May 19, 2013 - 11:03pm — SarieBearie
“So?”
A single word. It came from Azalea, who was just as lilting and ethereal as her voice. She and Vipin were alone, in the midst of a clearing, at the end of the forest—Vipin loomed. In his stay in limbo, he had regained much of his lost beauty. Some of his scars had faded and others had defined themselves. The markings on his sides shimmered white, and his eyes were forever that calm, mild blue. So common, but entirely too beautiful, and entirely too wearied.
“We’re going to stay here, indefinitely,” he responded, after a pause. He was staring off into the trees, his gaze drifting idly, searching. For what, he knew not. Searching for answers to questions he still did not know, perhaps. The wind hissed through the leaves, as if to deter him.
Azalea seemed surprised, if not bewildered. She looked around, quickly, like a joke had been played, or like she had misunderstood. When she looked back, Vipin had not moved. His jaw was clenched. The dame struggled over her words, and they came in stumbles. “But…Her. And Magnet, and Spade and Devi, and Vessel, and Chanse and Ketan—“
“We know.” Despite himself, Vipin wore a smile. It was vague, and sad. Azalea had seen it many, many times before. “We know, and we know very well. Of course. But we’ve done all of them, collectively, more harm than we could ever do good. They watched as we ruined ourselves over things we could not help. Not only them, but the others. The bystanders…the friends. Them, as well…it’s better like this. We never fit into that world. We tried. And we couldn’t.”
His eyes fell to the ground immediately before him. Poppies. They had been wrapped around his antlers so many times, in times of mourning, in times of battle. They mocked him.
They were martyrs, he and his sisters. They fit into the gray world of limbo, not the stark black-and-white of the other. They were not inherently good or reputedly evil. They were a wash of gray. Vipin had murdered his father, and Aspen her mother. Xylia was a bastard child.
In a kind of sick total, they always came out in the middle of the moral spectrum, and they had always felt that. It had pained them more than anyone could know.
He felt the huge blue eye of the sky boring into his back. The sun was blonde.
He felt Azalea’s eyes, blue and remarkable, like hard-pressed gems, going through him. The tall dame opened her mouth to speak three times and closed it thrice. She turned away from him, looking out behind them, out into the open field. Here they stood, at the edge of all that was, and Vipin had changed his mind. Profoundly, as well.
After a day, she had thought they would tire and leave. A day became two, and the two became a week. The week turned into several, and the several into months. Here they stood, a year later, at the edge of all that was, and Vipin had changed his mind.
She looked to him, but he refused to meet her gaze. Her words were icy, but melted as they left her mouth. “I assume you’ve thought this over?”
The words still came like lashes. They left open wounds in Vipin’s voice. “…more times than I care to remember,” he answered, after a silence. Vipin turned, away from the trees, facing the open sky. He could still feel the color of Azalea’s irises. “…don’t think I came to this decision on my own, either.”
If anything, Aspen and Xylia had convinced him to change his mind. Seeing Aspen walk without a limp, as her scarred leg did not pain her here. Seeing Xylia have pleasant, excited conversations with the father she had never known. He had no ailments. He had known his parents. He could never know what it felt like for them and refused to take it away from them. He was the lucky one, even if others saw it differently, and his stay here had only hardened that fact. It had been welded deep into his mind.
“But Aspen cries…” Azalea’s words, though not intended to hurt, stung like a blow across the face. The side of Vipin’s skull ached and the winding scar along his jaw appeared more evident than ever before. His sad smile pursued.
“I know. I hear her, sometimes. She finally feels free enough to be able to.”
Vipin stepped forward and walked. Azalea sidled beside him, and they fell into a slow pace, walking until the line of trees disappeared far over the horizon. The silence was tangible and tasted, bitterly, like iron.
They walked until a forest appeared, and they found their way to a small spread of birch trees within.
Aspen was the first to look up, disturbed by the hoof-falls of two deer, not just one. Her gaze fell on Vipin and she jolted up, bringing Xylia with her. Nevermore and Calisto, although just as shocked, did not move. They had no time, before Aspen opened her skull.
“You left.” It was a statement, devoid of emotion. Vipin met her steely eyes with his own.
“I came back,” he responded.
Xylia, unexpectedly, began to cry, in soft, rolling breaths. The others shifted nervously until they noticed she was smiling, and kindly, as well. “I thought you were leaving for good,” she said, running towards him and burying her face in his side. “I didn’t want you to go. I didn’t want to follow you. I wanted to stay here and I—yo te extrañaré—“
Vipin opened his skull to respond, but his obligation fell at his feet with a sigh. It was a content sigh, and Xylia’s rolling sobs continued, muffled by his dark fur. Aspen, forever cold and stoic, melted slightly. She walked over to him; she had been without a limp since they had arrived here, yet her leg still bore its scars. But she walked like a queen, and she always had. She looked at him, with those steely blue eyes of hers, reflecting the pale blue of his and saying more than anyone else ever had. She didn’t have to bury her face in his side and weep for him to know what she felt. Others had criticized her for being apathetic and unemotional. They didn’t understand her glances that told stories. He thought she was just emotional enough.
“I’m glad you stayed.” Aspen touched the tip of her skull to his, and it creaked into a smile.
The three royal figures were looming among the birch trees. Nevermore, great and black, who Vipin had come to resemble strikingly—Azalea, the most beautiful thing, lovelier than all the blossoms in the world—and Calisto, fair and altruistic, who had saved Azalea’s life at the cost of his own. In the forest, tales had been spun of their infamous misdeeds, which had not been untrue. And yet here, they had shining eyes and laughs that the birds sang about, and Vipin and his sisters were not haunted by their memories. It was quite the contrary. It was one of the things that had run its path through Vipin’s mind as he had grappled with a decision.
It didn’t matter which versions of them had been real. They just were, and they had always been. Here, however, Vipin had seen the parents he had never known. And they were beautiful.
Nevermore came to his side. His eyes were Vipin’s own.
“Are you…?” he began to ask, but he stopped abruptly. A strange, proud chuckle overcame him, and he shook his head. “I can’t believe I was going to ask you that. After all this time, you’d think I would know your true character.”
Vipin laughed. A true, genuine laugh, wherein his voice broke. He started to cry.
He didn’t know why he started to cry. Maybe it was the culmination of events that had worn him thin. Maybe it was Nevermore’s paternal, fond tone. Maybe it was both, or none at all. Maybe he just wanted to cry, like Aspen had wanted to, for so many years. But he wept, in easy, gentle breaks, and Xylia pressed her face deeper into his fur. Aspen rested her face against his own, Azalea kissed his cheek, and Nevermore chuckled again, warm and stirring. Vipin wept harder.
How could he have left, when this world had made him so happy? When it had given him everything he had ever wanted? When there were no repercussions?
Of course he missed those in the other world. He thought about them often, in the spaces between seconds. He missed the love of his life, and those who had seen past him and loved him nonetheless. But he had missed what he had never known even more. He had missed his father’s chuckle, and his mother’s glittering eyes, and Calisto’s simple voice. Aspen had missed feeling beautiful, and Xylia had missed her father. What they had never known.
At least for now, they would remain. Until their grey-washed souls had turned white.
Until they were young and beautiful for the first times in their lives.
♥ beautiful.. Vipin
beautiful..
Vipin is still thought of.. he won't be forgotten.
They're all missed. ♥
UGH love you guys