|
Night has always been your favorite time.
You wait within the mouth of your cave, curled up contently against the stone, watching as the last of the color bleeds into starlight. It has been constant comfort to you, the stars the keepers of silly childhood stories that are precious to you; providing a closeness in their familiarity, in the knowledge that they are the same stars that you used to watch when you were young, when there was still that first we before you knew the hurt of loss, the stillness of death, before it became just you.
There had been the sun, and the sea too, before you had lost your daughter beneath it and the nightmares re-awoke within you, before you came to know your love of a man on the shore, before he showed you beautiful things so that when he left you you could not go without remembering him, too.
But the night has remained.
Its shadows are a reminder that, however small it has been, you have grown.
They no longer shift into the monsters that your brother had frightened you with when you were little (‘What do they hide?’, he had asked, that boy of shadow and the deep blue-gray of a stormy sea, as if he would have tempted them from their lairs, chased them away, away so that you would no longer be afraid, as if he had wanted to be that feeling of terror, and you shake your head, understanding, knowing, what you had not back then, when he was just a boy of charming smiles and wore a crown of thorns around his heart just like you always have, and you shiver at the thought, twist away before you become engulfed in the fear of just what will happen to him) that had followed you through dreams and across what has always seemed to be the length of the universe in between the place where a family had died, buried beneath waves and an ocean, and where you belong now.
You breathe out into the snow-covered valley, your kaleidoscope eyes lingering for just a moment on the still lake and the place where a King had died. Your brows furrow, your thoughts flickering to your prince and his monumental loss. The whole of the Basin had lost something on that day, something that you likened to the presence of the mountains, the snow, your precious stars: always there and eternal.
It would be a lie to say that you are not concerned for the valley, for those that you have mended time and time again within its confines, for the prince made General, who had crumbled beneath his father’s death, and what comes next.
Your legs unfold from beneath you, body lurching rather gracelessly as you find your feet and begin to descend from your cavern hidden among the trees to find your friend. Maybe you don't know what to do, how to help in the face of uncertainty, and maybe there is nothing that you can say that will ease the ache in his soul, no magic to mend it, but you can offer your company, your heart to pour his sorrows in.
There is a quiet melody that is hummed as you continue down your snowy path, one that is ignored as it grows louder, as the sound of movement and breathing becomes clearer, until there is no ignoring it. He emerges from the thick of the trees, and you are sorely tempted to simply turn and make your way through the deeper portions of snow, avoiding the creature that found it appropriate to waltz right up onto your doorstep. And you would, if it weren't for the exhaustion permeating from deep within your bones, your recent intolerance of the cold as your body has struggled to heal itself. If there weren't just the slightest bit of worry that he has sought you out for a reason given your title and magic within this herd, even though you do not see anything obviously wrong with him. Still, your eyes narrow as you pause, and you force a loud breath from your chest. 'Is there something I can help you with?'
|
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
