Essetia & Romul

And although I wasn't losing my mind, It was a chorus so sublime

I felt as though I were pressing words into a page and hoping they would change the fates. However, the page was only parchment and that parchment appeared so very old. Magic could do little to change the course of our destiny, even if I so desired it.

Watching Grimalkin was similar to watching the waves that beat upon the shore. He was so impassive, an unopened book that promised vivid tales never to be read. I wanted more, wanted to him to engage in something as cathartic as simply releasing the words needed to crack his spine. But nothing ever came and my hopes were quickly dwindling. He was a man of very specific material- a man shaded in the finest of black and white. I on the other hand felt bursting with too much color, too many reds and blue to be considered trustworthy, but too vibrant to look away. Before him I felt scattered and unkempt while he maintained a fortress made of steel.

Instead of wondering what he stories he kept inside, I mused elsewhere, suddenly certain that nothing I said would fall upon him with any real importance. Sometimes, that’s how these conversations went… sometimes there was nothing to see, but rather a void too large to be considered human. Even as the tide continued to roll, I was captivated by the thought of what it might feel like to be so… hard. The way he spoke, the way he regarded me, and even the way he looked reminded me of a sentry. He stood tall so that others could not pull from him his emotions, but if that was the case, then where did they go? Did they simply not exist? I could recall the times I wished to be as unfeeling and yet could not maintain such a façade. For a moment, I begged for his determination and strength… I begged to be so casual when the world was all too real.

”Does it hurt every time you revisit those times?”

If we’d been dueling, two blades aimed at one another, I would have lost. I would have danced around him countless times until there was nothing left of me but the undying breath of a woman with too much pride. He’d merely have to hold his sword out toward me before I threw myself willingly against the silver. But, I couldn’t allow myself to become ashamed of the words I shared. They were but sentences after all… sentences that added up to the sum of my life and somehow found their way to the beaches and the forests until they were nothing but whispers of fiction that never truly existed. “No, not always,” I answered whimsically. It was then that I realized the good that was so often overshadowed by the bad. I remembered meeting Midas, remembered joining the Falls, remembered the conversations I’d shared with Ulrik... those times had been good to me. “I suppose I can’t grieve forever, hm?” No one could live in misery forever, no matter how determined.