A bigger storm is building, beyond the horizon. Of course he can't see anything but the one that is upon them, falling now in fat angry drops that echo the unicorn's glory. "You would have enjoyed my worlds, Eik." His imagination is set aflame with desire for a life that was never his. All he can do is smile sadly and nod in knowing agreement. There is something terrifying and captivating about this woman, something that he does not think he could understand even if he had a lifetime to know her.
"Have faith," she says, in this moment more god than mortal as the sky flashes with lightning and the earth quakes, and the tip of her horn resting on the middle of his forehead sends a shiver deep into the marrow of his bones. "Faith," he repeats.
When was the last time he had faith in anything?
Even before she is gone his mind is whirling with her absence, reaching out blindly to grasp at something that is no longer there. When she leaves he stays at the top of their hill for a moment, letting newly unleashed memories lash against him just as the wind and the rain do. The black stain of the past grows and grows and takes him over in a dark wave.
Have faith. His awareness of time stops as he searches himself for the grace of wild things. There it is, there! Buried with skeletons long laid to rest, so deep in his mind he had forgotten it was even there. That wild grace flares in his chest now, as wicked and frightening as hope.
Long after she is gone, a shiver of cold finally stirs him from his thoughts. He slowly makes his way down the knoll and to the treeline, jaw tightening as he thinks and rethinks the meaning and value of faith. "Cal-li-ope," he shakes his head in wonder. He will never forget the way the storm chanted her name.
- - -
There is no better way to know us
E I K
than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
@
Calliope <3
Time makes fools of us all
