This certainty is more than just a feeling, it is a foul sort of knowing deep in his bones, in all that empty space between atoms, swelling with warning, with despair.
"Toward the future," she sings (really she just says it, but the sun is in his eyes and ears and mouth and her voice sounds like a song) she burns (gently, gently, not even a simmer) "will you join me?"
It almost feels like someone else who answers "of course," as he nods tersely, skin prickling at the tickle of her downy wing across his shoulder.
Of course, he says, because of course there is no place to go but forward. Elsewhere there are bridges burning. Elsewhere a kingdom is being torn asunder, its citizens starved and desiccated, the carcass of progress cracked open at the ribcage and left to the sun and the dogs. He could not simply dream his way through winter, through spring, through war and ruin.
Even if he could, he wouldn't.
There are things a man needs to see with his eyes, hear with his ears. He could not survive without tragedy-- we know it now even as we keep our heart from knowing (-- two sides of a blade do not see the same blood) and maybe... maybe there are answers that lie ahead. Maybe there are even weapons.
(careful, now, best keep hope caged)
They walk side by side across the strange bridge and Eik does not say anything for a long time. His thoughts dance from one solemn subject to another-- the situation in Solterra, his last unfortunate encounter with Moira, the certain misfortune that awaits them at the edge of the bridge-- and nothing seems worth saying out loud except maybe "have you changed your mind?" but he can't figure out a less ass-ish way of communicating that.
"How are you?" He asks finally, because he wants to listen to something besides hooves on stone and waves crashing, and also because he genuinely wants to know. The question might have sounded awkward and mistimed if anyone else had asked it, after all that silence, but from Eik it comes as easily as one step forward, and then another, into a world unknown.
“I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.”
@Moira ahh I hope this is okay and I'm sorry for the wait! <3 (Takes place walking across the bridge between SWP Act II and Act III.)
in a lovely garden walking two lovers went hand in hand;
"I was wrong," she says simply, but not softly. The words do not feel like a nail in her coffin; ropes she hadn't known that tethered her to the ground, to the past, fray and are cut one by one. Each syllable is a prayer, is an unleashing.
She lets the ropes fall like dandelion heads in children's hands.
Lighter and lighter, Moira almost feels as though she could fly. But of course, those lessons never came and she is grounded beside the man of love and anger and roiling emotions that make him just as human as she is. And perhaps that is why she was so afraid.
To be a Tonnerre is to be cold, to be untouchable. They wore their silver and lightning, they smiled with shark-toothed grins and dead eyes. Only the barbs upon her skin and carefully constructed towers and gates kept her afloat, kept her a part of them when they would seek to tear her down and shred her into a pile of ribbons. Red is such a lovely color to watch fall, drip down, down, down until all life bleeds from the skin and only a corpse remains. She would know, she'd seen it happen after so many unlucky births. She'd seen others who went out alone and broke something or another (something vital, important, worth more than words and insults) come back only to leave them once again.
Her armor was her unwavering devotion to self and career.
It shattered when he made his way through it, shot hole after hole through her and tied her moons to his sun. Forever made to orbit one another, but not quite touch. "I was a coward and you called me out on it, your ire was earned, but I'm glad you are here with me. I know why you love her because I love her the same... Different, but the same." She smiles to him then, sweet and soft and sad as though a thousand truths have broken her down and let something else (something hardier and wiser) blossom in their gaps. Even cement jungles have breathtaking views. Where cracks open, something magical rises up to fill those gaps until she is whole once more.
A thoughtful look at what's ahead (who is ahead) and then over to Eik has her humming. There is a light in her voice, electricity running along her skin (along her spine) until she speaks again. Like floodgates crumbling, words leak out steady and slow. "They told me there was no room in their heart..." how her voice wavers, like the sparrow's song. Trilling up and down, a cadence of music and magic and mystery. "Don't worry, I'm not giving up so easily." With that, she winks, and steps forward into the flow of bodies.
empluvie | echo | @Eik | "speaking"| notes: no worries !!! i'm sorry for the wait as well, you lovely, beautiful lady
06-18-2019, 09:12 PM - This post was last modified: 06-18-2019, 09:12 PM by Moira
Sometimes in the dead of night a palm will shed its fronds. They fall without notice and with far more force than you would expect of those sickly-looking brown leaves. But they are so far up, from below you couldn't realize the weight and heft of them until they come mightily crashing down, breaking the silence of the night.
