Fall was quickly shedding its leaves, bending the knee to winter. I was still too young to realize how time worked; how you never ever got it back except, maybe, in memory-- but that only at the cost of more time, and never to the same effect. I think I was so transfixed by the future and so at ease with the present that I didn't realize how the past was growing, too, and there were many things which had to end in order for others to begin. All I know for sure is that I had the vague sense of something- something big- just on the other side of the horizon. And if I could only grow taller, run faster, live wilder, I might catch a glimpse of that wonderful and nagging thing which so deeply called to me.
Those were the days in which I learned conviction. How to plant it under my skin like a seed. How to nurse it.
I was always drawn to the sea. People would say that was my mama or papa in me, that attraction to the dark mournful Blue, but they would be wrong. (I learned quick how often people were wrong, and how upset they got when they realized it.) The love of the sea was mine, plain and simple. Everyone who loved the sea, did so in their own way. It was how we got a taste of infinity. (And, maybe, a good and rightful fear of it.)
It was not uncommon for me to be found by the ocean, letting the salt air buffet my thoughts like a flag. But it was uncommon for me to be there alone, or as close to alone as one could be with a bonded; Furfur kept his distance from me but he was always up there on the bluff, watching me like a mother. (Or, more accurately, like a dragon.) He didn't like the sand in his paws, called it unnatural. And he didn't feel what I felt, in the touch of the seaward breezes in my hair: the heavy promise of all those untold stories, streaming in from that secret place beyond the horizon.
I'm not sure how long I stood there. I know I was alone for a very long time, and then, suddenly, I was not. So I said, without turning my head, "Hello."
a s p a r a
Holy ramble I am still figuring this girl out, please bear with me. Open to any <3
AND YOU WAIT; YOU WAIT FOR THE ONE THING THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE, MAKE IT MORE THAN IT IS. SOMETHING WONDERFUL, EXCEPTIONAL, STONES AWAKENING, DEPTHS OPENING IN YOU. YOU THINK OF LANDS YOU'VE JOURNEYED THROUGH, OF PAINTINGS AND A DRESS ONCE WORN BY A WOMAN YOU NEVER FOUND AGAIN. AND SUDDENLY YOU KNOW: THAT WAS ENOUGH. YOU RISE AND THERE BEFORE YOU IN ALL IT'S LONGINGS AND HESITATIONS IS THE SHAPE OF WHAT YOU LIVED.
It is a bit like a eulogy,
watching the ocean.
His heart is full of something that
is full of tragedy; it feels like saying
goodbye, with each coming and going of the tides.
It is how he gathers his thoughts. How he makes resolutions. By watching his forlorn, former matriarch. It is how he lets his heart bleed, just a bit. To keep him humble. To keep him finite. To keep him mortal.
Orestes walks along the shore alone, searching for sand-dollars. He picks up only the most perfect, as he stands knee-deep in the ebb and flow of the Terminus. His eyes seek out the tumbling disks of white, where they flash for just a moment before they are again devoured. When he sees one through the foamy surf, he reaches for it with trembling telekinesis. Sometimes, he pulls them up in fistfuls of sand and streaming water. Sometimes, he does not grab them at all, but instead feels them slip away like a sigh from a lover’s lips.
His favourites are the smallest ones; the ones that are found accidentally. Smaller than a man’s thumbnail; just a few pieces large then a single grain of sand. They are always a surprise, found suctioned against a shell or other sand dollar. He has just found one the size of a pinkie-nail when he sees the young girl in the distance.
Orestes knows that look, even from a distance. He settles the smallest sand dollar he has ever found back into the tide—he allows it to tumble from him, lost. He stares out after it for a moment, before he moves toward the shore and trots whisper-quiet across the sand. His muscles do not tire. He thinks, briefly, as if through a dream, many days where he had run along the edge of the shore in a different life.
