come away, o child, to the waters and the wild for the world is more full of weeping than you can understand
I do not love the sea.
I could blame the dreams, perhaps. The truth is more visceral; more primitive. I am meant to fly, to soar; my falcon’s wings do not belong to the shoreline, to the white-capped waves. I am only a transient upon the waterfront.
I am there only because I know it is where he went.
He. The Sovereign of Solterra. Orestes. Lover of Marisol. Father of Gunhilde and, and, well—
Me.
My father.
Gone.
When I had first noticed his absence, I had assumed he had gone to Solterra. Our last night had been full of laughter and joy—whenever my father came from the desert, he brought with him the merits of it, the sunshine, the warmth. Our nights stretched long, and always, always, I begged, Just one more story, or please, another game!
There is one thing I had never doubted before.
I had never doubted that he loved me.
One of my earliest memories is of the too-soft fur of Ariel, soft like innocence, softer than silk or the gossamer on a peach’s skin. It is of the golden glow and the warmth he possessed; the energy he radiated, purer than any other I have yet to encounter. It felt like the sunshine does through the cold; gentle; reminding; compassionate. One of my earliest memories is of resting between the Sun Lion’s great paws, listening as my father said affectionately:
There are some bonds that transcend lifetimes. We live in a world where we measure everything as if it is material—including our souls. We eventually dispose of everything—clothing rips and tears, jewelry tarnish, weapons rust, and bodies… well, bodies, they can… decay.
Then, I had been too young to understand. Even now, I don’t know if I understand. The sea before me is stark; the clouds hang low upon the horizon, pregnant with spring rain. Everything in the world is growing; everything is fresh and vibrant and new. Except for me. Except for the red light that wanes from me as if I, myself, am the setting sun.
I don’t understand, I had said. I remember that; how the words had tasted so promising, as if he might give me the knowledge to unlock the paradox of understanding, as if the knowledge in and of itself was something I had wanted to possess.
(It isn’t, it isn’t, it isn’t. To understand means that I have seen both sides of the same coin: the having, and the loss. The love, and the absence. The growth, and the decay).
Let me ask you a question, he had said. If you were to stay in this room as I walked into the other and shut the door, would I be gone?
I had laughed, I remember. I had laughed high and bright as a wind chime; and Ariel had licked my brow, short and fast and playfully, before standing. Of course not, silly, I had said. You would only be on the other side of the door.
Staring now at the sea, I can remember his expression almost perfectly. The gleam in his too-blue eyes, like a joke unspoken; mischievous, as old and wily as the ocean herself. He had said uncannily, “Then why do we feel as if when someone we love leaves or dies, they are truly gone? Maybe they are simply in another room, one our bodies cannot reach but our souls can.
“WHERE ARE YOU!” My voice, hoarse and too-loud, surprises me. A trio of sandpipers move more hurriedly away; and a seagull screams back. The waves go shush, shush, shush and their calmness infuriates me. “WHY DID YOU LEAVE?”
I am screaming into nothing; I am screaming into the impassive face of an ocean that doesn’t care. But there is no where else for me to go, except for the beginning of where he left and the end of where I knew him.
“There isn’t another room,” I call, more softly. “There isn’t.”
There’s only this one. And in this one, my heart is broken wide open, and the one person I want--the one person I need... I can no longer reach.
TODAY, FROM A DISTANCE, I SAW YOU / WALKING AWAY, AND WITHOUT A SOUND / THE GLITTERING FACE OF A GLACIER / SLID INTO THE SEA. ☙❧
There is one memory that lingers inside of me like broken glass.
In it, I move through the woods like a wraith. My eyes ache. (I remember that, even though I don’t think that I should; I remember the way that they hurt so badly that they gave me a migraine, and, no matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to shake it.) My hair is matted, filled with brambles and broken-off twigs and dead leaves, not lilies, and my coat has caught on burrs. I am covered in ragged, shallow gashes and dust, like something out of the grave, or something out of the woods. I know, distantly, that I do not look at all like a Green Knight should – I know that because I cannot feel the burrs or the tangles or the gashes, but I shed my armor hours, maybe days ago, left it lying in an ill-fitting heap in my chambers. It wouldn’t adhere to my skin. When I tried to put it on, it cut me like a razor-blade.