He does not expect Moira Tonnerre's admission, nor the torrent of words and feelings that follows. He takes it in like the shore to the ocean, letting her wash over him, feeling the sentiment that soaks every word. She is and always was a marvel to him, a garnet among river stones. Her passion, her strength, her color-- for that is what her thoughts read like, like looking at a wild painting, a mass of colors in shapes at once familiar and foreign.
"Everyone loves her," he says like an admission of something, and if his smile is a little sad it is still a smile. How could they not. He can only dream that nobody loves her like he does-- and he thinks this dream might be more than a dream, unlike so many others-- at least for the moment. He knows too much to assume there is anything in this world that does not change.
(there is, of course, one glaring exception to everyone-- and where there is one there are bound to be others. Still, no one inspired love the way Isra did, even when she was creating blades instead of flowers.)
Regardless, he is content to love, and be loved, and to share this with friends-- with family, for that is what they have become now. Asterion and Moira, Isra and Bexley, the bits and pieces of Solterra that he holds close (threadbare scraps now, worn thin by the recent turn of events) they are all the family he has left anymore.
"They sound like a fool," he says with a wry smile, oblivious to the fact that the they in question is one of his closest friend, if not the closest. "But they must be special." Who else could temper the wild flame of Moira Tonnerre?
"I wish you good fortune," His words sound to him like that of an emissary and he absently wonders, not for the first time, what will become of him at the end of all this. It surprised him, how he grew into his station. It was not a thing he expected to miss when it was gone. "Don't ever give up, Moira." He stops walking, looks at her very seriously. He needs to know she's listening, for his opinion is not often shared and thus it is important to him that when it is, it is heard. "Love is worth it. I promise." He meets her gaze without wavering, and then gently bumps his shoulder to hers before beginning to walk once more.
"I heard you were wonderful, in Isra's absence." Eik does not smile but his voice is warm, proud. I knew you would be, is what goes unspoken.
in a lovely garden walking two lovers went hand in hand;
"It is a lucky thing, to be loved,” she mourns aloud, letting the sorrow show, letting her heartache bleed louder. Eik is never far from crimson thoughts, staining the pages red with dreams and smiles and anger. Even their petty argument, her stubborn ways, could not shatter the bridges built between them, the crops of friendship so carefully sowed. For that she is grateful, and kind eyes smile through the clouds of thoughts and pensive circulations. "I do not envy you, nor her, but love you both the same. You show warmth where I’ve seen coldness blossom and bloom growing up. Ice crystals hang as chandeliers of Tonnerre souls and only the loveliest carvers could ever win the heart of one.” She sighs as she remembers marriages for duty, not for love. Anselme was lucky in his being a favorite child, even if his own was an abomination of genetic muddling. "We do not marry for desire nor love nor passion, there is careful calculation and duty and an ever raging war for power and ambitions that far exceed some ranks. It is an unspoken stain upon all our skin, but still it sits there like mud on white cloth: impossible to miss.
”Thank you, Eik, for loving her and being loved.” Dark lips press to pale cheek, gratitude and depthless levels of adoration, love, friendship and trust lapping at each other, begging to let him see, let him know. For the phoenix would never have let herself burn as she does now without having met a pale man in the midst of insomnia and adventures. Warm eyes follow his own as they withdraw, turn inward to think. What is it he thinks so deeply of when withholding the splendor of himself from the world?
Silence is thick and heavy between them, but when he is ready and looks to her once more, solemnity a vow upon his tongue, sobriety a collar about his throat, grave as death itself, she listens. Ears tip forward, head tilts as Neerja’s might when observing someone who is not friend, but prey and terribly interesting.
Like that his words are there and gone, and they are walking again as a blush rises to her cheeks. "Denocte is not a place that wears fear well; Isra’s love unites us into something more than we are. I had very little to do with it - without me, things would have continued marching forward beside Time. My presence and absence does not affect the court so greatly.” Soft is her admission, for she feels like she could to more, should do more.