It does not take long for Orestes to approach from behind the young mare. She looks almost sea-kissed, but not quite. “Hello,” he answers. Then: “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”
The words are pained; full of love and something complicated, something dark, not unlike the far-off and hazy horizon. The wind tosses his mane, and at the moment his emotions are so still, so serene (albeit achingly so) that his tattoos do not glow. He is cool dappled gold with silver designs dancing, life-like, across his legs and face. Perhaps it would not be so hard to see him like a setting sun, across the waves. He looks at her, a bit mischievously then. "Would you like a sand dollar? You can use it to buy Her love." And he gestures at the ocean with his head, and for a moment the sun at his brow flashes gold.
Pimrsi @ deviant art.com
11-01-2019, 04:21 PM
Played by
Rae [PM] Posts: 118 — Threads: 19 Signos: 20
One day, the ocean would share all its sad, mournful memories with me. It would tell me a story about the man named Orestes. I would cry.
But that first day, the day we met, the magic in me was wild and fickle. It was just a trickling stream where there would come to be raging waters. I could hear the sea whispering but I could not make out its words. I could sense how the sand sighed with longing but I could not discern exactly why.
(Even back then I was patient, which is not so different from being damn stubborn. In fact I was both, through and through. Before I can remember, I had made up my mind to master my magic, and my intent was so clear and so strong I felt the fabric of the world slowly shifting to accommodate it.)
The sea seemed to inhale deeply as he approached. I’ve been told I have a wild imagination. Over the years, some have even called it foolish. Useless. But I knew what I knew, and I was quite certain the sea was holding its breath at the sight of the golden man. I simply could not figure out why. The sea, the sand, the Western wind would not tell me.
I did not like feeling conspired against and so at first I did not like this man, even though he shone like the sun. Even though I immediately had a thousand questions for him. I wanted terribly to read the stories gilded in his skin, but I was too proud and too shy to let myself look for too long. I suspected they were sad stories. Those were the best kind.
The sea still had not exhaled, until he said “it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” And then its breath came tumbling, cool and salty against my cheek. In those days I did not understand love. I did not understand much of anything outside my close-knit family. So I thought his words were stupid, because of course the sea was beautiful. It was like calling the sea wet, or big, or god-- all empty words, because everyone knew they were true. Right?
I did not answer his stupid question, but I smiled a little at the queerness of his words. It was not until much later that I realized I wanted him to think highly of me. I was not a stupid girl and it was important to me that he realized this. I could not be bribed with stupid conversation.
The next thing he said initially struck me as stupid, but something about it caught me off guard. I bit my lip, unsure of how to proceed. If I had been a little older, a little more confident in my understanding of the world, I would have laughed at him. If I had been a little bolder, a little more like sister, I would have bared my teeth like a wolf and told him he was an idiot.
But I was kind, my ultimate weakness, and I did not want to break this silly man’s heart with the truth. Of course, I had only the slightest idea what this man’s heart was like-- the vague outline of it, backlit like a seagull flying into the sun. I did not realize how much bigger hearts could be on the inside. How many rooms were in there, each with so many trinkets and memories stashed away in it. I knew how easily a heart could break. I did not know how it could mend itself, sometimes stronger and more beautiful than before.
I stopped biting my lip because the taste of metal began to fill my tongue. And because it was my turn to speak. “I’m pretty sure you can’t buy love.” More importantly, I wouldn’t want to. I had the strong sense that love must be earned, or else it was just a kind of slavery.
But older people didn’t want to hear my thoughts. I knew this because everyone was older, and no one wanted to know my thoughts. “But I’ll take one for my sister. She can make it dance.” I could hear the pride in my voice. My sister was and is everything. When I spoke of myself, the pride faded. My tone was matter of fact, nothing good or bad. “And I can make it speak to me.” It might even tell me a story about the palomino. Even if it was just the memory of the man’s touch.