(I should have patched those wounds, I know, or they’d heal wrong, or get infected, but they are still burning at my hip, and I-)
and I am looking for a tree that I cannot seem to find, no matter how deep or how far that I walk into the woods. I have never lost my way before, never, but all the trees looked the same, no matter how deep I strayed into the woods (towards, even, the places that I know that we should never go – at least without the king), and I could never seem to find the one that I was looking for.
Perhaps it is because I knew, deep down, that I was not looking for a tree. Perhaps it was because I had seen what I was looking for put into the ground – buried, like roots, beneath a thick layer of soil. Perhaps I simply didn’t have the soul-finding talent of a priestess, or the woodland connection of my lord-
He was the one who found me. I half-remember it – I remember there is no death, but that does not mean there is no grief, and sometimes I wonder how much he meant it. What I know for sure is that he was just as angry as he was consoling. I can only think of him being angrier once, when I put my mind to it, and that is more of an imagined anger than anything – because I was dead, and I never saw it with my own two eyes, but I’d made him promises, and then I’d never kept them.
(I hope he knows, wherever he is, whatever he has become, that I longed to. I hope that he knows that I-)
I still know very little of the sea. A few months ago, I didn’t even know that it existed; but by now, it has cemented itself in my mind as the physical embodiment of new beginnings. I think of meeting O on the shore, the first outsider I’d encountered in this lifetime, and Elena, who’d been kind enough to welcome me into her home, and of Caspian, who’d shown me wonders beyond all of my wildest imaginings. When I grind my hooves into the crush of sand and breathe in a mouthful of salt and kelp-and-fish sea air, I feel more like Nicnevin than usual; I almost feel right in this new skin, almost recognizable in this face that doesn’t always seem like my own.
I don’t know what drew me out to the sea when I heard the boy screaming – the crescendo of his voice louder, somehow, than the crash of the tide against the rocks. In the back of my mind, there is always the heir; and closer to the front, there is Elena, and Elliana, and all the friends I’ve made in this new land. (That is the part that worries me, sometimes, because it longs to find a place in this world, not simply stay as a visitor.) All I know is that I hear his voice, and I break into a sprint towards it unthinkingly, kicking up sand and saltwater in my wake until-
I can see him. He is a child, much younger than me, and standing at the place where the waves meet the shore, screaming for someone who isn’t coming.
For someone, I think, as I stand meters behind him and listen, feeling my expression contort – into something more like understanding than proper pity -, that will never come.
When his voice softens, I step forward, sand crunching beneath the weight of my hooves. I do not stop until the water rushes up to my hooves, until I am at his side, and it is only when I am there that I realize I don’t have anything to say, so I don’t say a word. I only extend a long, brown-feathered wing –
an offer, as it were, to come closer.
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
10-18-2020, 01:05 AM - This post was last modified: 10-25-2020, 03:56 PM by Nicnevin
come away, o child, to the waters and the wild for the world is more full of weeping than you can understand
Staring at the waves, I expect them to explain to me how already my memories of him are changing, turning grayer—only the most vibrant of emotions remain to color them, brief and explosive. Joy, or childish anger, or the regret of things I did not say—and layered atop of that, prominent and smarting as sharply as a wound, is the thought that I should not have to regret the things I did not say.
It is as if overnight I went from a child, to nothing. A piece of me has been cleaved away; the lens through which I’ve understood the world is cracked, and those fissures have spread into every aspect of who I am. Who else, who else will leave? and what had I done? What had I done, to not be good enough for him to stay?
Had he not loved me enough? Had I not been good enough a son? And yes, yes I know I should go to my mother, I should say, he left, or to Hilde, and I should share in our grief—but I cannot, I cannot, because when I stare at the sea I know that I cannot let them see me dissolve as salt does in water, as I am now, with hot angry tears streaming down my face—
At first, I do not notice her. I don’t notice her until her wing enters my peripheral and I start, glancing over my shoulder. I don’t recognize her. I have never seen it before in my life. And then—because of her unfamiliarity, perhaps, because I do not have to be strong for someone I do not even know—the gesture of her open wing is too much for me to refuse. Later, my sudden need for comfort might embarrass me. I don’t discuss my feelings openly, and I never have; so why would I show such vulnerability to a stranger? I might even hate myself for it, tonight or tomorrow, when the grief has set like cement and taken a permanent form in my heart.
