He follows soft golden yellows and mauves from the pinewoods, after he has made sure she has drifted off somewhere safe. After he has made sure she is secured in a crib of family and Chamber natives – things of skin and rot; the scraggly and winter-thinned wolves that stalk the outer reaches, but do not dare delve inwards. He will be back before she falls asleep, he says.
She nods and dances, dances, dances. She is frustrated, but contained. Successfully caged by the thorns of her mother’s warnings. Giver is free, in the sense that every evening the door is swung open and he does not wear chains, so he can leave. If he wants. He does not always want; he is not truly free. Sometimes he stays and walks with her. (She dances, he walks.) They talk – mostly they remember their small things – and then he plays her concertos of constellations and old, night-stuff. They are suspended in these soft hours; children. They laugh and recall their time-ridden playthings in the night.
(‘Don’t be late.’) Sometimes, Alight thinks she owns him, because she always has. He is her man; he has come to understand his abduction as a thing for her, he was charged the impossible task of ensuring her safety. Somewhere, day and night, a monster hunts for indigo…
(‘When have I ever been late?’)
If he could carry home with him, it would be a flurry of pine needles and indigo threads – but most of all, stars. And these he can wear, as she wears sand and stone by her feet. But only when dark reveals the venerable galaxies from which he draws, like a thirsty man from a well.
“Do you take those everywhere you go?” He would never mean to startle her, but he speaks softly because he knows that she is uneasy – lost, perhaps? Sad? He cannot always tell clearly. He rounds to face her, yellow and silver-haired, soft-eyed. Beneath his able muscles, his heart beats out for the above, impatient for night,
“Where is it?”
Is it home? Or somewhere in between...
She nods and dances, dances, dances. She is frustrated, but contained. Successfully caged by the thorns of her mother’s warnings. Giver is free, in the sense that every evening the door is swung open and he does not wear chains, so he can leave. If he wants. He does not always want; he is not truly free. Sometimes he stays and walks with her. (She dances, he walks.) They talk – mostly they remember their small things – and then he plays her concertos of constellations and old, night-stuff. They are suspended in these soft hours; children. They laugh and recall their time-ridden playthings in the night.
(‘Don’t be late.’) Sometimes, Alight thinks she owns him, because she always has. He is her man; he has come to understand his abduction as a thing for her, he was charged the impossible task of ensuring her safety. Somewhere, day and night, a monster hunts for indigo…
(‘When have I ever been late?’)
If he could carry home with him, it would be a flurry of pine needles and indigo threads – but most of all, stars. And these he can wear, as she wears sand and stone by her feet. But only when dark reveals the venerable galaxies from which he draws, like a thirsty man from a well.
“Do you take those everywhere you go?” He would never mean to startle her, but he speaks softly because he knows that she is uneasy – lost, perhaps? Sad? He cannot always tell clearly. He rounds to face her, yellow and silver-haired, soft-eyed. Beneath his able muscles, his heart beats out for the above, impatient for night,
“Where is it?”
Is it home? Or somewhere in between...
![[Image: Gn7EN0n.png]](http://i.imgur.com/Gn7EN0n.png)
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