((Just a longish drabble that wouldn't leave my head until I let it out through my fingertips. I felt like experimenting with pronouns. :) Enjoy! And REVIEW!))
"Narcissus in Chains"
By KatieLou Who
"I am thinking it's a sign
that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images
and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned."
—from "Such Great Heights", by the Postal Service
They called me brave as they carried my soulless body into the vast tomb that loomed brightly over the scorching sands of Egypt. He was wise beyond his brief eighteen years of life, they said with self-righteous exultation. A hero. Centuries after the death of my earthly vessel, nobles and peasants alike whispered their stories of me: melodramatic fables that portrayed me as fearless, powerful, and superhuman.
But I am not fearless, powerful, and superhuman, nor was I ever. I was a young man faced with a deadly choice. And a choice I did make. For 3,000 years I slumbered, forgetting this choice as my body rotted in one pyramid and my soul remained confined in the gleaming, golden pieces of another.
Until those pieces met your gentle, dexterous fingers.
I lay before you, the parts of my puzzle spread out across the table like radiant chunks of sand in the fluorescent light of your modest room. And there, you pieced me together. I felt the warmth of your fingertips against my heavy golden walls, and for the first time in millennia, I felt warmed in my cold metal prison. Even before I beheld your face—your soft, smooth skin; the jagged, multicolored hues of your hair; those immense plum eyes filled simultaneously with optimistic naïveté and a subtle, somber realization that your innocence deteriorates with every obstacle I put you through—I knew that I loved you.
As we sit in comfortable silence, the cool spring breeze whispers like a benevolent spirit through the field of vibrant grass and blooming daffodils around us. A soft sigh leaves your lips. "Yami, do you sleep?" you ask curiously.
I pause, dimly startled by the question. "I—I suppose not," I admit, gazing absently at the great clouds that hang like thick swabs of cotton above us. "I slept for centuries; I have never felt the desire to sleep again once you freed me from the puzzle."
You tilt your head to the side, golden locks of hair bouncing against your shoulder. "You don't miss it at all?"
"Not particularly," I answer nonchalantly. "Why do you ask?"
With a shrug, you smile and shake your head. "I don't know…. I just think I would miss sleeping," you say as you let yourself sink into the tall tufts of grass behind you.
"Why?"
"Dreaming." Your eyes flutter shut. "I would miss dreaming."
"I don't need to dream," I reply, my brows furrowing. "I dream through you, Yuugi."
"Maybe," you say pensively. Your face glows brightly in the warm afternoon sun. Between us, the Millennium Puzzle rests, its silver chain dull next to the brilliance of the gold pennant it carries. "I would miss my own dreams," you add. "Even my nightmares, because then at least I know my fears for what they are."
"And what are they?" I ask, intrigued.
"They are just inside my head. They are beatable." You look so peaceful as you say this. Not for the first time, I am reminded that you are so much stronger than your fragile physique suggests.
Sitting before you now, a transparent image in your royal blue jacket and dusty blue jeans (always, it is blue that adorns your body, and you wear it better than the sky on this most beautiful of days), I cannot help but feel as I am looking into a mirror. Am I really so narcissistic as to fall for someone so physically similar to myself? I tell myself no. I see you for your soul, not for your face. Though your face is beautiful to me.
The breeze picks up around us, sending a stray daffodil into your lap. As you sit up, open your eyes, and touch its soft petals, I am suddenly made aware of the butter-colored flowers around us. How is it that I had forgotten that daffodils go by another name: the Narcissus flower? Smiling ironically to myself, I watch you absently peel away the petals of the daffodil in your lap.
"And I have to speculate
that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes
like puzzle pieces from the clay."
Fin.