(I will say, to convince myself it was alright to accept her comfort, that it is because of her softness; the way she belongs to the earth, all honey-brown and autumn-orange. Later, I might say to myself it is because she is the first pegasus I have met that outside of my relatives that retains the legginess of youth instead of the supple musculature of a warrior, of a Halycon).
This is to say, she is familiar and not at all. This is to say, she is all the things I recognize and none of them. I find her embrace soft and warm; she smells like the forest in the sunlight, and, and, I turn my tear-covered face into her shoulder.
I am breaking.
I am breaking, like the sea against the shore. Over, and over again. I wonder if this is life; if this broken-rib pain in the side is life, and loving, if it is what it means to be growing. I don’t understand it. I cannot fathom why he would have left, why—why he would leave without giving a reason.
It’s because none of them would have been good enough.
My voice is hollowed, choked with tears, when I ask: “Why do people we love leave?”
I don’t know if she has an answer.
But I hope she does. I hope fate is real, and that is what has brought her to me.
TODAY, FROM A DISTANCE, I SAW YOU / WALKING AWAY, AND WITHOUT A SOUND / THE GLITTERING FACE OF A GLACIER / SLID INTO THE SEA. ☙❧
When the sobbing boy settles into my embrace, burying his tear-stained face in the curve of my shoulder, I feel myself steel in a long, slow breath. My heart hurts for him. He is young, and aching; experiencing what I can only imagine is the first real hurt of his life. It is in times like this, though, that I know that I must be steady. Hurt is only survived by persistence. Persistence is what he must learn from this, to stay steadfast-
I know this in the quiet way that I know all things that I have lived before. I wish that I could wipe his tears, or cure him of his aching, but all I can do for him is remain steady and tuck a wing across his shoulders to keep the wind at bay.
He speaks in a voice that is rubbed raw from crying. Why do people we love leave?
It isn’t an easy question to answer. It isn’t an easy question, but-
(but unfortunately, it is a question I know more deeply and innately than I would like to admit.) “Well,” I say, swallowing hard, “sometimes they don’t want to leave, but they have to, and there is nothing they can do about it. Sometimes they leave to keep us safe, to protect us. Sometimes they leave us because they have other responsibilities, and sometimes they leave us because…” My voice trails off, then, and I have to force back a sigh, my eyes fluttering closed. “…sometimes they are carrying too much. Sometimes the world becomes too heavy for them, and then they have to run. It isn’t because they don’t love us enough, and it isn’t our fault, but sometimes they just… ache too much, and they leave because of it.” I take a breath, and then I say something crueler, because I have to; because I won’t hurt the boy further by lying to him, or being too kind, or too sentimental. “Sometimes people are selfish. Sometimes it doesn’t matter to them how much they are loved, or how much they are needed – they leave because they want to, because something else matters more. Sometimes people are simply cruel. Sometimes they simply don’t care, and they leave unthinkingly.”
And here is where I pause, really pause, and let my tongue flit out to lick salt off my lips. There is one more cruel truth to leaving, and I think that it might be the cruelest one of them all: sometimes, it is inevitable. “And sometimes,” I say, my voice hitching around the words, “love isn’t enough. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you love them, and it doesn’t matter how much they love you – sometimes people have to leave.” In the back of my mind, I can hear the scream of starlings, half-burnt, their nests ablaze; and I can smell smoke, and a burning grove, a dying tree whose collapse will immediately be filled by newborn branches. In the back of my mind, I am thinking of myself, the morning before I leave for good, adjusting the emerald green of my armor, braiding lilies between the plates in my armor, humming. I am thinking of myself, a smile settled across my lips as I brush against the shoulder of the person that I, in all my lives, have loved most of all, and I am thinking of the ways that I assured him that I would be careful, because I always was, and that I would be fine, because I always was, and that this was only routine, because it was, and I am thinking of the way that I promised him that I would be back before he knew it, that my sister had sent some of those raspberry-flavored pastries that our mother used to make. I think I promised him that we’d share them, when I got back. You know, I’d said, you need a break.