When is the last time she’d gone to the pier and talked with the sailors coming in to sell their wares and offer up fish? When last did she dance through the markets or sulk through the libraries? Too long has she been absent, and it is a heavy stone upon her shoulders. "I would die for Isra, just as any would of our court.”
empluvie | echo | @Eik | "speaking"| notes: ;u; Eik is phenomenal and inspiring as always ! <3
It feels… it feels better, to not be at odds with Moira Tonnerre. He had not realized how much their past conversation had weighed on him. Without realizing it himself, Eik was a highly harmonious man. Most every action of his was performed with the intent of striking balance in the world. Righting a wrong or, much less often, wronging a right, was what every part of his being strove toward.
“I love you too, Moira,” it sounds awkward to say it out loud, as awkward as he expected. He feels flushed with the admission, but he stands tall. To say those words out loud feels like lifting a weight off his shoulders. A guilt, irrational and without foundation, blows away in the wind that rises off the sea. “Thank you.” Thank you for showing me such a thing was possible
He only smiles when she thanks him for loving Isra, for that, like loving Moira, is a matter in which he had no choice in. And he thinks how the Tonnerre name sounds like such a weighty name to carry, and how Moira Tonnerre deserves to be loved. With his magic he feels her trembling heart, sure as if it were held in his hands, and he marvels at how delicate it is.
They walk once more, and she speaks of Denocte, and he snorts softly as she deflects his praise. He does not protest her humility– he has a growing sense of the fights he can and cannot win with Moira Tonnerre, and he picks his battles wisely now. He can’t exactly storm out of the room this time, there isn’t anywhere for him to go but back– and despite his hesitation in crossing the bridge, the moment he stepped foot on it he was committed to seeing what lay on the other side.
So he says nothing, until she says “I would die for Isra, just as any would of our court.”
“No.”
He frowns, surprised by the steel in his voice. Surprised a the emotion that swells so unexpectedly. From where did it come? “Don’t say that.” No one else can die for her. It would be like plucking the feathers from the limbs of a bird. It did not matter if love was the cause of their death– if anything, that might make it worse. She could not– no, she did not deserve the heaviness of that. "Don't ever say that."
Eik knows how much it hurts, sometimes, to be the one who survives. He knows how it doesn’t feel any better than death itself, how it might very well be worse– but of course we can’t know for sure, not yet. (And at the end of the day, it’s the not knowing that eats at you.)
“Did you know the man named Acton?” He licks his lips, feeling suddenly nervous. He had never said that name before: Acton. (Somewhere there is a gavel pounding on wood, ringing judgement– but whose? And the crime–?) Eik knew almost nothing about him. Bexley’s lover, Apolonia’s father. A crow that kept to the roost when all others flew. He’s tried not to think of it, but the not-thinking becomes its own kind of thinking. Acton is the word his mind returns to every minute it is not occupied. All those dark spaces between moments, the question begs to be asked: who was this man who died for Isra?
(you tell yourself he died for his country, his morals, his daughter, his brother
but you know it was love he died for, it was Isra, and it makes you feel–
in a lovely garden walking two lovers went hand in hand;
Breaths they both held, tension they both felt, bleeds out of the world on a wisp of smoke, painting the sky with relief and smiles when they begin to bond once more. She felt his absence sorely, dearly, truly, in the very depths of her heart. Eik is a diary, a confidant, a dear friend even though they’ve met so few times. To the phoenix, it feels a lifetime of memories are shared between the two.
His smile is brief, but bright and welcome. Sun breaks through clouds of her mind, and she remembers that he is from Solterra and there is more in the world than Denocte. Than the house that has become a home and the people that have become family.
There is more than Isra and Asterion and Caine and Sera and Eik.
There is more.
The more comes in the dark, forceful tones of Eik’s voice. So very few times does he use such harshness, such intensity. Ears curl back into dark hair, short hair. But she listens.
Dark lips that could be an old scab purse, and then, "I would not lie to you though - not in the past, and not now. What I know to be true and what I think to be true may change and my perspective may grow or shrink with my world, but I will not lie to you, Eik.”
Honesty is, perhaps, one of the phoenix’ worst and best features. In times of peril, she reassures and lets all know the truth. In times when one seeks reassurance or a pure opinion to compliment and uplift the spirits, words become glass shards that can glide along skin or pierce tender flesh until hearts ache and tears well.
