Everything eventually falls apart. At least, if you’re human. The world crumbles around you – people die, lands are destroyed, homes are lost, love is broken. And eventually, you too, fall apart. Your bones begin to turn brittle, your blood begins to thin, and you disintegrate like a dried flower hanging from the rafters.
But what if you are not human? What if you are like the two of you – counterparts to a whole, ethereal beings that cannot fade away? Is it natural to seek out the only other thing that cannot be destroyed? Is that human nature? Find someone like you and become one with them- they will never leave you, you will never die. Perhaps that was what scared him most, that there is such a thing as forever with you two. There is no ending, no ominous fire in the sky, no hell below – there is simply eternity. And eternity is a very long time.
While you can truly and madly feel – Eight has never felt much. You are a trickster, weaving the world into your web, and catching hard on something you truly want (a person, a plight, a crown, a purpose). You are constantly creating your own scenarios, forever utilizing your power and emotion. While you play with others, you always strive for what you truly want – you are naked in the light of it all, and you shed your skin without shame.
Can Eight do that? Has he? Can he be pure? After everything he has said and done, after all of the ill will and do-nots. After all of the numbness and lack of content. Can he shed himself too? How do you become one with another, when you’re not even sure who you are (even after all this time)?
Eight has never given gifts. Not truly, anyway. He has always given, and asked for in return – folding that pink slip into his pocket for a later date. But you, you give without question. You place Kindling in his lap (for better or for worse), and you ask for nothing more. He gave you crystals upon your skin – could that be a gift? A sign to say, here - yes – I am yours.
Always coy, always slipping around questions with that twinkle in your ever-changing eyes. You have a home, don’t you. Many, in fact. A swirling mix of deserts and jungle and soft meadow plains. You are everywhere at once. But what about now?
“This is your true home – your safe haven. But I know it won’t be for long. You are growing, planning, changing.” Could you still have your cavernous womb if you became a queen? Could you call any land other than your kingdom a home? But he knows, that your reference to this revered place as a home was more of a fictitious content. This was the home in your heart, a constructed palace that had turned into a lovers den. But soon, you would have a permanent place, right?
“Pining for a throne does no good anyway. It spoils you, if you receive it. You feel entitled.” But he knew you didn’t feel entitled. You were just a young woman looking for resolve, seeking out your purpose in life other than magic tricks and gifts.
He watches the cinemagraph unfold before them – Beqanna’s activities in the last year, a flurry of politics and treaties and trickery and changes of the throne. Yes, there were many things happening.
“I don’t doubt that you always frolic where you should. You found me, didn’t you?” and he smiles slightly, bumping her with his hip.
Two magicians, with the world before them – it was, wasn’t it – you and Eight, Eight and you. Where had the line been drawn? When had it been blurred?
“No thoughts on a home, really?” He is amused, considering the vast amount of places you had briefly ‘settled’ in. “I would offer the Valley – but I’m not sure it’s your cup of tea, being around me all the time and all.” It was so unlike him, this lilt of a joke in his voice (not dripping with sarcasm or blunt attitude, simply ease). “What next for you then, my diamond girl?”

∞

and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in