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.