After a small sigh, she continues gently. "Some days, I wish I were born beside her, but our unicorn has her own heartaches aplenty and skeletons that haunt her. We all have chains about our throats with memories weighing them down.”
It is not so easy a thing to love people who give their heart to the world because they so often would let their life be put at risk - Isra is like that at times. And I will put her well-being before my own. Don’t you do the same? I see no difference save for the sexual nature of things,” at that, a small chuckle and knowing look is passed on to her companion before golden eyes stray again. He is distant and mournful, but the artery in his neck pulses more quickly, sweat not from island-heat beads clear and bright and bold. Nerves are shown in the way dark, beautiful eyes dart to and fro just as his tongue darts over dark lips. She reaches out, brushing his shoulder with her own: an act of solidarity and comfort. "I know the woman whom he loved and who loved him more fiercely than the sea loves water and the clouds the sky. I know he was of my court. I know when flowers ate his corpse, when Raum struck him down, my heart bled for all of Denocte and Isra and the soldier who died and can never be forgotten. If we’ve sat together for longer than a moment, a meeting, I remember so little of it. But I know of his name, of his lover who grieves him, and of a nation that will always remember how he gave everything.”
What more could she say of the brave soul that haunts so many now? How ashamed she is that she’d left early, believed that Isra would be fine! As her Emissary she should have talked more with others at the festival, been aware of who and what was happening. Maids’ gossip should not have been the thing to warn the conflagration of a woman that her heart had been stolen and a citizen of her home slain right under their noses! It hurts, it aches, but not as much as seeing Bexley so near madness and tears did.
It’s hard to swallow, but at last the lump in her throat goes down enough to spew out final words, soft words, midnight-smoke words in that husky voice of hers. "Do you think I could ever be that brave? I feel so selfish lately for wanting another, for letting myself act on those basic needs. One day, perhaps, I will be as brave as Acton - as brave as a lion.”
empluvie | echo | @Eik | "speaking"| notes: is this a small novel yet? :P
It did not make sense to him, how bonds that did not break only grew stronger when tested. So it goes: the rift between them is not only filled but a mountain begins to form in its place, a mountain that reaches for the feet of the gods. Even when her slender ears curl back at the tone in his voice, the mountain grows taller. On its slopes grows shrubs of juniper, maple, chokecherry. Trees of aspen, fir, and pine– her honesty is a soil they take root in.
Eik flushes a little at the mention of sexual nature– he was always such a modest boy– but it does not break his composure. “I see your point,” he admits, grudgingly. “But to die…” Not just death– sacrifice– “hasn’t there been enough of that?”
For a man so ambivalent to the timing and mechanism of his own death, something about mortality did not sit right with Eik. (maybe not ambivalent but, if anything, eager for death– just not strongly enough to act upon it) He had, even after all these years of life and loss, never accepted the impermanence of every living thing. In his mind there was a graveyard, and among the headstones was held a funeral that never ended. It grew with every death, even the nameless ones, the ones Eik never knew until the end, as he passed by their bodies and wondered who they were, what they left behind, who was missing them.
No one taught him how to do this. It was just something he did without thinking. As a survivor, it was his responsibility to carry the dead on his shoulders, in his mind. The problem though, the great truth he could not accept, was that time kept marching on, impartial to the respect that was owed to the dead. To his horror, even memories decomposed. They would shift or blur or dissolve completely. Over the years even tombstones crumbled, kneeling, as all things do, to time.
Eik feels guilty that he never knew the man who died for Isra. Maybe if he did– maybe if I did, I don’t know, things would be different. It would have been me, or no one. It should have been me, or no one– maybe it would have made a world of difference. But he did not know Acton. And time cannot be unwound. As Moira speaks of him it brings some closure to a wound he did not know was there (there are so many, he loses track sometimes)… but wounds itch, when they heal. They beg to be scratched back open.
(a dark, acidic feeling begins to fall from the sky)
“I feel like I owe him something, but I don’t know what.” So he does what he always does: he carries the memories of the dead. Perhaps he should look after the departed man’s family… but he did not even know where Bexley was, or O. He had been so caught up in retribution, he had neglected the living.
