03-02-2016, 04:10 PM
Her leaving is like a breath half formed in his lungs.
What might have been chokes in her wake; she leaves a trail of questions that go unanswered for months, years. And if life is made up solely of potential and kinetic energies, her self-exile is the kinetic drive that augments the potential they’d only started building between them. Because it had been there, unquestionably, on his part. Every time he’d tried to melt her cold exterior with his molten gaze, he’d seen the potential. He’d seen the start of something more than simple affection or childhood fondness. He thought if he could just chisel and chip away at her – just a crack, that is all it would take for her to crumble – she would be so much more than what she showed the world. They would be so much more.
He misses trying and he misses her.
Ramiel doesn’t know when or if she will ever return to the Dale, but hope keeps him waiting, always. And while she isn’t the center of his focus (his people will as long as he holds his throne – their safety and sanity in the midst of war is his driving force), she appears in his mind in flashes like a ghost. Ea, he greets her every time, wondering where her doppelganger is out in the real world, hoping she’s all right. Why don’t you stay? But she’s wily and elusive (much like her emotions have always been), and she never lingers long.
Meanwhile, while he waits with his hope, life goes on all around him. Conflict fractures the peace that had once reigned over Beqanna. There is little doubt in his mind that the unrest will lead to an all-out war; the land is starved, and will only be satiated by blood and bones. He worries for the Dale in a way that he’s never worried before. Because their consistent lack of numbers is one thing – losing any single one of them at the enemy’s hooves is quite another. The young king paces at night, thinking, worrying. He imagines seeing his friends on the Other Side. Death curls its bony fingers at the others in his mind, beckons them to His side. There is nothing he can do to stop Him, to stop the war that will devastate so many. All he can do is worry for his Dalean family. All he can do is prepare them for the trying times ahead.
Silver-dipped brown blurs on the horizon now. He squints, because it seems real even though he knows it isn’t, it can’t be. Ea in the flesh. She stands unassuming in the quiet before the churning chaos, returning from lands he’ll never know. A cloud passes overhead and the light spills from its containment to sweep across the earth below. It hits the mare he’s still not sure is real or a figment of his hope.
It doesn’t take him long to decide.
The ground shudders as he barrels over it, racing both his doubts and confusion. The grey stallion pulls up once he realizes that she is, in fact, here. “Ea,” he exhales, releasing a breath that had been stunted within him for far too long. She looks well, he decides, as his golden gaze falls across her with the light. She looks as she always has, he amends in his mind, tense, like a spring left coiled too long without release. Ramiel smiles anyway. He will take her in any form – changed or otherwise – because at least she’s here. “Here to stay?” His smile quirks into a roguish grin, uncharacteristic but comfortable on his face all the same. How many times has he asked her the same words? How many times has she acquiesced, agreeing but never quite enthusiastic about staying in a place she was meant to be queen? How many times has she fled without a word, leaving him to wonder if she’d ever grow roots long enough for him to make her one?
He gives her more this time, doesn’t leave it an open-ended question. Maybe it will be enough. “I hope so.”
What might have been chokes in her wake; she leaves a trail of questions that go unanswered for months, years. And if life is made up solely of potential and kinetic energies, her self-exile is the kinetic drive that augments the potential they’d only started building between them. Because it had been there, unquestionably, on his part. Every time he’d tried to melt her cold exterior with his molten gaze, he’d seen the potential. He’d seen the start of something more than simple affection or childhood fondness. He thought if he could just chisel and chip away at her – just a crack, that is all it would take for her to crumble – she would be so much more than what she showed the world. They would be so much more.
He misses trying and he misses her.
Ramiel doesn’t know when or if she will ever return to the Dale, but hope keeps him waiting, always. And while she isn’t the center of his focus (his people will as long as he holds his throne – their safety and sanity in the midst of war is his driving force), she appears in his mind in flashes like a ghost. Ea, he greets her every time, wondering where her doppelganger is out in the real world, hoping she’s all right. Why don’t you stay? But she’s wily and elusive (much like her emotions have always been), and she never lingers long.
Meanwhile, while he waits with his hope, life goes on all around him. Conflict fractures the peace that had once reigned over Beqanna. There is little doubt in his mind that the unrest will lead to an all-out war; the land is starved, and will only be satiated by blood and bones. He worries for the Dale in a way that he’s never worried before. Because their consistent lack of numbers is one thing – losing any single one of them at the enemy’s hooves is quite another. The young king paces at night, thinking, worrying. He imagines seeing his friends on the Other Side. Death curls its bony fingers at the others in his mind, beckons them to His side. There is nothing he can do to stop Him, to stop the war that will devastate so many. All he can do is worry for his Dalean family. All he can do is prepare them for the trying times ahead.
Silver-dipped brown blurs on the horizon now. He squints, because it seems real even though he knows it isn’t, it can’t be. Ea in the flesh. She stands unassuming in the quiet before the churning chaos, returning from lands he’ll never know. A cloud passes overhead and the light spills from its containment to sweep across the earth below. It hits the mare he’s still not sure is real or a figment of his hope.
It doesn’t take him long to decide.
The ground shudders as he barrels over it, racing both his doubts and confusion. The grey stallion pulls up once he realizes that she is, in fact, here. “Ea,” he exhales, releasing a breath that had been stunted within him for far too long. She looks well, he decides, as his golden gaze falls across her with the light. She looks as she always has, he amends in his mind, tense, like a spring left coiled too long without release. Ramiel smiles anyway. He will take her in any form – changed or otherwise – because at least she’s here. “Here to stay?” His smile quirks into a roguish grin, uncharacteristic but comfortable on his face all the same. How many times has he asked her the same words? How many times has she acquiesced, agreeing but never quite enthusiastic about staying in a place she was meant to be queen? How many times has she fled without a word, leaving him to wonder if she’d ever grow roots long enough for him to make her one?
He gives her more this time, doesn’t leave it an open-ended question. Maybe it will be enough. “I hope so.”
R A M I E L
this is a man pulling at his iron chains