a s p a r a
@Orestes <3
11-02-2019, 01:12 PM - This post was last modified: 11-02-2019, 01:17 PM by Aspara - Edit Reason: grammar D: -
AND YOU WAIT; YOU WAIT FOR THE ONE THING THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE, MAKE IT MORE THAN IT IS. SOMETHING WONDERFUL, EXCEPTIONAL, STONES AWAKENING, DEPTHS OPENING IN YOU. YOU THINK OF LANDS YOU'VE JOURNEYED THROUGH, OF PAINTINGS AND A DRESS ONCE WORN BY A WOMAN YOU NEVER FOUND AGAIN. AND SUDDENLY YOU KNOW: THAT WAS ENOUGH. YOU RISE AND THERE BEFORE YOU IN ALL IT'S LONGINGS AND HESITATIONS IS THE SHAPE OF WHAT YOU LIVED.
Children are unapologetic and he loves them fiercely for it; so it is with the blue-kissed girl who is sad, but nevertheless lovely, and perhaps even more lovely for her too-serious, too-young face. She is quiet, and thoughtful, and Orestes does not rush her; nor does he try to read her shifting expression with too much depth. I’m pretty sure you can’t buy love. He wants to laugh; of course she is right, mostly… but he cannot help but counter, “Are you buying love if you are only returning something that belongs to another? Perhaps I phrased myself poorly.” And the cruel irony was that, regardless, the sea did not love.
Not in the way that mortals did, at least. Perhaps in the way something great and majestic must love, when there are so many things living and dying within it; with a magnitude unimaginable by him, or her. With the fair apathy of the cosmos; of fate. Is that how the sea loves? Orestes does not know, and he does not go on to say.
But I can take one for my sister. She can make it dance.
Orestes does not miss the way her expression lights up; the way her voice fills with pride. He side-eyes her quite soberly for a moment, as she progresses to talk about her own power. He takes her seriously, because she is a serious girl. And besides, magics have always been as real to him as breathing is. Her tone might be neutral, neither full of elation nor disappointment, but that was telling in and of itself and it broke his heart. Orestes knew. He had heard such things often enough among his people as they vied for his attention; for knowing and loving him. Comparison—in its own way—could crush the spirit. He had felt it himself, perhaps, in the envy that had arisen when Boudika used to speak of Vercingtorix in a cell that smelled like salt and rust. In the idea that someone is brighter, better, more worthy of love and admiration. Yes, Orestes had felt that, sometimes, too, when the weight of his people lay across his shoulders like a burden greater than he could bear, but must bear nonetheless.
“I would like to know what such things say very much.” he muses, aloud, before settling the sand dollar at her hooves. He introduces himself, then. “I am Orestes, by the way. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He cannot help but ask, then; “So… do you love it?”
For the second time he gestures at the sea, where seagulls pinwheel above them and waves curl elegantly in the distance. For a moment he thinks of all it contains that he can no longer reach, and it saddens him.
But he supposes, in its own way his changed fortunes are a blessing. He would not be on the shore now, sharing sand-dollars and wondering at what secrets they might one day confess to a nearly sea-kissed child. Orestes knows, because the sea used to tell him, their secrets must sound like eulogies too.
Pimrsi @ deviant art.com
11-02-2019, 06:59 PM
Played by
Rae [PM] Posts: 118 — Threads: 19 Signos: 20
Of course, I was young that day on the beach, and in my youth I had never met anyone who took back their words so simply and elegantly. I did not know such a thing could be done, and it was an idea that would stick with me for a long time. Up until that point, everything I heard was absorbed with a sense of finality. This is the way the world is. This is the reason why. Time only moves forward.
But that man, he turned things over. He conceded to my hesitation, like a sandpiper moving always at the edge of the waves. I smiled.
“Hmm…” I was glad this man seemed comfortable with silence, because it often took me a long time to think. Meanwhile the world around us was never still. Gulls cried overhead and the waves kept rolling in and the wind played with our hair and skin. My mane was still quite short at the time, nothing like the long golden silk of the man who shared my company, and at the touch of the breeze it couldn’t make up its mind which way to go. So it went every direction at once, and I looked a happy, windswept fool, fat with secrets. “I don’t know. I guess not.” Something still seemed odd about it, something that dug beneath my heart like it wanted to uproot me.
