The Seahorse
by Jillian Storm
(Disclaimer: This is for Hilary and all those other poor
souls who loyally stand by Noin's side through all those
angsty scenes with Zechs. I've made this an alternate
reality fic as well. The Seahorse was written by Over the
Rhine.)
"Welcome to the Goldrush. Wait till after dark. Open up the
ceiling, we'll be kneeling, we'll be breathing on a spark."
"Lucrezia? Lucrezia, girl, snap out of it."
I heard her. I knew that she was trying to get my
attention. To pull me away from my daydreams and stuff me
back into the busy afternoon--the lifelessly dull routine.
I was good at it, and they couldn't afford to let me
daydream.
I was imagining the sunlight reflecting off the waves of a
blue lake framed by green prairie and trees.
"Lucrezia! Watch out!"
I felt someone pulling back on my shoulders, and my body
quivered awake--suddenly feeling the burning sting along my
left hand. I heard someone yell, "water" as my body was
spun toward the silver pump.
"What were you thinking?"
"About swimming."
"In a tea kettle, right."
I stopped staring dumbly at my pink skin. It didn't hurt
exactly then, I would suffer the worst of it later. My
companion, Une, took my chin in her free hand and examined
one of my eyes and then the other. Her lips were set in a
small, frustrated pout. "Just great," the lips said next,
"Perfect. Now you can't scrub in the wash basin and I'll
get stuck doing it all for a month."
"Hardly a month." I looked away from her accusing eyes. She
was right, "Three days at the most." Already my thoughts
were distracted, no longer by the daydream but by the
incredible awareness of pain throbbing up my thumb and
forefinger. I experimented by blowing on the rosy injured
flesh. I immediately stopped, wincing again.
"And when the boys ride by you'll get to play with Zechs
until you're blue in the face from lack of breath." Une sat
back on her heals, letting one of her arms fold
dramatically across her forehead, conveniently also
blocking the sunlight from her eyes. The sun was almost
noon-high above us. "But certainly, never a lack of
inspiration. What do you two do with all of your time, eh?"
I didn't have to answer her thoughtless questions, so I
continued to appear absorbed in my own pain. But even my
burn couldn't keep me from considering the times that Zechs
Marquis let me see him, stand next to him, perhaps to talk
with him. He was one of the express riders who road the
immediate local post circuit. He was my constant
confrontation as I would stop washing dishes or floors or
sheets long enough to watch him ride by with his hair
streaming behind him like sunlight. Une had said long hair
was ridiculous, I wondered what it would look like up
close.
And one day he had brought a package to the house, and I
had opened the door almost out of breath from the urgent
pounding of my heart. All I remember from that moment was
that I was captured under the ice blue wall of his gaze,
and that he had said, "Lucrezia, what an unusual name."
"Flying kites at midnight, such a dizzy height. Up above
the small town, pulling moonlight down and wearing it skin
tight. You can always tell me anything at all. Think of all
the times you've let my lips move, yeah."
It was noon, and I had half stopped my working in order to
watch him ride past our home on the outskirts of the town.
I almost didn't see him, he moved so slowly--a shadow just
on the other side of the clean sheets.
He must have stopped in the town. He must have needed a
drink from the pump, or something. I had caught my breath.
Then I let it out again with the words, "What do you want?"
"Today, I felt like riding for myself. And I remembered a
pretty girl in this town with a pretty name."
"And I'm her?" I had asked a little too boldly.
His lips had pulled back in a cruel smile, but then it was
gone. "Lucrezia."
"Yes?"
"Suddenly, I'm weightless. Gravity is mine. I see it with
my eyes closed, what my heart knows: we must leave this
world behind."
He always stopped for me. Sometimes for the afternoon, to
accompany me through my serving chores and then walk me
back from the inn to my family's home on the edge of town.
Other times, he simply slowed his horse to a walk and
tipped his hat with a small bow of his head and the lifting
of his gloved hand. He kept himself so well covered, as if
to keep the sun from seeing him or to keep the sky from
touching him.
He had no reputation, no honor and no disgrace, the
constant pony express rider who shuttled other people's
correspondences across the dust covered terrain--bits of
green life peeking out. So when my father asked me if the
Pony Man was courting me, he made no attempt to end the
affair and even approved.
In my uncertainty, I feared either alternative. I needed
Zechs Marquis to exist and I needed him to leave. Whatever
guided my soul was beckoning me elsewhere. I could feel the
necessity in my recurring daydreams of the water and the
blue-green colors. Someone, or something there needed me
more.
"Cause when I wake from dreaming, it's then I'm most alive.
Eyelids barely open, no words spoken, but you were by my
side. You can always tell me anything at all. Think of all
the times you've let my lips move, yeah. Oh, tell me more."
