"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
Deep in the Forest holds the kind of shadows Daedalus likes to blend into, but the canopy closes too tightly around him, blocking out the sky, the night, the world. The Forest stifled him, that months long stint living with nothing but the occasional wildlife and the planets circling his muddied skin.
Then came the months nearly wasted upon the hard remains of the Ruins. Days and weeks and what felt like years passed as the starry-eyed man peered at the sky. From atop the highest stone he could muster to chest deep in roiling, angry waves—he watched the sky as it changed from day to night. Those months are only nearly wasted because Daedalus discovered two very, very vital things: that he preferred the stars to the sun—and that the planets spoke to him as he always imagined.
Those months—ones that when put together equal years—are the seemingly infinite moments leading Daedalus to the edge of the Meadow.
The Meadow, lacking the claustrophobia of the canopied trees and the crash of the ocean.
The same moon that Daedalus has been chasing since he was a kid illuminates the summer wildflowers, paling all their vibrant colors with a silver sheen. He sighs, the ache in his chest singing, searching, blooming. Here they’ll speak to him again, surely. Without anything to distract him.
Only the chirping crickets and the stars above.
-------i didn’t have it in myself to go with grace
careful, child, light the fuse and get away
Because happiness throws a shower of sparks
Listen and you’ll hear, distantly, the sound of laughter. Beneath the cricket cry and the soft song of swaying meadow grass, you’ll hear it. And it is the girl who laughs, following swiftly as the deer leap through the underbrush. But she never was so elegant as they were, though she has spent much of her time among them. She was never so light on her feet.
And yet, she follows, imagining that they call to her.
(How many years now has she played this game? How many years has she sequestered herself to the undergrowth of the forest? She has spent so much of her life here.)
Sometimes, though.
Sometimes she returns to the meadow, like it will always be her home only because it was the last place she saw her parents. And maybe family means more than whatever stirs in the heart.
(What is it that calls to her now? What draws her away from the thrilling game of chase? What spurs her out into the open, the sound of her laughter drying in the long column of her throat as she stumbles gaily out into the open? Fate, perhaps. Or remembering.)
She turns her face up to the stars overhead, drawing in a long, steadying breath. And when she lowers her gaze again, she sees him. She sees him and she remembers. Remembers as if it had been only yesterday! And she bounds toward him, grinning.
“Daedalus!” she cries, stopping just short of barreling straight into him. “Daedalus,” she says again, breathless, beaming, “it’s me, Dear.”
A flash—just a flash—of irritation bordering on anger crosses Dae’s face. He was just clicking with the sky. The stars were on the cusp of speaking to him, so close. He was sure of it. The creature crashing through the Meadow must have been sent by the Devil himself just to keep him from the ethereal.
But what began as a chestnut blur of impending doom quickly blooms into the sparkling brilliance of destiny. So bright is that destiny it nearly blinds Daedalus, blinds him long enough that he is slack-jawed and wide-eyed. He blinks thrice, neon eyes covered in a haze, not quite catching up with the wide smile curving his mouth.
“Of course it’s you, Dear,” the spaceman finally gasps, finally crashing headlong into the earth. There’s no real yell in his voice; his sentence trails into a whisper at the end—one filled with wonder.
And fear.
Was this why the stars would not speak to him for so long? Why the skies shirked his gaze? To hide her from him?
“Dear,” Dae breathes out, still only a whisper after a few more moments of silence.
