The forest rose like a dream
from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter
and the sun fell heavy and thick
Aeneas has yet to learn not everything in life is a grand adventure.
He has yet to learn the gilded pages of the fables in his room cannot be transferred to real life. The characters are, now and forevermore, only characters. Shades of what people ought to be, with conveniently packaged lessons, with clever words and cleverer actions. They are brave and smart because, in a story, everything aspires to make them out as such.
He has yet to learn life is nothing like this.
He has yet to learn that bravery is only half the story. That optimism has cloudy days. That fear—real fear—cannot be triumphed by courage one does not possess. He does not have the experience, the context, to see Isolt as something or someone to fear. It does not matter her tail is a scythe, her horn a spiraled spear.
After all, the sword in the storybooks is not monstrous. The blade itself typically belongs to knights, to heroes, to those who use violence only as a means to protect or save.
So, when she says, I want to not be myself Aeneas cannot quite understand. Who else, he wonders, could she possibly be? But then, in the quiet that follows her statement, he thinks of every time he lost control of his magic; he remembers the raw surge of power; the way someone else’s negativity can seep into the cracks of who he is, can saturate him, until he does not feel like himself at all—
Heroes are only those who have decided to be saviors instead of the ones who need saving. You should decide now which you would rather be, or the world will decide for you.
The brutality of her words—the whetted honesty of them—alarms Aeneas. He is unfamiliar with the harshness and nearly flinches. Perhaps he might have, if the energy from her had remained volatile; now, it is as turbulent as he is. “Have you already decided, then, what you will be?” He does not know how she will answer, or if she will answer at all.
But then Aeneas is stepping forward to follow her; hesitantly at first, and then with more strength. It is as if, in his fear and with the length of the night, his body has forgotten how to respond to movement. He is cold to the bone; but somehow, even if it is simply his subconscious, he recognizes that beside her he has nothing to fear.
“Thank you,” Aeneas states, although the gratitude seems inadequate; it does not seem a proper repayment for her kindness, but he does not know what else to say.
to warm the blood of a world
not quite ready to live
but so tired of its own imagination