He had pressed my body down against the ground until I
could feel my life pushing out my fingertips and my toes.
It leaked out my ears and my eyes like invisible tears.
Simultaneously, he blew his own breath into my mouth. He
had never seemed more solid than when he first found me
behind the barn. I knew it was almost noon and had slipped
from the sunlight to hide behind the shadows, hoping that
if I missed his route once that I might escape the
inevitability of this man's persistence.
He didn't say anything besides telling me how well the
violets and the grass looked scattered about and through my
hair as he looked down on me. I watched him and beyond him-
-seeing how the sparkles of his eyes captured the pale blue
ceiling of the sky and how his hair was almost white like
thin cloud barrier.
I don't feel like squirming, I couldn't have moved much if
I had wanted to. But I didn't want to, I became a soft
stone statue and let him move my lips.
"Oh, what you're missing. Don't you wanna see what you're
missing? I can always tell you anything at all. Break the
alabaster, hearts beat faster, yeah."
My hand, still flushed with burned heat, was sensitive to
the still temperatures in doors. It disliked the breezes
blown out doors over the dry earth. The bandages stuck to
it, rubbing like sand paper. Nothing seemed to bring a more
sobering sense of my reality than the injury to my hand.
Une was up to her elbows in soapsuds, cheerfully whistling
a tune while she ravished the hotel sheets against the
washboard. The tune was a familiar one, the melody
trademark recognizably belonging to the tavern piano
player, Treize. He was a soft-spoken man with intense eyes.
I knew that he would never allow himself to be human enough
to love Une, but she worshiped the idea of him.
I wondered if any person was ever human enough to love
another one. For all intents and purposes, I should have
felt something other than obligation. Something more than
pressure. I wondered what was missing.
"You can always tell me anything at all. Think of all the
times you've let my lips move, yeah. Oh tell me more."
When he rides by at noon, he will slow his mount long
enough to see that I am not washing. He will ride closer to
see it I'm hidden between the drying sheets. And when he
does not see my shadow there or in the window of my house,
he will look behind the barn. He will see the crushed earth
where he buried me in-between the grass blades and the
purple violets. But I will not be there.
He will not say anything, but will ride on. Never to
return.
"Oh, what you're missing. Don't you wanna see what you're
missing?"
the end.
by Jillian Storm
(Disclaimer: This is for Hilary and all those other poor
souls who loyally stand by Noin's side through all those
angsty scenes with Zechs. I've made this an alternate
reality fic as well. The Seahorse was written by Over the
Rhine.)
"Welcome to the Goldrush. Wait till after dark. Open up the
ceiling, we'll be kneeling, we'll be breathing on a spark."
"Lucrezia? Lucrezia, girl, snap out of it."
I heard her. I knew that she was trying to get my
attention. To pull me away from my daydreams and stuff me
back into the busy afternoon--the lifelessly dull routine.
I was good at it, and they couldn't afford to let me
daydream.
I was imagining the sunlight reflecting off the waves of a
blue lake framed by green prairie and trees.
"Lucrezia! Watch out!"
I felt someone pulling back on my shoulders, and my body
quivered awake--suddenly feeling the burning sting along my
left hand. I heard someone yell, "water" as my body was
spun toward the silver pump.
"What were you thinking?"
"About swimming."
"In a tea kettle, right."
I stopped staring dumbly at my pink skin. It didn't hurt
exactly then, I would suffer the worst of it later. My
companion, Une, took my chin in her free hand and examined
one of my eyes and then the other. Her lips were set in a
small, frustrated pout. "Just great," the lips said next,
"Perfect. Now you can't scrub in the wash basin and I'll
get stuck doing it all for a month."
"Hardly a month." I looked away from her accusing eyes. She
was right, "Three days at the most." Already my thoughts
were distracted, no longer by the daydream but by the
incredible awareness of pain throbbing up my thumb and
forefinger. I experimented by blowing on the rosy injured
flesh. I immediately stopped, wincing again.
"And when the boys ride by you'll get to play with Zechs
until you're blue in the face from lack of breath." Une sat
back on her heals, letting one of her arms fold
dramatically across her forehead, conveniently also
blocking the sunlight from her eyes. The sun was almost
noon-high above us. "But certainly, never a lack of
inspiration. What do you two do with all of your time, eh?"
I didn't have to answer her thoughtless questions, so I
continued to appear absorbed in my own pain. But even my
burn couldn't keep me from considering the times that Zechs
Marquis let me see him, stand next to him, perhaps to talk
with him. He was one of the express riders who road the
immediate local post circuit. He was my constant
confrontation as I would stop washing dishes or floors or
sheets long enough to watch him ride by with his hair
streaming behind him like sunlight. Une had said long hair
was ridiculous, I wondered what it would look like up
close.
