So enraptured is the blue mare in her blooming happiness, this balm for the pain that has descended to give her mercy—to rescue her from the pain and sorrow that buffet her fiercely with their dark suffering—that she doesn’t pause a moment to consider the deeper meaning to her mother’s words. Tiamat only comprehends the fact of her parents’ existence, their presence, and their comfort. In this moment, she does not contemplate the warped reality that hovers between wakefulness and dreams, this strange limbo that has her grappling and mourning in its grasp.
At this moment, all she cares to know is them—her parents—her protectors. Surely everything will be alright now with them at her side again, all of the little fragments of her heart (shattered so suddenly, so excruciatingly) will be pieced back together, and the world might just make sense again. Ashamin’s memory doesn’t deserve to be completely shrouded in the cold, black clutch of grief—he had earned so, so much more—but the young unicorn can’t seem to lift herself out of the shadows, try as she might. They writhe and scream around her, and through their darkness, she fixes her gaze on them, her light in the shadows, her anchor in this storm that she has been thrown into.
Tiamat hears her father’s words, and when she should focus on their meaning and heed their assurance, she only recognizes their comfort, and it gives her strength. She clings to this source of security, her body fragile with grief, drawn to it like a moth to light. It calls her forward, and almost involuntarily, she throws herself into their embrace, not willing to fight the temptation of its beckoning.
It is in this moment of weakness that her mother’s voice—sharp, unexpected, and earnest—cuts through her just when ethereal wings suddenly expand and thrust upwards to meet with her father’s strong, watery hand. Her body is jarred as Tiamat forces herself to an ungraceful halt, the spray of ocean waves saturating her skin as they rise and flow, climbing upwards until they meet above her in a great, tidal dome. Through brimming tears the blue mare blinks, backing up and stretching her neck to see this strange wonderment that surrounds her.
And just like that—it is gone.
The day’s light—far too bright and too saturated with color—begins to fall on her again as the streaming walls collapse in watery, silken sheets. For a moment, Tiamat catches something, someone in their folds, but recognition comes too late. “Ashamin?” She gasps, her aching heart leaping, but he is gone before the breath leaves her lips. His words are muffled, fleeting, and she turns to her parents with them ringing in her ears. “…Why?” The solitary word is choke and strained, forced painfully from the tightness of her throat. Their stares are haunting. She can see the disappointment in their eyes, and it pierces her chest like a knife, stealing the air from her lungs and leaving her body cold.
“I don’t understand…why can’t I be with you?…Is it something that I’ve done?” The blue mare fights against the sense of disownment that blisters and sears through her heart, but even so, tears gather on her eyelids and spill slowly, privately onto her cheeks. Why have they rejected me? The cry rises unbidden in her mind. Tiamat doesn’t want to believe that her parents don’t want her—they are better than that, she has to believe—but why the disappointment? The refusal? As if called upon by her sorrow, the anguish swells again—reminding her of her failure and of the pain, of what she had been unable to do. “I tried, I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry,” a tortured sob breaks its way from her lips, trembling her body and blurring her vision. She sways where she stands, fragile in her loneliness.
It is then when Tiamat feels the icy grip of panic begin to wrap itself around her, freezing her muscles and tightening her chest until her breathing becomes difficult and labored. Suddenly, she is desperate. “Mama, Papa, please—please, don’t leave me!” The blue mare cries urgently to her beloved parents, willing to do whatever it takes to see the displeasure leave their faces and feel their comfort embracing her, the warmth of their acceptance assuring her that everything is all right.
Lowering her head, she looks up at them with hopeful, pleading eyes. The silence is unsettling, but perhaps it is what she needs—the stillness allows her mind to wander and expand, caught up in pain and mourning even as words flicker back to her. The voice of her dearest, lost friend—muffled and distorted—resounding in a clear echo through the watery, tumbling curtains. “Things are not as they seem,” the young unicorn murmurs to herself, tasting the words on her tongue and rolling them in her thoughts before they begin to snag on the faintest, smallest hooks of understanding. “What does it mean?” She says louder this time, looking to her parents, and daring to hope that maybe it isn’t as horrifying as she fears it is.
notes; sorry (again) that this took so long!
“Speech.”
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