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A shiver ran down my spine when I returned to that grey border. The season was warm everywhere but here. In the North, Tallsun had merely melted half the snow into a disappointing slush, but I stayed regardless. Time away had been no better for me than anything else, and so I decided that it was a better decision to return than to continue a pointless existence wrapped in solitude.
Those were my days, then. Comparing the two evils, choosing the lesser, but recognizing that all of it had very little bearing on whatever remaining life I could cling to. I did not yet feel death calling, but I did not feel strong, either. I also did not like to lie to myself, just as I have never liked to lie to you, my son. That is why I speak to you of such dark things now, despite the fact that I have no hope of outshining them with good. There's simply not enough of that in the world to overcome the grief, is there? Come now, you're older, been dead long enough. Surely you must know a truth as simple as this. I imagine it's the first thing you learn when you die.
However, being alive meant that dwelling on those things gave me a more haggard appearance. I was thinner than I ought to be, and my eyes drooped with a permanent exhaustion. The only thing still neat about me was my hair, which never seemed to tangle despite its inordinate length. One could suggest that my failure to bite it shorter was a sign of poor self care, but if that was the case then I was the most beautiful failure of hygiene to ever blemish this earth.
But, I digress. I came to the border of the Aurora Basin, hoping to find that nothing had changed and that my life there could continue as whatever normal I had falsely shaped for myself. When I stood there, looking up at the sentinels furthering decay, I knew this much was true. I could count on the Aurora Basin for that until the day I died: the place was static. Perhaps having their patron god be one of time froze their lands in more ways than one.
Ruminating on a religion I'd never bothered to observe, gazing upon ruins I had reluctantly called home and wished to live in again, I think I might have smiled. But if I did it was only for a moment. These pleasures never lasted very long, and I can't say now that I remember what my face looked like then, anyway.
Do you?
""
Ahvelyn
background credit to Poe Tatum at flickr.com
Looking to join again! Grumpy bitch is back. Tagging @Tiamat perhaps?