And one day he had brought a package to the house, and I
had opened the door almost out of breath from the urgent
pounding of my heart. All I remember from that moment was
that I was captured under the ice blue wall of his gaze,
and that he had said, "Lucrezia, what an unusual name."
"Flying kites at midnight, such a dizzy height. Up above
the small town, pulling moonlight down and wearing it skin
tight. You can always tell me anything at all. Think of all
the times you've let my lips move, yeah."
It was noon, and I had half stopped my working in order to
watch him ride past our home on the outskirts of the town.
I almost didn't see him, he moved so slowly--a shadow just
on the other side of the clean sheets.
He must have stopped in the town. He must have needed a
drink from the pump, or something. I had caught my breath.
Then I let it out again with the words, "What do you want?"
"Today, I felt like riding for myself. And I remembered a
pretty girl in this town with a pretty name."
"And I'm her?" I had asked a little too boldly.
His lips had pulled back in a cruel smile, but then it was
gone. "Lucrezia."
"Yes?"
"Suddenly, I'm weightless. Gravity is mine. I see it with
my eyes closed, what my heart knows: we must leave this
world behind."
He always stopped for me. Sometimes for the afternoon, to
accompany me through my serving chores and then walk me
back from the inn to my family's home on the edge of town.
Other times, he simply slowed his horse to a walk and
tipped his hat with a small bow of his head and the lifting
of his gloved hand. He kept himself so well covered, as if
to keep the sun from seeing him or to keep the sky from
touching him.
He had no reputation, no honor and no disgrace, the
constant pony express rider who shuttled other people's
correspondences across the dust covered terrain--bits of
green life peeking out. So when my father asked me if the
Pony Man was courting me, he made no attempt to end the
affair and even approved.
In my uncertainty, I feared either alternative. I needed
Zechs Marquis to exist and I needed him to leave. Whatever
guided my soul was beckoning me elsewhere. I could feel the
necessity in my recurring daydreams of the water and the
blue-green colors. Someone, or something there needed me
more.
"Cause when I wake from dreaming, it's then I'm most alive.
Eyelids barely open, no words spoken, but you were by my
side. You can always tell me anything at all. Think of all
the times you've let my lips move, yeah. Oh, tell me more."
He had pressed my body down against the ground until I
could feel my life pushing out my fingertips and my toes.
It leaked out my ears and my eyes like invisible tears.
Simultaneously, he blew his own breath into my mouth. He
had never seemed more solid than when he first found me
behind the barn. I knew it was almost noon and had slipped
from the sunlight to hide behind the shadows, hoping that
if I missed his route once that I might escape the
inevitability of this man's persistence.
He didn't say anything besides telling me how well the
violets and the grass looked scattered about and through my
hair as he looked down on me. I watched him and beyond him-
-seeing how the sparkles of his eyes captured the pale blue
ceiling of the sky and how his hair was almost white like
thin cloud barrier.
I don't feel like squirming, I couldn't have moved much if
I had wanted to. But I didn't want to, I became a soft
stone statue and let him move my lips.
"Oh, what you're missing. Don't you wanna see what you're
missing? I can always tell you anything at all. Break the
alabaster, hearts beat faster, yeah."
My hand, still flushed with burned heat, was sensitive to
the still temperatures in doors. It disliked the breezes
blown out doors over the dry earth. The bandages stuck to
it, rubbing like sand paper. Nothing seemed to bring a more
sobering sense of my reality than the injury to my hand.
Une was up to her elbows in soapsuds, cheerfully whistling
a tune while she ravished the hotel sheets against the
washboard. The tune was a familiar one, the melody
trademark recognizably belonging to the tavern piano
player, Treize. He was a soft-spoken man with intense eyes.
I knew that he would never allow himself to be human enough
to love Une, but she worshiped the idea of him.
I wondered if any person was ever human enough to love
another one. For all intents and purposes, I should have
felt something other than obligation. Something more than
pressure. I wondered what was missing.
"You can always tell me anything at all. Think of all the
times you've let my lips move, yeah. Oh tell me more."
When he rides by at noon, he will slow his mount long
enough to see that I am not washing. He will ride closer to
see it I'm hidden between the drying sheets. And when he
does not see my shadow there or in the window of my house,
he will look behind the barn. He will see the crushed earth
where he buried me in-between the grass blades and the
purple violets. But I will not be there.
He will not say anything, but will ride on. Never to
return.
"Oh, what you're missing. Don't you wanna see what you're
missing?"
the end.
