a|n:
I feel sort of like the main character in The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards in the sense that I keep finding myself writing the same scene over and over again. I'm not sure what this is or why I wrote it…but I can tell you that I've had 2/3 of a bottle of wine and am currently sitting in my window in an attempt to freeze to death before the family Christmas Dinner (just kidding. mostly. haha)
HAPPY HOLIDAYS~~!
disclaimer:
i own nothing. nothing is mine.
It's always the same. Etro appears to her mother in a dream. She tells her that she will have a green eyed little girl who will know all things and she should name her Yeul. The village fortune teller will confirm that she is carrying the seeress and when Yeul is born they will all move into the temple.
Yeul will know since the day she is born that she is special. They will tell her this over and over and never let her forget it. She doesn't particularly feel special and she does not go out to play with the other children so she has nothing to measure it against but sometimes she finds herself humming songs she's never heard and knowing things she's never been told. When she reads about Oerba she feels a deep and consuming desire to visit even though she has never heard of it before this moment, even though it no longer exists. Sometimes she sees things that haven't happened and then they do and so she knows that it must be true that she is special, even if she doesn't understand it, not completely. Everyone treats her like she is very precious and her parents are very kind but she doesn't ever feel like she is home.
—
Her first real vision, not just a glimpse of a future or a dream of the past, but honest vision is always of a man. Tall and proud with purple hair and violet eyes clashing swords with a pink hair warrior and he says her name and she feels love. She doesn't tell this one to the elders, instead she folds it into her heart and keeps it for herself. But the next day he is there, kneeling before her.
"I am Caius of the Ballads. Destined Guardian of the Seeress Yeul."
The elders nod at her puzzled parents and she stands there, eye to eye with the warrior from her waking dreams. She tilts her head slightly as she curiously studies the sharp planes of his regal face. He looks so unlike anyone else in the village, just like her. He looks younger than her father yet not even the head elder raises his eyes from their reverent bow. And yet he is here, kneeling before her. It is in this moment she understands that she is special.
—
Her eyes glaze over and she is suddenly not herself. Instead she is just her eyes and she sees a group, marked and engaged in battle against a god with many faces.
There are monsters in a city and men with guns and the sky is falling. Two girls are joined in crystal and the world sits on their shoulders.
A brown haired boy she knows she loved once, or maybe will love one day, is handing a pink haired girl a bow and before she can wonder how she knows their names she feels a tugging at her chest.
She is herself again. She has a body and it is crumbling.
She is in the elders chambers and there is a collective gasp, but before she can hit the ground Caius is there. She collapses into his arms and she knows that this is right. For the first time in her life, so short and still so long, she knows home.
The next day she walks out the front of the temple and she knows she will never return, but he is right behind her, and she is not afraid.
—-
When she wakes up after a particularly strong vision he is there, as he always is, and she raises a hand to gently cup his cheek. Thank you does not seem like a phrase worthy of him. He raises a hand to meet hers and she wonders how his skin can feel so much more familiar than her own.
She looks into his violet eyes and knows she has never lived a moment, in all her lifetimes in a world without him. She squeezes his hand and hopes it is enough.
She sees the days he's been without her in his eyes and she knows it isn't. But this is how it has to go. She sees history, but she can not change it.
Not this.
Your hand came over mine,
we stayed that way,
suffering together in our bodies,
as if all suffering were physical,
-from XIV of Twenty One Love Poems | Adrienne Rich