I suppose I was thinking about my mother, and whether or not she belonged to the sea. And if the sea wanted her back, like its sand dollars. And if the sea would love me, if I let it have her. And what a terrible price some things could be.
“Doesn’t the sand dollar belong to itself?” I did not know. And I did not fully trust this man to know, but I was curious what he believed and if the words, spoken aloud, would resound in me.
I recognized the name Orestes. If my mother was not a queen, and my father a king, at least in my eyes, maybe I would be taken aback to be in the presence of a sovereign. But I think a man would always be just a man to me, regardless of his station. I had noticed how a complete and total idiot could curry favor if his tongue was sharp enough, and as a result I had little inherent respect for rank. I trusted my own judgement more than anyone else’s, and this gave me the shockingly rare ability to happily ignore the opinions of others.
I picked up the sand dollar with my telekinesis. I spun it around in the air between us, like a coin. Heads or tails, I wanted to ask, because that’s what you do when you have a spinning coin. But I had no bets to place, and nothing to put to chance. All at once I wanted and feared being alone, and I could feel these feelings fluctuating like the sides of the sand dollar as they took turns kissing the sun.
(I remember wishing sister was there. She could have distracted this king, and then I could have said nothing and taken a nice long look at those silvery tattoos. As it was, I looked at them surreptitiously. One of them looked like a sun.)
“I’m Aspara. My sister’s name is Avesta.” It didn’t occur to me until later, how silly it was to introduce someone who wasn’t even here. But she was as much a part of me as, well, me. And in the moment I didn’t think anything of it.
He talked a lot about love, this golden man. I would later wonder why to me. A child. Not that I minded, in the moment. I found it wonderful that someone would treat me like an adult. And because of the way Orestes spoke to me, I found him captivating, just as much as he was forbidden. (Papa would have thrown an absolute fit if he knew I was talking to a grown-up boy. But he would never know, as long as I was careful. And I was always, always careful.)
And if I’m being honest with myself, the scent of something forbidden only egged me on. “Yes, I love it,” I said, with a polite grin that said “of course. Are you ever going to ask a question that is not silly?” I did not ask him if he loved the sea. It was too personal a question, and I had a hunch what the answer was anyway. “Is it anything like the sea of sand?” Papa sometimes told me stories of the desert. How at first the Mors seemed desolate and still and dead. Nothing at all like the ocean. How time opened your eyes, the ones you did not realize were there, and subtleties turned to vulgarities, easy as the flip of a coin.
Still the sand dollar twirled in the briny air. Still I did not reach for it with my magic, to tell him what it had to say. I was still thinking about his words “I would like to know what such things say, very much,” and wondering what price that knowledge might fetch.
AND YOU WAIT; YOU WAIT FOR THE ONE THING THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE, MAKE IT MORE THAN IT IS. SOMETHING WONDERFUL, EXCEPTIONAL, STONES AWAKENING, DEPTHS OPENING IN YOU. YOU THINK OF LANDS YOU'VE JOURNEYED THROUGH, OF PAINTINGS AND A DRESS ONCE WORN BY A WOMAN YOU NEVER FOUND AGAIN. AND SUDDENLY YOU KNOW: THAT WAS ENOUGH. YOU RISE AND THERE BEFORE YOU IN ALL IT'S LONGINGS AND HESITATIONS IS THE SHAPE OF WHAT YOU LIVED.
There is something painstakingly genuine about the exchange. He is full of sudden tenderness and, in addition, a sort of poignant thankfulness for the conversation. It is somewhat intermittent, with long silences that are made less awkward by the serene patience of the sea. There is no true silence between them, as the stretches between what they say are simply filled with the lull of the waves and wind, the careening gulls overhead, the way even the sand seems to whisper. Doesn’t the sand dollar belong to itself? she asks, and Orestes takes his time in answering.
