04-25-2015, 10:04 PM
Breathing is only hard when the sun goes down; when loneliness wraps her in its arms and starts to squeeze, compressing her heart into her lungs. The sun manages to banish it all. If she could fly around the world with the daylight, if she could stay forever in its warm rays, she might abandon all else without a second thought.
Their hard part was in the beginning; once they gave in, the world came alive.
She already saw the colors of time. Every grain of sand held a multi-faceted portal into the past, into the moment they first laid eyes on each others to their hissed, fang-drawn fights and their passionate reconciliation. She saw it all. She saw it over and over and over again, and she would until the end of her days. Whatever came afer Vanquish would pale in comparison; she knew that at some point she might love again, at some point she might find reason to bear another child and give her heart away. With time. With patience. With years of mourning. How could anyone ever compare to the mighty oak, the dark dragon, the Nightwalker? Would she feel him in another’s touch? Would she cry out his name while lying in the embrace of another?
Even the sparse clouds haunted her.
This kingdom was his playground and his graveyard; it was her paradise and her first circle of hell. How could she leave? How could she stay? Why else would she hand over her pride and joy to two other women? The Desert always came first - it came before her children and it came before her love. If there were ever a choice to make between the two, they both knew what she would have done. They both knew she was the primary ruler and he the secondary. They both knew. It was a part of their life. Who could understand the balance between the two?
Could he?
No. He threw away his responsibilities. He forsook the Falls. He was trapped in a way that she would never be, for all she wailed and wept and beat her breast. She would always climb back up the ladder. He would always fall back down the chute. That was their lot in life; that was the fate they never dreamed they could escape. She is content for now - with content being a very loose, incorrect term to describe anything. She hides it all too well, behind a polished mask of decorum and practiced pleasantries that spring out of her mouth in reflux. Muscle memory can be a godsend, until you can’t shake it to face the truth.
She is more vibrant than she has ever been, all gold and silver and gilt edges that jut out a little more than usual. Her steps, however, are as weary as the corners of her mouth. Where once the weight of the world lay atop her shoulders, there now is the softer, spiked mantle of grief. It stings, and will burn forever, but she no longer feels as if her bones are being compressed in quicksand, and she only struggles to breath in a different way. Her gaze lands quietly and without pretension, despite being able to see the gray that radiates from his coat in an invisible cloak of despair. He has come as many do - to escape, to sleep, perchance to dream. To disappear into the rolling dunes and walk into the distant sea, or add their bones to the hundreds that already lay buried. To seek salvation. To forget.
“You ahr lost,” she says simply. He knows she speaks the truth.
Their hard part was in the beginning; once they gave in, the world came alive.
She already saw the colors of time. Every grain of sand held a multi-faceted portal into the past, into the moment they first laid eyes on each others to their hissed, fang-drawn fights and their passionate reconciliation. She saw it all. She saw it over and over and over again, and she would until the end of her days. Whatever came afer Vanquish would pale in comparison; she knew that at some point she might love again, at some point she might find reason to bear another child and give her heart away. With time. With patience. With years of mourning. How could anyone ever compare to the mighty oak, the dark dragon, the Nightwalker? Would she feel him in another’s touch? Would she cry out his name while lying in the embrace of another?
Even the sparse clouds haunted her.
This kingdom was his playground and his graveyard; it was her paradise and her first circle of hell. How could she leave? How could she stay? Why else would she hand over her pride and joy to two other women? The Desert always came first - it came before her children and it came before her love. If there were ever a choice to make between the two, they both knew what she would have done. They both knew she was the primary ruler and he the secondary. They both knew. It was a part of their life. Who could understand the balance between the two?
Could he?
No. He threw away his responsibilities. He forsook the Falls. He was trapped in a way that she would never be, for all she wailed and wept and beat her breast. She would always climb back up the ladder. He would always fall back down the chute. That was their lot in life; that was the fate they never dreamed they could escape. She is content for now - with content being a very loose, incorrect term to describe anything. She hides it all too well, behind a polished mask of decorum and practiced pleasantries that spring out of her mouth in reflux. Muscle memory can be a godsend, until you can’t shake it to face the truth.
She is more vibrant than she has ever been, all gold and silver and gilt edges that jut out a little more than usual. Her steps, however, are as weary as the corners of her mouth. Where once the weight of the world lay atop her shoulders, there now is the softer, spiked mantle of grief. It stings, and will burn forever, but she no longer feels as if her bones are being compressed in quicksand, and she only struggles to breath in a different way. Her gaze lands quietly and without pretension, despite being able to see the gray that radiates from his coat in an invisible cloak of despair. He has come as many do - to escape, to sleep, perchance to dream. To disappear into the rolling dunes and walk into the distant sea, or add their bones to the hundreds that already lay buried. To seek salvation. To forget.
“You ahr lost,” she says simply. He knows she speaks the truth.
Yael, guardian of the desert