(Shame, that’s what that feel is. It settles on him now like a tomb of snow.) Eik leans into Moira’s touch, into her words, wishing he too could rise into the air like the smoke of her voice.
“I hope you never have to be so brave.” Bravery was a sort of death. There were so many things that had to be discarded in order for bravery to rise to the fore. Not that it wasn’t worth it, but… well, sometimes it wasn’t. If the world were full of lions, they would all starve. “But of course you could be. You already are very brave. Probably more than you know.” She had stepped forward to lead her people in times of duress– not everyone could do that well. Not everyone could do that, period. And to persist in loving someone, to anchor one’s self in a sea of feeling when one has been raised to navigate a sea of ice… that took bravery, too.
But it is not in his nature to speak in such lush language, so he does not. He stays quiet, although with his magic he cracks open his mind so she may see the conviction that lies behind his speech, and the pride that does not have words, and the love that grows where there was once only ash.
Eik had almost forgotten they walked a new bridge to a new land– he remembers only when they begin to reach the end of it, where a huge wall of greenery stands too tall to see over and too wide to reach around. He wonders out loud, “what do you think happens next?”
That was always the question. In life, in history, in love and loss–
what happens next?
@Moira I take your small novel and raise you xD I did not originally intend this but... I think this works as a closer? But I can't promise I won't reply to you again, I love this thread <3
Her companion, her beating heart, they are an amalgamation of emotions she is still learning to process, to digest, to understand and echo in her own mannerisms. With all the attention of a saint, all the focus of a priest leading their flock to greener pastures, to water, to the holy lands, Moira Tonnerre, a daughter of the great Tonnerre house, a phoenix in her own right, a flaming banner of hope and pillar of Denocte, leans in to listen in hopes of understanding. ”Hasn’t there been enough of that?” Eik asks plainly, softly.
His words are the ghosts that haunt them all, grave and low and sad. But she cannot answer in a way he wishes, cannot give him the reassuring words he seeks. “Death is a natural part of life and runs its course. We all die, Eik. Some die to give others life. Some sacrifice themselves in great or poor taste. So many will not be remembered - they are nameless, only a face to lurk in the darkest shadows at night; others you will hold dear and will drive you mad to lose them. Death comes for us all, but we choose how great an impact we have on others before we die. We choose our futures.” And the earnesty! It is brimming with the need to be true, a hope that her own future is not lost, that her own dreams will not be dashed against the shores or reality at the foot of cliffs with rocks like daggers to shred them apart. Winged girl cannot look at him then, not with the prospect of losing it all.
She wonders if this is even a fraction of what Bexley felt - feels - when Acton died. When word reached her, did she try to shred the world? Is that why storms rose and the sun shivered, shying away to let the lands grow cold? Is that why the stars screamed down around them and waters churned, angry and hungry for blood? Did they feel the rage and loss of a woman in gold, a woman in love?
The thought could break her if she dwells, so she does not. Later, there would be a time for reflection when she’s pressed neatly into the side of a striped beast that loves her more than life itself. When their jungle hearts sing together once more, dance side by side, beat as one, only then can she fall into a void of remembrance and reflection where caesuras do not interrupt nor hinder her thoughts. Then, things will flow and she would be free to feel everything so deeply as though for the first time.
But not now. Not now.
“What could you owe the dead, Eik? They are not here to haunt you, to pull you apart at the seams. Do not bear their sins upon your skin and write them into your heart. Remember them as they deserve, do not drown because they did.” If they stopped, she would kiss his brow and hug him tight. She would force him to hold on to life, to be selfish for himself, for Isra, but they move steadily over the land bridge, destination unknown.
The phoenix strength stems from the sun child’s, burrowing into the folds of his and pulling out the precious little bits she needs. Moira would have made the walk alone, but she is forever grateful that today she need not succumb to such hardships, let alone with her thoughts that seek to devour. They are always so starving for her flesh.