The question makes him think of his old homeland and his new promise to a desert kingdom. It makes him remember the nights he stayed awake at the bottom of the sea, wondering at the simplicity of escaping the curse of their conquerers. Could they not simply disappear? Dive into the depths, never to return? Orestes had always known, intrinsically, their magic was tied to the island the Oreszians had settled. To leave it would mean to become something else than what they were; and that is the life he lives now, with forgotten magic and a sea that now only whispers sweet nothings to him.
At last, Orestes says, “No. I don’t think anything truly belongs to itself. But of course, that is only my belief.” He is quiet again, for a moment, but the conversation is not quite finished… He goes on to muse, “It comes from the sea, and so the sea will always be a part of it. Just as the sand-dollar will always be a part of the sea. Look at people… everyone you know, you give a little piece to. Your sister has a bit of your heart, I would imagine. Just as she has a bit of yours. And that piece you give away will always belong to her, and no one else.” Orestes reminisces, for a moment, all the bits of himself that belong to others. There is a bit of his heart that will forever belong to the sea. There is a bit of it that is lost somewhere on a black beach, and in a rusted prison next to a copper-headed girl. There is a piece of him in the surf, in the sands, in the past. There is a piece of him on the shore of Solterra; and another in the capitol.
He does not know it, but a piece of him walks fearlessly in the streets of Denocte, a girl who used to fear the sea that has grown shark’s teeth. A girl he used to love.
He does not know it, but a dark piece of him is searching Novus hungrily, scarred and limping and empty, hunting for a dream that is forgotten.
He thinks, for a moment, of how there might be a piece of him growing in Terrastella with a girl who suggests his read Don Quixote.
There is certainly a piece of him that belongs to his kingdom, a piece he has promised a god, a piece that a golden lion claimed. Sit. Sit and remember you are ash.
For a moment he wonders if any bits of himself truly belong to him; or if they are given to others, always, selflessly. He wonders if when he is old and grey if there will be anything left for him to give.
She introduces herself, and her sister, and Orestes finds it strange—and perhaps even a little sad—that the two are inseparable, even in introduction, even when only one is present. “You are very close to your sister.” It is not a question.
His mind clears when she affirms that she loves the sea, with the impatient assertiveness of a child. Of course. Orestes does not blame her. It makes him smile, and he finds her curiosity endearing as she progresses to question the desert he has come to call his home.
Orestes has thought to compare it to the sea before. But he cannot. And in some way, perhaps that is a part of belonging to something, as well; he recognises it for what it is. “No.” Orestes is thoughtful; quiet. “It has what could look like waves, at first glance… but they shift only when you touch them, and the wind changes them in ways that our eyes can’t see. It’s why it is so easy to become lost, unless you are following the stars or sun. It is vast, and much hotter. The sea will try to kill you, but it is romantic about it. The desert is austere and unapologetic; the desert tries to kill you up front. But it is beautiful because of it; it chooses people. Perhaps one day you can visit it.” It is almost an invitation.
And with it, Orestes at last realises it is rather strange to see such a young girl alone. He feels alarm, but does not show it. Instead, he decides to raise the question later. For now, he finds the genuineness of the conversation too pleasant, as he watches her turn the sand-dollar over and over.
I liked this old boy’s company. It scared me a little, because I knew it could not last. And I did not know if or when we would ever meet again. It brought to my mind all those thoughts of the future, thoughts which to that moment had been gathering like stormclouds always on the horizon. I wanted to sink my teeth into the future, clamp down, make it my own. I had no interest in dominance over people or places, but time and magic— time and magic I felt entitled to. I was a unicorn, with the same angry spiral of a horn as my mother. I was a unicorn, and I had a kind of quiet rage that was all my own.
But the anger would come later, when I was alone. In his company I listened thoughtfully, head cocked as I thought. His words rolled around inside of me like dark velvet seeds in a wooden bowl, unable to find the perfect place to rest. I still did not know if I believed in what he said, but it did have an air of truth to it. I wanted to believe in complete and total freedom, but the longer I thought the more it seemed like it really might be impossible to love and be free.
