Sun Storm
"…Why are you here?"
"Peace, my friend. I am only passing through."
In the grey not-light of pre-dawn, his skin is a sickly sight. The sheen of his blue pearl complexion borders on grotesque.
And they sit there in the tavern, the not-strangers that they are, waiting for the sun to rise. Still a shade too tense for familiarity, still a shade too familiar for formality. It would be difficult to say which one was more surprised when their paths crossed.
They can feel the dew of morning clinging to their bones and they can smell the sunshine lingering just beyond the horizon line.
Only this is Treno. Not the perpetual night that some might think, the town is simply deep in the shadow of the mountains. And here, there will be no sunshine for some time yet.
In the grey that settles about them like fine mist, Freya preens. She is not a flame. She is not a fire. Freya is moon. Freya is star. Freya is storm. And never has that been made more apparent than it has in this moment. She glows. Almost like Trance. Almost. In Trance her veins fill and flow with mercury, with ashen honeyed magic. Trance occurs from the inside out.
This does not. The silver aura she radiates is only a reflection. A prism trapping light - a prism projecting something altogether grander than that which it catches.
In the pre-dawn not-darkness, Freya glows softly. Moon, star, and storm. Hair, eyes, and hide. Freya glows.
Amarant sulks.
His elbows on the countertop, his lumbering bulk folded in upon itself. The bar stool creeks ominously every time he shifts.
A study in contrasts, he is diluted. The grey drowns him out. His normally brilliant palette is only a watered down shadow. His fire is gone; the Salamander Flame has been stripped and it leaves him feeling churlish – though, only ever seeing out of his own eyes, he could not truly say why. He has no way of knowing any of this, after all. Only knowing that he dislikes it.
Even his infamous mane appears as not but rust.
As a woman whose coloring is all moonbeams and starlight and storm clouds, this suits Freya Crescent just fine. Let him view the world, if only for a brief few minutes, as something nullified – as something that need not always burn.
When he speaks for the second time – not to her but to his ale- his rumbling voice is still broody thick with sleep and he repeats his earlier question, "Why are you here, Freya?"
Though they are the only patrons and the tender is paying them no mind, her voice is quiet in the stillness,
"I am only passing through."
Which is a truth. An obvious truth. Women like her in towns like this? Knights like her in a town like this? The debauchery? The greed? The crime? The nobles who spared neither glances nor coins for the destitute? In her humble opinion this town was only made for passing through.
A grunt. The man tilts his head to the side, enough hair falling away so that one eye (brown sugar, dry earth, burnt copper) peers out at her.
They are waiting for the sun to rise.
"How have you been fairing, Amarant?"
"Get by."
"My, my. Talkative as ever, aren't you?"
"Hnn. You gotta point?"
"No. I suppose not."
His blue pearl complexion is still a sickly sight. She still absorbs the grey and glows of her whites and silvers.
He rolls his shoulders and pops his neck, paying her vague frown no mind.
"…You?"
"Beg pardon?"
"Said, 'You', rat. How've you been doing?"
"I am well."
"The construction?"
"It goes as scheduled. Three months more and I daresay the city will return to her former glory. Architecturally."
"How is your man?"
"He is well."
The monk slaps one large palm down flat against the bar's surface,
"Then why are you here, Freya?"
Outside of the tavern, farewells are in order. And she knows this. Freya knows this. Yet she's staring at the familiar stranger and feels discontented.
One hour passed. One hour. One lousy hour and one accidental meeting and not fifty words passed between them. One hour and he is no longer diluted. The grey is gone. The world is awash with gold and, in the new light, the slowly brightening morning; he is brilliant. He is fire. Salamander Flame. Phoenix.
A study in contrasts, she pales. She is moon and star and storm. Her glow is gone. She evaporates. She dissipates. She sets.
He rises.
With a mane that flows and dances like blood water, like ruby scaled serpents, Amarant is only himself. Irritatingly and gratingly and blindingly himself.
He is speaking, arms crossed, the ring in his ear gleams, "…about a fortnight ago. East path was completely flooded. Thinking the trail west of Alexandria should get you-"
No longer glowing, she interrupts.
"It was the rain."
The confession – or is it an explanation? – is rushed and uncomfortable and out of place and altogether just awful. It really is just awful.
And he is staring at her (brown sugar, dry earth, burnt copper) like she has gone mad, "…Alright?"
"I needed to get out of the rain. "
"...Alright."
"Some people do not have the good sense to do that."
"Alright."
"Come in from the rain, I mean."
"Alright."
"That's why."
"Alright."
"You asked."
"I know."
"I needed to get out of the rain."
"…Alright."
And now she's shaking. All moonbeams and starlight out past her bedtime and suddenly furious in the blazing dawn.
"I needed to get out."
His voice is sharp, irritated, impatient, "Alright, Freya."
"It's not!"
Her pike is thrown down for childlike emphasis; it clatters, ringing noisily on the cobbled ground as she hollers (angry and hurt and honest).
"I wish he were dead!"
"…!"
"I wish he had been dead! I wish I had found his bones bleached white and picked clean by carrion birds! I wish I would have found a skull – a skull devoid of eyes that stare without knowing. It would have broken my heart and I wish it had! Certainly that pain would have been a lighter burden to shoulder in place of my heart breaking over and over again with every word he utters, with every memory he does not recall."
"..."
"He is not my man, Amarant. My man is dead and I have not even bones to mourn – I have a ghost. I have a ghost and I want bones and I wish he were dead I-"
"...Yeah. Me too."
She recoils. He watches.
Sets and Rises. Moonbeams and fire-breathers. Unmoving, in gold, they stare the other down.
A world un-nullified.
A world that burns.
Mid-afternoon. Alone. And leagues away from Treno she burns.
I wish he were dead.
Yeah. Me too.
I wish he had been dead. I wish I would have found his bones-
Alright.
I wish he had been dead.
Yeah. Me too.
I wish- I wish – I wish –
- Me too.
And she burns and she burns and she burns.
Sun Storm: End.