August 28, 2013 - 3:29pm — Seed
The day before yesterday, I awoke for the first time in a long time. As always, everything was as it has always been. Change happens in people, not in locations.
It was still summer, subtle as the differences may be -- a certain humidity in the air, a certain activity that buzzed like flies...
It may have been my imagination, but the warm blue sky felt lonely. Of course, that probably was just my imagination -- people were about, as I said. I just didn't recognize most of them anymore.
...Well, except one. Ephra, of all people. I wouldn't say we've ever been friends, exactly: in the crowds of admirers, of people warmed by her maternal smile, I've likely just been another faceless mass. All the same, I have been warmed by that smile. Seeing her present again makes me feel happy, and it seemed at the time to be an omen.
Without any specific idea of where else to go, I sat by her, and watched the water beetles glide across the surface of the lake, avoiding the darting tongues of frogs and the gaping mouths of koi.
We sat there for a long time.
Now, onto yesterday.
At first, I thought I saw pictograms I recognized -- in truth, I think I did recognize them, but not...Not exactly. I mean, I recognized the pictograms -- I'd seen them about before... But had a hard time placing the names. They slid about my head, without a firm slot. Still, having approached them, I felt uneasy departing. So I settled down with them in the birch forest.
There was a whispering in the trees that day -- I wasn't exactly interested in gossip, but they demanded I hear it. In her travels, she was drawing closer again. Sage.
When I heard that, I felt lifted by hope, as I hadn't in a long time.
Sitting between the great birch trees, watching the lines of birds with my eyes as they swooped and darted, dropping feathers she would have cherished, making ruslting in the dark green leaves, the sunlight glancing red and gold off of their wings, making flitting shadows on the rusty ground...
I, too, was a bird in flight. Restless and unsettled, free and full of summer light and air, buffetting me upwards, upwards, to reach this gleaming sun of choice:
What that fact means, if it's only a rumor, what she'd say, if we've any hope at all...
Right now, none of those things matter. Not as long as this regret clings to me: I never told her that I loved her. Even now, it sits like old shrapnel in my body, like bits of antler broken off old warriors, embedded in my skin. Like points of swords and lead slugs, rattling when I walk. I hear it when I breathe, called up seemingly at random. She was gone, and the words had nowhere to go but hard and crystalized, rough and weighty like old honey, on my tongue. She was gone, and she never knew.
I was resolved, right then. If I saw her again, whatever came of it, I'd tell her.
I...may have dozed a little, or at least, wasn't paying much attention, in these musings. Lost in brown study, I didn't hear someone sneak up, a sly smile on her face, behind me: nor did I notice, at least right away, when she giggled and floomphed down near me. "Dad!" She exclaimed, finally calling me to her presence. My daughter, Complex!
It's been a long time since I've seen her -- I may have gotten over-excited, chatting so eagerly it may as well have been babbling. It'd been too long, too long! I snuggled up to my wayward little girl, positively giddy. She laughed and pranced and flounced away, keeping herself at odd angles from me, a bright smile on her face.
This made one of my companions nervous, and made her retreat -- I tried to explain that it was alright, but I was so overwhelmed my gestures were a bit confused. Well, she didn't run, anyway.
Complex and I fell into dancing and playing, frolicking about in circles or laughing to the sound of music that, to be honest, may have just existed in my head. In between doses of those, we caught up with each other, with news and journeys we'd experienced since we saw each other last. I...maybe did not tell her about Sage. Just yet. I always feel somewhat uneasy, introducing her to, well, people I have feelings for. I wish I could have introduced her to Nevilly before the wedding, but...Maybe it's better this way.
Mostly, I just wonder if she thinks I'm being, I don't know, disloyal to her mother. Sometimes I wonder if I am, too.
Anyway, it was a rather weighty subject, and I think we were too overcome by good news for such talk.
At some point, we wandered down to the First Forest to try and see about some more fitting antlers for her, casting spells until we arrived at the most suitable spell.
That done, and all posing and admiration through, we settled down and, father and daughter, drifted off to sleep.
