circles of eternity, chapter ii.
@Luna: Hehe, yep. But it's slow everywhere! I came here when I FF.net was too slow for my requirements. But it seems it's slow everywhere...
Any comments on the story? It's incomplete. I'd better get going with the next bit of it...
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ii.
How did we wind up here? Oz wonders, gazing out into the panorama beyond the window frame. In her window, the feathers are dancing, white butterflies bound to the window. She smiles to see the way they struggle in their bonds.
A breath of wind slips, unnoticed, into the incense-clouded altar room. Mastered by the breeze, the candle flame fades.
There now, she murmurs, turning to light the wick again, setting the candle aglow once more. Shine just a little longer, just a little brighter—just a little more like the Queen who gave us life.
Her eyes trail across the treasures on her altar again—dusty peac-ock feathers, glinting odds and ends pilfered from Kirium's store, a statue of Queen Cygnus.
(Or is it a statue of the Goddess? I don't know; their eyes are the same.)
But there is something she treasures more than these. Something that cannot be placed on her mantel—something as vast as the shore-gilded sea...
The girl hears a ringing knock on the windowsill, and a bright smile illuminates her soft-featured face. From the window Hawkeye smiles back, the lost pirate's eyes as blue as the roaring ocean below.
"Why are you here?" she questions, standing. He grins widely as she approaches.
"Why are we here?" he replies with silent sorrow, leaning over the sill into the candlelit room. "We must leave one day."
"But who will lead us? We're bound here until we die, remember...?"
Hawkeye says nothing. Then, gazing up at her eyes again, his smile returns. "Don't you sometimes dream of it, though?"
She wants to say yes, but the Goddess is watching.
He turns to the sky over his shoulder, sighing. Then, returning his gaze to her, his eyes grow sad. "Ah—when we escape Erev, I know just where I'll return. But where will you go, Oz?"
The Witch of Flames smiles. "Into the flames," she murmurs. "Inside a volcano and away from the sky..."
"But close to the sea?" he replies earnestly. "I'd be glad, Oz. Will you change your road, and come with me?"
She blinks her green eyes, wishing he wouldn't gaze at her so. It's like falling into an ocean, she thinks, turning away. It's ever so thrilling, ever so beautiful. This is—falling in love.
He carefully takes her wrist, the rage of all the waves behind his smile—waves in all their glory, the tang of salt sharp—rushing, crashing on thousand-mile granite cliffs, like white horses with manes of sea spray. She smiles back, leaning close so he may kiss her.
Behind her, Oz feels the Goddess' gaze, piercing gimlet from the dusty altar. You swore, She whispers severely. You made an oath. Of chastity, and poverty, and eternal binding with the land.
But they had been mere children then, engendered and blinded in the sepulchre of the sun.
"Will you come with me?" Hawkeye asks again, forgetting his sorrow, his smile like a breeze on a distant beach.
She laughs back. "Yes," she says. "Because I know you'll take me along." But somehow, when she thinks of escape, she can only think of the pain and shadows beyond the terraces of Erev.
To stay trapped is to stay safe forever. Is that not true?
Still the wind whirls, a dragon spiralling through her flaming hair, through his. For a moment, she rides the overwhelming, everlasting flow, forgetting all her obligations—kissing his cheek as he runs his fingers through her hair.
On the empty altar beside the Queen, the candle has gone out, yet again.
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Falling in love is like falling into an ocean. It is a thrill, but it always ends in a dark, crushing coldness.