khier
Everywhere we go and move on and change, something's lost--something's left behind. You can't ever quite repeat anything--
I
have always tried to get lost. When I began to sail on the St. Foxglove as a deck boy, wherever we stopped I would wander. From the ship, to the shore, to the inland beyond. They warned me against it. They said to walk only with soldiers. There were boys like me who ran errands aboard the ship, cleaned quarters, and were assigned to a sailor that went missing in the woods of the strange islands we visited. Boys who wandered off as silhouettes against the trees, brushing back untouched foliage, to never return. The sailors and soldiers made stories, of course, of demons and magic that wooed the boys away. Astrid once wrote me of a dream she had on an island with red sands every night they were docked there. She wrote me the dream was the same song, and the song was sung by a woman as red as the sands. She could never remember the words; but when she awoke she hummed the tune, wordlessly, eerily, months after they left.
These stories never inspired fear in me. I know they should have. I know I should have been more careful. I should have been more attentive to my solitude; more determined to go only with a friend. I could not, however. Try as I may, the more inhospitable the island the more called I was to venture forth alone. I love the silences. I think it stems from never having had silence as a boy, except at night; and even then my homeland had been so small I could hear the neighbor snore. And so, when I had the freedom I took, and took, and took.
This is no different.
The only difference is the land seems so much larger. It is, I imagine, because this is no island. This is no easily conquerable bit of territory. It is a country; a continent. I have been here only long enough to join a Court; to understand the territories. I have not been here long enough to explore, to understand.
I begin with the Viride.
(And, I wonder, if I will not spend the rest of my time here in the woods outside of Delumine).
The trees before me are larger than any I have ever seen. They completely obscure the sky; a multitude of boughs and needles. Coniferous, I heard a sailor once describe trees of smaller stature on an island where the wolves howled each and every night. Coniferous. As I walk among them, pinecones break underfoot. There is fog in the air; surreal. The light strains weakly through it and dissipates evenly throughout the too-tall trees. I cannot see far down the path, but do not mind. There is an aura of mystery I enjoy. The woods, however, seem strangely silent. There are no birds; no bright, high calls. Only the whirr and hum of insects and the sudden bright blights of fireflies. The sun is setting. The air is turning red.
I walk until I can no longer. There is a fallen tree in the deer trail I had been following and I can go no further. Either direction I glance the trunk stretches endlessly, out of sight. True, who has been wandering, finds me again and together we turn around. The necklace in the hollow of my throat is warm, warm, warm, and Chara's thoughts are alight with laughter.
It occurs to me, suddenly, the trail is gone behind me as well.
