a warmer place than the garden in winter.) “I heard you have gone to Solterra.”
And his eyes when he glances sideways at Andras are begging for a story, hoping to relearn all the languages he has forgotten.
He is not sure when it happened. Maybe it had always been there, another part of him that was hidden beneath the petals he had draped around his heart as a shield. Maybe it happened when he was drowning in the rot of a dying stag, and all he wanted was to feel one more breath of air filling the creature’s lungs. But when he thinks, he can remember it before then — when he listened to the trees welcoming home. When he walked in a golden rain shower with a stranger (and never once did he stop to wonder at the war they would fight in together, years later.) When he felt the earth leading him to a secret he did not know he needed to find.
Somewhere, he had learned to speak the language the earth speaks. And in the process, he thinks he has forgotten the language of his own kind, of his people, of his friends.
But he does not know how to unlearn and relearn anymore.
He knows he should be a better king, a better father, a better gardener of this court he thought he could grow. He should do anything but lift his head to the winter like a birch tree welcoming the death of its cousins. But he does it anyway when he pulls his shoulder from Andras’ and looks into the sky like he can see a warning there, or a promise, or a sign for what is to come.
It reminds him of how it feels to want. Of how that wanting can destroy a world as soon as rebuild it.
He knows it. And Ipomoea will not decide for him because of it. And he wonders when he began feeling less like a man, like an orphan, like a king — and more like a god.
“Take some time. Sleep on it, if you need to.” He brushes the words across Andras’ temple the same way he brushes the snow from his holly bushes. “You can give me your answer in the morning.”
A smile then, the closest thing to a real smile he has been able to form in too many days. The sunlight glinting off of the ice makes his eyes sting when he realizes he has been staring at it for too long. He is always looking at the frost now, at the ice wrapped around the life of his garden like a noose, and wondering, wondering, wondering if the world was only a thing made for consuming.
He wonders when it will be torn apart like a fruit, and if he can stop it.
“Until then, perhaps you can walk with me?” Already he is brushing the ice and the frozen earth from his knees, and heading back towards the warmth of the castle (he is sure Andras would appreciate a warmer place than the garden in winter.) “I heard you have gone to Solterra.”
And his eyes when he glances sideways at Andras are begging for a story, hoping to relearn all the languages he has forgotten.
@
I figured this can be wrapped up in the next couple of replies!
”here am i!“