I lied.
Dying was easier than knowing what I left when I did. (Dying was easier than knowing that I’d broken my promise.)
The curve of my throat comes to rest over the boy’s forehead, and I pull him tighter in my embrace. “But sometimes,” I say, softly, “sometimes they leave, and then they come back. Not all goodbyes are forever, no matter how permanent they seem at the time. Sometimes they leave, and they only leave for a moment. But even if they leave, even if they leave forever, no absence is permanent. You will find more people to love, to fill in the spaces they leave behind.”
I am still waiting for-
I am still waiting to find him, again, or to be found.
(But how many people I've come to love in the meantime!)
@Aeneas|| ;~; || ted kooser, "after years" Speech
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
come away, o child, to the waters and the wild for the world is more full of weeping than you can understand
One day, I might grow to understand that there is a lesson from everyone we meet in life. Perhaps that is something Vespera will teach me, or my father, or this kind stranger. The building blocks are there; the paving stones are set.
Everyone in our lives has a purpose; not, necessarily, in a utilitarian sort of way. But in this way. In the way that her compassion becomes a salve to my pain; in a way that I am met on this seaside not by loneliness but by companionship, simply because she had been here, and she had been the person I was meant to find. Maybe, maybe, my faith will call me to believe in destiny, or fate; if not my faith, then some inherent aversion towards apathy, or pessimism.
One day, I might look back at this encounter and recognize I met Nicnevin to make sense of my personal tragedy. One day, I might realize there are others who I meet who serve only to be bridges between one monumental point and the next; that will reteach me joy, or love, or even hate. There can only be so many extremes; so many pinnacles of both elation and pain.
This, however, is one of mine.
Well, sometimes they don’t want to leave, but they have to, and there is nothing they can do about it.
I nod; but even as I pretend understanding, tears well and spill from the corners of my eyes.
There is much that she says that doesn’t make sense to me, not yet. There is much that she says that will follow me from this time, from this place, into my life for years. Sometimes they are carrying too much. Sometimes the world becomes too heavy for them, and then they have to run.
The truths, brutal and unavoidable, continue to come. She delivers them as softly as possible; but the death of innocence is still the death of innocence. No matter how softly the killing, the too-white doves will fall from the sky.
And sometimes, love isn’t enough. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you love them, and it doesn’t matter how much they love you—sometimes people have to leave.
I can’t imagine it, I think—I cannot imagine it, leaving mother, leaving Hilde, running into the sea or beyond, becoming salt or sand, feeling as if the world was too much to bear—
(But then, briefly, I can: I remember the night I left the castle to run through the forest. I remember the times I have hidden in the garden, hoping no one would find me).
My eyes are raw. I bury them tighter into her shoulder. I curl my wings around myself and sob out a trembling, resolved breath.
But sometimes, sometimes they leave, and then they come back. Not all goodbyes are forever, no matter how permanent they seem at the time. Sometimes they leave, and they only leave for a moment. But even if they leave, even if they leave forever, no absence is permanent. You will find more people to love, to fill the spaces they leave behind.
I don’t think I will ever find someone else to love, as I loved my father. But her words remind me of the dream and in that too-soft, too-sad voice I say aloud, “I—I dream overnight the same dream.”
It seems an abrupt change of topic, even to myself. But the more I speak, the more it unfolds as a kind of rationalization, as a kind of acceptance. “In the dream, there’s a white stallion on a black beach. And we are walking together. He tells me we are the same person, separated by many lives—“
I laugh; the sound is self-deprecating, too sad, too bitter, to belong to a child. “I must sound crazy,” I say, self-consciously.
I withdraw from her; just a step away, to rub the tears from my eyes and glance out toward the open water. In that moment, I think I hate the sea—I hate it, for taking him.
Maybe, one day, I will understand better. Maybe, one day, I will remember this moment and recognize it as a turning point in life. But not right now. Not in this moment, when the sea breeze chills me to the bone, and I struggle to understand the concepts of loving and leaving and—most painfully of all—never saying goodbye.
“Thank you,” I say quietly, wonderingly. Because I want to believe her, more than anything, that if nothing else this is not the end.
