so oftentimes it happens that we live our lives in chains. || merida

[Canaan]

Canaan

so oftentimes it happens that we live our lives in chains,

   It is a quiet morning – with little else but the dull roar of the turning rapids, rolling over large, but smooth boulders, as the gentle morning sun touches the water with its light. The sky is open and bright – a vivid, rich sapphire, painted with a single stroke of lavender as the last sliver of night desperately clutches at the very edge of daybreak. The golden flecks enveloping his wide pupils observe the softness of the horizon give way to first light in the distance, and soon, the world will no longer be still.
 
   The breeze is gentle – weaving through the tightly knit oak and pine and their spindly, wiry b branches – rustling through bright, lively vegetation and rattling the dry and brittle bark. The usually vivid sky left dull and gray with a looming storm, and the atmosphere is dense with precipitation as the sun clashes with the boundary line of the heavy haze – letting only bleak, minuscule rays of light gleam onto the thicket canopy, and across the roaring water below. The woodland is quiet, dark – with no light to penetrate the unyielding shadow and the bristling frigidity, it is a serene respite from the warmth of spring.
 
  A heavy sigh passes his dark lips, as his bright (yet tired – so tired; slumber still pulled wearily at his eyelids) eyes settle on the churning river before him – it has become a source of comfort for him; a way to ease his restless mind. Eventually, he is drawn to the light – its bleak rays shining over his golden skin, weaving its light through the dense, finely preened feathers of his broad, russet wings.
 
   The once subtle breeze is soon a forceful gust of his own doing. There is solace in feeling the wind entangle itself in his two-toned mane; in feeling the enveloping power of a harsh squall urging him along. The soft whistle of the air weaving its way between the dark caramel tinted feathers that line the broad plane of his wings soothes him, and even though the atmosphere is often unpredictable, there are very few moments in which he is content to simply be left with the stillness of stagnant air.
 
   And then – there it is; an echo of a single snapping twig – and his hazel eyes are no longer observing the powerful river, and instead, his cheek is turned towards the east and he is faced with a bold presence. With vivid tresses of cerise falling in free-falling waves across the darkness of her skin, and searing eyes boring into him, he stands rather unceremoniously before her, blinking away the lethargy from his drowsy gaze.
 
   She is a sight to behold, and he – well, he is altogether amused.
 
   ”It isn’t often someone manages to find me before I find them,” he muses, his voice course and ragged from disuse. ”I didn’t even hear you. I’m Canaan – and who are you?”

and we never even know we have the key.

@[Merida]