the firestarters always get the burns
and the good guys never get the girl
Home.
Every time I walk into this kingdom, every time I go back to the Cove, I cannot help but have this feeling that Hyaline is still more my home than the Cove will ever be. It is a temporary move, we told ourselves, but I cannot take root there so well. That is why I’ve been to Tephra, the Field, to Loess, to the Forest (my new child’s father doesn’t know yet that our meeting had been so fruitful), the Meadow… everywhere but the Cove. Not because I did not like the place, it’s just not the same.
I’m pretty sure my queens feel somewhat similar, but reason says the Cove is safer. Safe from a sickness that I should have caught by now, but do not have symptoms of. At night I worry about my baby girl, wonder if she’ll be born sick like little Miela, but I cannot give in now. It will not matter; I’ll find a healer if it’s too bad, I’ll raise her in the Cove for the weaning period, where she will have a chance to grow stronger.
But it’s a sense of hope, of gold beneath the wisteria tree, that made me pick today to walk back into the lake-centered kingdom. I know not to expect my old friend, my would-be, should-be lover, but Amet - the other gold beneath the tree. The kind Solace had hoped to see again one day, even if we both also want to see her twin return.
I know of Amet through the visit of a nereid, who had asked for him, for a Jah-Lilah - and I had had the sense back then of history repeating itself. Because Solace continued what he’d started, and had done so well, in a way he would probably have been proud of. Surely he would have told her so when they last spoke again. She had appointed him ruler besides Kensa; a replacement for the lion man that Kag had decided could no longer rule Hyaline when he had attempted a steal and had gotten himself stolen in return. To my knowledge, no effort was to be made to reclaim him, but I know he has had visitors.
But really, with Castile ruling instead of Vulgaris (men I both knew, though I had my doubts about both their tempers sometimes) I did not think Litotes was in such a bad place. I also wonder, should he return here, if he would still fit in with us.
Amet’s a good choice, having ruled here before, having had an excellent eye for who should follow him. And I trust Solace’s decisions about appointing him ruler again.
Left me to say I had been lacking and should have introduced myself months ago.
Now, my pregnant body moves through the winter snows I know so well. No way I’ll lose my footing in this pass, not now and not on my way back.
I know my white, somewhat dreamlike appearance will not help me get attention. Sometimes it does, but in the Cove and in the snow-capped mountains, I simply become a part of the surroundings. That’s not a bad thing, because I don’t crave attention like some others; it gives me space and time to listen in before I move. But now it means I’ll be making the call. I don’t have to call out loud, knowing my warm voice will echo far enough to be heard near the lake, and that’s exactly as far as I want my voice to carry.
@[Amet]