“So I have a little piece of your heart, and you have a little piece of mine?”
I promised myself I would keep that little piece of his heart and hold it close. Protect it from how hard I knew the world could be. And yet— I really did not know, not yet. I just had a vague suggestion of it. Adversity had to be lived through to be understood. It could be conveyed in song and story but nothing would substitute for the real thing: loss and grief and all the little rebirths that followed. I had yet to go through all that, and I thought that when the bad times hit, I would be able to shelter in my heart everything precious and sacred and gentle.
It was a great responsibility which he gave me, although I’m sure he did not think twice about it. I was just a girl. And as far as I could tell, he seemed the type to hand out pieces of his heart carelessly, without concern to how they were treated. I, on the other hand, was determined to be careful with mine.
(It would turn out to be one of those funny things where the harder you try for something, the more the opposite happens. In the years to come, I would be beyond careless with my heart. I simply could not help myself. I think life has a most foul sense of humor.)
He said I was close to my sister. A fact as plain and simple as the sea being beautiful. But this time I knew he wasn’t just fumbling at small talk. He was showing me that he knew Avesta was the key to which all doors inside me opened. Coming from someone else, I might have taken this as a threat. But I was not afraid of him, even though his eyes were deep as the ocean and, in my opinion, eyes like that could not be trusted. I know there were many good and wondrous things in the sea, but I also knew there were dangers and horrors. Anyway. “You would be too, if you were me.” I scrunched my nose in silent laughter, because if he was me then who would I be?
Orestes spoke of the sea like a man in love, although I did not realize it then. I noticed how spellbound he was, and how his words seemed to come to me as though from the other side of a distant dream. I wanted to be there, in that dream space with him. My hooves dug deeper and deeper into the sand with every wave (the tide was slowly rising, I had noticed) but I did not feel any more rooted to reality. I was flying low over the desert as he spoke, feeling its radiant warmth on my whiskers, its violent character. Imagining what the rocks and stones and sand had to say to me.
“The sea will try to kill you, but it is romantic about it. The desert is austere and unapologetic; the desert tries to kill you up front. But it is beautiful because of it; it chooses people. Perhaps one day you can visit it.”
“Oh, I will. Papa said he’ll take us, when we’re older.” Or we would just go ourselves, when we felt the time was right. We would surf the sea of sand and trace our muzzles against red canyon walls and, if fate was kind (the sand dollar still flips, slowly, heads or tails) we would walk with a sad king through his golden kingdom. He would tell us more about the desert, and the sea, and how nothing belonged to itself. “It chose you?” I wondered out loud. “Is that why you’re the sovereign?” Would the desert would love me? Would it take a small piece of my heart, too, or would it be greedy?
I pictured all the pieces of all the hearts the desert claimed, and all the sun-kissed grains of sand. I pictured me and sister, sliding down the dunes. Laughing. When I raised my nose to the sky and howled like a wolf, the coyotes would yip and howl like long lost cousins.
“The sand dollar says…” I stopped flipping it, and gently pressed it to my cheek. I was not very good at magic yet, and it was easier to listen to the things that I was touching. I swear the ocean was at attention then; it seemed to perk up, the waves reaching further and further upshore. It was surely just the tides, but I wondered...
“It was alive once.” Nothing like life as we know it, not really— it was a grazer, and that’s about where our similarities end. “It was happiest when the tide was low, and it could feel the moonlight on its skin.” It also liked laying eggs, and it laid a lot of them. A lot. Gross. I snorted and gently lowered the skeleton to the ground.
And as the magic ebbed out of me and the tide rose, home was beginning to feel farther and farther away.
