Open so as our grief falls flat and hollow

I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high—higher than most—
And the green gate was locked.

Once there was only the sea, she painted horizons and danced with only the sun and moon as her partners. She mothered the creatures within her depths, she bore no religion, no politics, nor enemies, nor friends. She lived a beautiful life.

But a lonely one too.

From her depths she created islands, sculpted its sands, sprouted its trees, and birthed its inhabitants. She caed for them, nourished them, loved them. And they betrayed her, they captured the children she so carefully guarded. They tried to tame her waves and

“And that, Elli, is why the sea is such an angry thing, be weary.” The kelpie told him, even as his breath smelled of salt and seaweed tangled itself in his hair. “It will swallow you the first chance it gets. From the sea and back.” It was that day that Elli thinks his tutors may have lied. Stories had no beginning, middle, end, but a wildly turning maelstrom dragging you to the bottom of the ocean.

As men have done perhaps since time began, Elliana went down to the river to wash herself clean. The golden sunlight is a weight on her back when she moves. Elliana blinks and she knows that her eyes are nothing more than a smear of blue skies on shadows of her face when she does.

She is not one who is usually enamored with pretty lights or beautiful lay outs. But they—they were something to admire. She couldn’t help the delicate smile that bloomed like silk-petaled carnations at the sight of them. Even in the sorrow, the anguish, the fear, the curiosity. It is raw. There was something that happened here, she knows it more than she feels it.

(It is the feeling of somewhere distant, across the veil, a dry wind rolls dust across warm glass windows. A lonesome whistle blows and the trees gasp for fresh air; everything here and there is in a race for survival)

And Elliana reaches them like drops of rain sliding down.
She had wanted to go to the river today.
To wash herself clean.

And thinks shadows may be more purifying than water ever could be.
(You cannot wash away sin—only hide it, and shadows are far better at keeping secrets than water ever could be.)

She is silent as she stands there, not welcomed, but not yet turned away. She wants to hold her breath, but her lungs suddenly feel like fire with smoke that needs to be exhaled. The dead flowers, they remind her of Aeneas and she remembers the silent screams they all uttered when he stole the energy from them. Elliana finds herself sliding closer to the girl of color and shine, but her blue eyes are trapped within the obsidian spot splashed against gold. “Is it agony?” She asks him. “Is that what you are feeling?” She has to ask because she remembers feeling it once, remembers placing the word to the feeling, but she cannot recall the bone splitting, raw, nerve burning emotion of it. She wonders, is this what she looked like? She wonders if this is what her mother always feels, and if it was—Elliana swallows the sympathy as easily as water flows down a river.

"Speaking."