[private] i feel a bad moon rising | elio

[elio]

elio

some say I should learn to cry but I only learned how to fight
and I know everything must die but nothing fades like the light

Deep in the Taigan woods lies a bright-eyed boy six feet beneath the youthful roots of a redwood. Nothing more than a colt’s bones, he is returned peacefully to the earth while the rest of Beqanna rises and falls.

Elio feels like that sometimes. Deaf to the world and blind to history as it is made. He exists mostly in his head, observant and quiet and oh so contemplative. He wonders what it would feel like to dig that child up, to really pick apart why he feels the way that he often does: lost. It’s not exactly that he doesn't analyze his every move (because, oh, how he suffers beneath the pinch of his invasive fingers), but that he subconsciously knows once he unearths those boxed up parts of his childhood, he’ll find a forgiveness he’s not ready to give.

Lost, Elio thinks, only half-hearing what Lepis wants of him. Guilt wells in his throat and he digs a front hoof into the soil beneath him. He has no business feeling lost with a mother so dedicated to her family, and when he looks in Lepis’ eyes and really sees her, he wonders if she would feel hurt to know how he hides his loneliness.

“I know,” Elio distantly responds to Lepis’ warning. A weak smile lifts his lips. The smoothing of his hair and settling of his feathers brings a child’s peace smoothly tucked over his heart. Such simple shows of affection remind him of being six months old and peering up at a mother streaked by golden sunlight, face crinkling with the joyous laughter of a parent surprised by their child.

“I’ll come back in no more than three pieces,” Elio teases. When Lepis reaches to kiss his forehead, he leans down to make it easier for her to reach. His weak smile glows a little brighter.  “Love you, Mom. You’ve always been a good parent,” he adds slowly, briefly glancing down at the ground. While Elio feels sweet with his mother’s affection, the air still feels heavy, and he thinks she should hear now, especially, how she did everything right by him.