AND YOU WAIT; YOU WAIT FOR THE ONE THING THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE, MAKE IT MORE THAN IT IS. SOMETHING WONDERFUL, EXCEPTIONAL, STONES AWAKENING, DEPTHS OPENING IN YOU. YOU THINK OF LANDS YOU'VE JOURNEYED THROUGH, OF PAINTINGS AND A DRESS ONCE WORN BY A WOMAN YOU NEVER FOUND AGAIN. AND SUDDENLY YOU KNOW: THAT WAS ENOUGH. YOU RISE AND THERE BEFORE YOU IN ALL IT'S LONGINGS AND HESITATIONS IS THE SHAPE OF WHAT YOU LIVED.
So I have a little piece of your heart, and you have a little piece of mine?
Orestes smiles, and the expression is the epitome of bittersweet. There are so many things he wants to say; wisdom he wishes to share; truth he wishes to utter. But matters of the heart are the most difficult to express; it has taken Orestes many lives to learn that it the one thing that cannot be persuaded. Everyone must reach their own beliefs of the heart. Everyone must find their own truths. And so he says, “If you would like a piece of mine, I would be glad to share it with you.” It is true; even as he says it he knows that she has one fragment already. “And if you give me a piece of yours, I will be sure to keep it safe. Not everyone will, though.”
There are few things he loves more than the intimacy between people. Aspara’s face comes alive with talk of her sister; ”You would be too, if you were me.” There is something bittersweet in that, too, Orestes thinks. But he laughs and the sound is as gentle as the shush, shush, shush of the sea. “I am very sure of that.” Yet, he wonders and fears if the brightness of one casts shade upon the other. He has known too many relationships where one shadows the other, rather than compliments them; where there is a necessity between the two that cannot be independent, that cannot grow freely, and so it grows gnarled together at the roots. Orestes does not say this, though.
Because it is also beautiful.
There is something whimsical about the way she says, oh, I will, as if there is nothing out of her reach. He should be surprised when she claims he is the Sovereign; but for some reason, Orestes is not. “Yes. It chose me.” And the lion is in his mind; and the voice of the desert is in him and through him, as faded as a dream. He does not say: and the sea abandoned me but he thinks it, when the high tide reaches his hooves and the warm lick of it is like the sting of betrayal.
Orestes does not dwell long on that, however. No. Not when the slight, magic girl that is almost-ocean tells him what the sand-dollar remembers. It was alive once… He closes his eyes when he listens, and almost says, everything in the sea is or was or will be again but does not.
“I think you have the best magic I’ve ever known.” Even as Orestes admits it, he wonders if it will become a curse for her. Are gifted children not so often cursed by the very thing that blesses them?
He tells her then, “It is far better than mine. One day, I will become a star.” The words are almost playful, and there is a curl to his lip that suggests his smile. As Orestes says it, he focuses on the warmth of the setting sun against his skin. Solis is distant, fading, as Vespara rises to meet him—but it is not too late… not too late, yet.
Orestes draws on the energy, on the memory, of light. His skin glows brighter, brighter, and the smallest of shells tremble about him from the earth. The sand dollar she has settled so gently rises to meet him and then swirls, whimsically, about his glowing body. The temperature of the air raises a degree, two, three, four, and he is bright enough he is nearly hard to see—faint sparks of light, bright and streaked like lightening, twirl in his main and tail and about his body among the floating shells and sand. Her mane and tail will likely tug about her body, toward the minute gravitational pull he has begun to produce… Orestes feels heavy, heavy, and if he wonders what it would feel like to collapse in upon himself, to sink beneath the sand—
Then the sun tips beneath the horizon, and he lets out a sigh. The display of magic ends abruptly. The shells settle peacefully back upon the sand, and his heart beats wildly in his chest. He can feel, even now, the tremble within him, the fluidity, that wishes to become another shape and he wonders just what it could be. “I would rather be able to talk to the world.” He admits.
That look on his face, I've seen it before on my father's. It was a strange combination of joy and pain that I had witnessed so many times I felt it begin to take root inside of me, like so many other seeds that had been planted by my parents, or strangers, or nature. I embraced all these seeds, all these different versions of myself, but I had a keen sense that this one bittersweet feeling would outgrow the rest.
