Atlas

Atlas didn’t want to be another’s muse. He didn’t want to be some fleeting vestige of encouragement or faith, but more so the guiding light towarda more promising future. He’d managed to overcome his own trials with time and delighted in the success of others when they too were able to transcend their misfortunes. However, his words couldn’t quite give the sentiment true justice and instead of looking on with some strain of understanding, Lena appeared more perplexed by the stallion’s paltry theorem. On a sigh, Atlas glanced toward the trees and the rustling leaves that appeared to capture her interest more thoroughly than he. He was visibly defeated by the fact that she didn’t, or simply couldn’t, understand what he stood for. Instead, the verdure around them seemed to make more sense to the mare most likely erected from the earth itself. That was the moment in which Atlas discovered just how different they truly were.

Disheartened, the stallion glanced at the willowy brushwood that threatened to bridge together overhead, but focused on the blue of the sky just beyond its mottled branchlets. He cleared his throat and shuffled his feet, but couldn’t quite come up with an answer to satisfy Lena’s curiosity, because there wasn’t another way to explain his dreams to make her sympathize. So, by allowing Lena more time to think, he assumed that his concepts would eventually be met with some form of approval or another… or maybe not. “Not quite…” he speculated softly, trying more than anything to collect an assortment of words that would afford her a different result.

However, before Lena would even consider trying to piece together his outlandish philosophy, Atlas noticed a sudden strain in their theoretical atmosphere. He tried once to determine if he was the cause of Lena’s abrupt silence, but as he floundered with his own comprehension, Lena was gearing up for the ultimate affront. If Atlas hadn’t been aware that she’d take offense to his prior nettling about ‘purpose’ and it simply ‘being enough’, then he would soon find himself informed…

“When a mother begs you to heal their broken child, would you find it tiresome?”

It was like a punch in the gut to hear his own words twisted in such a way. Somehow the Mender had transformed from prey to predator, a lioness intimidating her target, as she fixed him with a haughty and threatening glower. Yet, Atlas did not fall from her challenge, instead his dual-colored eyes flashing with frustration in the low light of the Labyrinth. “No,” he answered flatly, before Lena could begin another firing round of insult and quiet rage. Of course, it was silly for Atlas to assume that she would stop once she had started and so he too settled in to ride out the impending storm.

Toward every berating comparative question the Mender played as an assumed trump card, Atlas rounded back with varying degrees of denial. She was reaching toward a climax while he watched and waited for her to come back down from her staggering throne, his jaw working circles around itself as he fought back the urge to stop her in her tracks. As she spiraled out before him, a mess of dirt and debris, the stallion stood back to avoid the whiplash. Somehow, Lena had become a cyclone that refused to see and only heard whatever negative undertones weren’t intentionally meant by questioning her, and when she’d finished, her figurative wildness flaring up around her, Atlas merely stared. He hadn’t the need to command himself in a similar fashion and instead of lashing back like he so desired to do, he grit his teeth and scowled, “Are you done?”

He waited then, his shoulders rolling over as he bit back the urge to retort and to counter all the things Lena now thought of him. He wanted in so many ways to soothe her, to prove her wrong, yet, this was a test of his own and Atlas wanted to see his answer through. If things fell apart… well then, at least he hadn’t been the one to pull the strings.