In Blackwater Woods
After Mary Oliver
Belfalas, Yuletide 2989 T.A.
He regretted now coming to the coast for Yuletide. It had not been his intention, but at some point during the year, Adrahil's letters had turned from suggestion to instruction, and it had been easier to let him have his way. Easier to have one decision made for him.
But now, here, in the place of her birth, where he had courted her, where he had asked for her love and her hand, the lack of her was too much. The festivities, the music, the lights, the sweet food and laughter, the awful, terrible lack: all of it, too much. On the afternoon of the holiday itself, he left the palace, walking at great pace away from it all. He turned his back to the sea (the smell had always made him slightly sick) and up into the hills, towards the woods.
His older boy he left behind, busy and happy, enjoying the season. But at his side, small sombre shadow, walked the other one.
In the woods, winter has settled deep. The black trees stand like statues in the courts and silent streets of his city. He crunches through drifts of brown leaves. Sometimes the boy hops on ahead, clambering over fallen branches, dark-haired and sharp-eyed, curious as a raven.
The pool is silent. There is a bench there, with a bare tree alongside that in summer will cast kindly shade. He came here once with her, and they sat together quietly beneath its green leaves, and their hands met and clasped.
The boy sits down beside him. He pulls his knees up to his chin, wrapping his arms around his legs. The tip of his nose is red. He feels a black surge of rage, that even in this most private moment he is called upon to give. Then suddenly he understands: He has not come in search of consolation. He has come to offer it.
He will remember this, thirty years later, sitting at his son's side, watching the life burn from him. He will think of the long years that lie between, the vast river of regret that has opened between them, and he will try to understand where and how it went wrong. He will whisper soft words, brush at the raven hair, hold the lifeless hand, plead for his return, and he will know that no power of his can save him. He could sit here ten thousand years, and it would not suffice.
The tree stands sentinel. The pool is still. The boy's dark head rests against his arm; he is shivering. Tenderly, he wraps his cloak around them both. He takes his son's hands within his own. "Here," he says, and starts to rub - giving them his warmth, bringing them back to life.
Inspired by the poem "In Blackwater Woods", by Mary Oliver.
Altariel, 27th August 2018