It struck a chord in me that just felt right.
From that familiar look on the golden man's face, I suspected he knew a lot about love, and life in general, but he didn't want to tell me about it. I frowned, suspecting he thought I was too young or foolish to understand. Or maybe his knowledge was full of secrets he didn't think I could keep. I made up my mind to prove him wrong. The next time we met I would be older, and wiser, and the best secret-keeper in all the world, and he would feel so foolish for not confiding in me. But he at least offered me a piece of his heart, and accepted mine with a promise to keep it safe. A promise! I was not positive it was one he could keep, but I treasured it dearly nonetheless.
A promise is a grave thing (one of many. Adults found my gravity funny, for some reason, and I appreciated that the sun king took me seriously.) and I nodded my head sagely. “Okay.” was all I said, but it was full of gratitude and reverence.
His laughter reminded me of the ocean. When we were younger, our parents would sometimes take us to the shoreline in the evenings and the sea's song would lull us to sleep. That's what I thought of when he laughted; my smile in response was instinctive and maybe a little sad. I wanted him to always be laughing, but I did not think that was possible. Kings and queens were not allowed to remain happy. As if to prove my point, he grew serious and thoughtful. The air was heavy with the things he did not say. I could almost feel them in my lungs when I inhaled, all those unsaid words.
"But why?" I asked, because I knew if you wanted something, you had to ask for it. You weren't guaranteed an answer, but you at least had to try. Why had the desert chosen him?
How could I get the desert to choose me?
I probably asked the question too soon. If I had just been a little more patient, I would have seen for myself. First he began to glow, then the air began to warm and things were drawn to him. I watched with wide eyes my sand dollar (when had it become mine?) twist in the air and circle the stallion like something afraid and in love. "Oh." I said softly. My mane drifted toward him like we were underwater. He hurt to look at but I couldn't look away.
When the magic suddenly stopped, the king was burned into my vision. White-green-red-blue, the sun in the shape of a man. "Cool."
Then, the shape burned into my eyes said "I would rather be able to talk to the world."
It only took me a second to think about it. I grinned proudly at his words, too polite to agree and too proud to disagree. As incredible as his magic was, I wouldn't want it. I loved my magic. Even when the walls had nasty stories to tell, or the rugs tripped me in their eagerness to be heard, I loved my magic. Every bad dream and sleepless night and scraped, bruised, bloody knee, all of them a hundred times over, they were worth it. I would give everything to pour myself into the world and let it pour over me-- my body, mind, soul. I would give everything except my family.
At that thought I wavered, uncertain in the twilight. Home was behind me. Family was behind me. I slowly picked up the sand dollar and pressed it to my neck. It whispered excitedly of the king's warmth, of his gravity, and I smiled. ("I flew, like a bird, I flew!
--and then I fell")
"I should be getting home." I looked at him uncertainly. It didn't feel like an ending, but it was. At least, it was for the moment-- something told me this was just the start of our story. (Maybe that something was as simple as hope.) I figured if there ever was a time for introductions, it was then. Of course, I already knew his name. Orestes. The king carved of sunlight. News constantly streamed south on the quiet wings of huge desert birds, and although I was not interested in gossip, it was impossible to avoid at court. I knew before we even met that his eyes were blue, his skin not just golden but gilded. I had no idea about the other things though, the ones I found most captivating.
The ocean sighed as the tide receded, and it made me think of the sound of his laughter. "My name is Aspara." I still hadn't learned the nuances of farewells, so our conversation ended with a simple: "Bye bye."
I walked away with the sand dollar pressed against my neck, wondering when and where our paths would cross next. Furfur, who had been watching carefully from the bluff, jogged to side with a long, wary look behind his shoulders at the sun king. Judging. If he had any opinions on the man, he did not share them, and we walked in companionable silence into the darkening night.
a s p a r a
@Orestes this thread was such a delight, thank you so much <3
