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starwardbestrewn2022-05-02 01:37 am
oncedriven) wrote in starwardbestrewn2022-05-02 01:37 am
Entry tags:
I still remember all the people I love
"...I suppose it is no surprise that you sleep poorly."
The hot smell of sand in a dead land is as familiar on the breeze as the feeling of your hair blowing around you. It's the first thing you remember, from those chaotic days after you left, when you threw yourself from the mountains because there was no way that everyone who left just died, and even if they did, it was worth trying.
Hot sand on the breeze, the air cooling rapidly now that the sun's set but the sun-bleached ground still so warm, warm enough to keep you through the chill of night if you dug down into it.
"I sleep fine," you say, not looking at her. "Most of the time."
Hot breeze and no sand, Thanalan too rocky of a desert until you went far enough south to hit the Sagolii. Hot sand and no breeze, Amh Araeng, trapped under an unchanging sky and bleached down to its bones.
The scent of Meracydia's deserts is different from either, and you're shocked at how comforting the smell is, as you sit at the edge of the camp, leaning forward with your arms propped on the lowest rung of the fence that keeps anyone from falling off in the night.
A sharp juxtaposition with the cold and snow from which you know her voice. A voice that doesn't respond, until you tilt your head, turning half-around, not actually enough to see her but close enough to matter, and say, "And what about you?"
(About, not of - you're failing to filter, Aodhan. Not that it matters much, anymore.)
"I've had few nights of peace since we last met," she says at length. "It would be easy to say that the climate doesn't agree with me, but... 'Twould be a lie, as I'm sure you can guess."
You nod at that, and then you say, "Come on. Sit." It's not until beckoned with one arm that she actually does so, and then it's with such comparative delicacy that you'd be inclined to think her a fancy noble if you didn't know better. How very far a farmgirl from Coerthas has come, you can't help but think. Now the companion of princes and scholars.
But then again, for a time, however brief, she was a god, and so were you.
Finally, she says, "It has been five years, and still you did not give up on me. I am not... I don't deserve such dedication. Not from you. You deserve the freedom to follow your happiness."
You lift your head to look at her, and then you say, "What makes you think I haven't?" But then her expression makes you shy, and you glance away and say instead, "Surely by now you've noticed that it's not typical of Feol society to be... limited to a single love." Or a single lover.
"I suppose not," she says. "Though it is still strange to me."
Unspoken is, I fantasized about a love sung across the breadth of the sky, between two people who would accept no others, and it goes unspoken because neither of you needs to speak it. And it's a fantasy you can't begrudge her, not after being left alone, but neither will you claim that you can fulfill it.
You say, "I swore to myself that I wouldn't stifle myself for what's proper anymore, when I came down from that mountain. And after - after I realized how miserable Asch had been, because he didn't let anyone in, I swore that I wouldn't do that to myself. That I would find joy wherever I found it, because there's not enough of it in the world to go turning it down."
And you kept her in your heart, because it did bring you joy, and warmth, retained like the sunlight disappeared from the desert sands. But you didn't limit yourself to that far off ideal that may or may not ever happen, either.
If nothing else, you can learn from every mistake that took you to an early grave, once before and a world away.
She sighs, then, and says, "I feel as though I do not know enough of joy to name it when I meet it. Nor of love. All I have, even now, is a fool girl's delusions that brought only ruin."
"They did not," you say fiercely, straightening your spine and pushing yourself off the fence to look at her directly. "You did not. You mattered, Ysayle Dangoulain - " Hearing her full name from your lips seems to startle her, her lips parting in a soundless oh. " - We would have been lost without you. On what world might a Meracydian, a Sharlayan, and a dragoon have managed to cross Dravania without you, without starving to death or dying because Estinien picked a fight with the biggest dragon he could find on the way?"
The startled opening of her mouth twists into a small smile. You huff, closing your eyes as though scolding her, and you can't say that you entirely aren't. "Besides, I don't allow anyone to speak of my friends in such a way, and that includes those friends themselves."
The hot smell of sand in a dead land is as familiar on the breeze as the feeling of your hair blowing around you. It's the first thing you remember, from those chaotic days after you left, when you threw yourself from the mountains because there was no way that everyone who left just died, and even if they did, it was worth trying.
Hot sand on the breeze, the air cooling rapidly now that the sun's set but the sun-bleached ground still so warm, warm enough to keep you through the chill of night if you dug down into it.
"I sleep fine," you say, not looking at her. "Most of the time."
Hot breeze and no sand, Thanalan too rocky of a desert until you went far enough south to hit the Sagolii. Hot sand and no breeze, Amh Araeng, trapped under an unchanging sky and bleached down to its bones.
The scent of Meracydia's deserts is different from either, and you're shocked at how comforting the smell is, as you sit at the edge of the camp, leaning forward with your arms propped on the lowest rung of the fence that keeps anyone from falling off in the night.
A sharp juxtaposition with the cold and snow from which you know her voice. A voice that doesn't respond, until you tilt your head, turning half-around, not actually enough to see her but close enough to matter, and say, "And what about you?"
(About, not of - you're failing to filter, Aodhan. Not that it matters much, anymore.)
"I've had few nights of peace since we last met," she says at length. "It would be easy to say that the climate doesn't agree with me, but... 'Twould be a lie, as I'm sure you can guess."
You nod at that, and then you say, "Come on. Sit." It's not until beckoned with one arm that she actually does so, and then it's with such comparative delicacy that you'd be inclined to think her a fancy noble if you didn't know better. How very far a farmgirl from Coerthas has come, you can't help but think. Now the companion of princes and scholars.
But then again, for a time, however brief, she was a god, and so were you.
Finally, she says, "It has been five years, and still you did not give up on me. I am not... I don't deserve such dedication. Not from you. You deserve the freedom to follow your happiness."
You lift your head to look at her, and then you say, "What makes you think I haven't?" But then her expression makes you shy, and you glance away and say instead, "Surely by now you've noticed that it's not typical of Feol society to be... limited to a single love." Or a single lover.
"I suppose not," she says. "Though it is still strange to me."
Unspoken is, I fantasized about a love sung across the breadth of the sky, between two people who would accept no others, and it goes unspoken because neither of you needs to speak it. And it's a fantasy you can't begrudge her, not after being left alone, but neither will you claim that you can fulfill it.
You say, "I swore to myself that I wouldn't stifle myself for what's proper anymore, when I came down from that mountain. And after - after I realized how miserable Asch had been, because he didn't let anyone in, I swore that I wouldn't do that to myself. That I would find joy wherever I found it, because there's not enough of it in the world to go turning it down."
And you kept her in your heart, because it did bring you joy, and warmth, retained like the sunlight disappeared from the desert sands. But you didn't limit yourself to that far off ideal that may or may not ever happen, either.
If nothing else, you can learn from every mistake that took you to an early grave, once before and a world away.
She sighs, then, and says, "I feel as though I do not know enough of joy to name it when I meet it. Nor of love. All I have, even now, is a fool girl's delusions that brought only ruin."
"They did not," you say fiercely, straightening your spine and pushing yourself off the fence to look at her directly. "You did not. You mattered, Ysayle Dangoulain - " Hearing her full name from your lips seems to startle her, her lips parting in a soundless oh. " - We would have been lost without you. On what world might a Meracydian, a Sharlayan, and a dragoon have managed to cross Dravania without you, without starving to death or dying because Estinien picked a fight with the biggest dragon he could find on the way?"
The startled opening of her mouth twists into a small smile. You huff, closing your eyes as though scolding her, and you can't say that you entirely aren't. "Besides, I don't allow anyone to speak of my friends in such a way, and that includes those friends themselves."