He hums words. It seems Eik always asks this, yet it is a question she does not mind. There is always a next. Chapters end and the book goes on, so too do their lives. Her own answer is sweet and sad, soft as a lamb freshly dried. “We don’t let them die in vain, we live. And next,” she pauses, thoughtful. A beach is almost before them, the curving of an island full of strange things is far up ahead. “We learn why we are here - in life, in our hearts, on this island… Sometimes, the journey is the most exciting part of the adventure.” Moira lets his magic wash over her, his warmth, his awe, his faith in her. It could have made her cry if tears were not so readily dried - too many shed in the past months for so many souls lost and found. But she is thankful all the same, and she smiles that secret smile, that soft smile, the one she’d given him when they’d first met and she was so green to Novus and its inhabitants. Then, she wonders, if she knew what she did now, would she have done something different?
No her heart whispers quietly, smiling at Eik and pushing the feelings towards him, letting him into her obsidian shield so that he might glean something from that he’d so freely offered before.
“speech” | @Eik | I love it too, so much ! I'm good stopping or going <3
She knows more of death than he. For while he’s been on the end of deliverance, all those last cries, sighs, moans, sobs– it’s a wonder and a shame how men transform themselves at the doorstep of death– all those endings he witnessed, he sometimes hastened… it was all so very different from the work she did as a healer. She witnessed all the kinds of deaths he did not: sickness, infection, disease of the mind. She also witnessed healing, which is something Eik knows far too little about.
Eik thought this would drive cynicism into her, as it has into him. He was wrong, of course, although not exactly surprised. It was foolhardy for anyone to assume what Moira Tonnerre might think or feel about anything. It was also foolhardy to not listen very carefully to her. Perhaps this was one reason they got along so well, for Eik had that very rare quality of listening very intently without having to try or think about it.
So he listens to her now, wholeheartedly, without forming his own response until she is done speaking. It is not a difficult thing to do, when listening to someone so eloquent and passionate. “We choose our futures…” he echoes with a nod. It is a sentiment he’s always been uncertain about– but it was also a self-evident trap, a strange loop, for wasn’t not choosing a choice too?
And did Acton really choose to die that night in the garden? Maybe at the end, yes (Eik not only hopes so, he needs it to be true) but what about before that? Eik wanted to believe in choice, in changing once’s future, but it seemed impossible sometimes to break the continuity of one’s life into discrete actions (choices). When you went through the experiment, you quickly realized that each choice could be further broken down into more choices that made up the whole, and further choices after that, and so on and so forth until you find: at the very foundation of every choice was something you did not have a choice about. Something bigger than you, like the persistent march of our heart or your ancestral longing for the sea.
But–
Eik and Moira both saw all of death’s dirty details. And they both probably cared too much for their own good. There must be such thing as choice. And it had to matter. They had to believe this, otherwise there would be no point whatsoever to living. “Sometimes I think we don’t know what exactly it is we’re choosing” until the knife slips into us and we bleed out beneath the stars “until it’s upon us.”
There was some dark humor in this, some vast beauty that reminded him of the night sky.
“What could you owe the dead, Eik?”
Oh, he doesn’t know. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Her words are wise and ring with truth. “I know you’re right,” he says, but… how can he explain it… his mind goes one way and his heart goes the other. It was beyond logic, behind knowing. Sorrow was as much apart of him as his name. It was not vital to living. It was nothing more than a pattern, but it was repeated so often and for so long that it became woven into the fabric of his being. “It feels like a betrayal to not…” How to say it? “carry them with me. Always.”
Eik shakes his head as though to chastise all the loose thoughts rattling around in there. He had not meant to drag the two of them into talk of death and philosophy. It was always where he seemed to be going (down down down) but he surely didn’t need to take a friend there with him. But he appreciated the company, and the patience, and he feels closer to understanding the great unspeakable truth, the secret of life’s inner mechanisms.
“We don’t let them die in vain, we live. And next…”
“We learn why we are here - in life, in our hearts, on this island… Sometimes, the journey is the most exciting part of the adventure.”
An adventure. He forgot sometimes that that’s what life itself was– the longest, most exhausting of adventures– and when the wind blows from behind them he pictures it catching in great white sails that billow proudly toward the future. He inclines his head toward the island and meets Moira’s strong gaze. “Together, then.” He feels her emotions swell and lap against his own, twin tides that eddy against their legs.
And then they continue to walk into the future.
@Moira okay one last post for me, I couldn't resist <3
