Lonely amidst a crowd
Sleep won’t come to her this night. The slow and regular breaths of the one next to her won’t help to calm her thoughts. Out of the spur of a moment she came here instead of using the same amount of energy to go north, to go to the ones she loves. Instead, she chose this. Why?
She sends a small flow of arcane energy through her arms as she does often and the intricate tattoos flicker for a brief moment, filling the darkness of the room, tinting the low moonlight on the bed in their eerie green residuum shine. And in reverse a fleeting electrical shock dances through her veins.
They don’t understand. That is why.
She gets up from the bed, too restless to stay, and steps out onto the small balcony that is attached to the bedroom. Only a few feet of outside space and with only one chair. No more chairs are needed here. She is alone too. Perhaps out of the same reason.
She slings her arms around her pulled up legs after she sat down. The night is clear and warm, as they mostly are here in the south. The mild wind of a late summer night strokes over her skin but the softness doesn’t feel soothing, just foreign. The stars up above, order and consistency, watchers in the night and guides in the dark when all waymarkers fail. The sentinals which show her the way north, the way home, where she didn’t go.
They don’t understand.
No, the thought is wrong. She won’t understand, can’t. No fault by her. He would though.
I didn’t go because I feel like a disruption. And a danger.
She knows the pull. Knows its temptation and irresistable ability of seduction. Slowly, step by step, she’s giving into it. She knows she does. She needs to. Wants to. But she’s afraid of pulling him with her. She knows he would like to. But she would only pull him down, pull him away from her, corrupt him, and endanger him. So she stays away. To not disrupt their stability and bliss, to not endanger, to not corrupt. And turns to those where she knows that they are well enough defensive for themselves, like the one in the bedroom behind her, and to those that know the pull, have given in, have been corrupted, and still maintain some control of it. Like her uncle, like the scourge. Those that understand.
Oh how much she would want to show him, let him experience the feeling of pure, unadulterated arcane power, have him on her side and just give in, drown in it while drowning in each other. But she won’t, she can’t. Perhaps one day. Perhaps. But until then she stays away for the most part to let them live their life in stability and safety. To have their homely, simple life. She loves them too much to destroy their happiness.
And so she sits here in the south on the single, lonely chair on the balcony of a stranger. Perhaps she distanced herself too because of the life she’s living. A life that only a handful of people would understand. The long hours, the danger, the devouring sense duty. Most partners would not tolerate such a life that isn’t suited for a family or even just quiet, romantic twosomeness. Perhaps this is why they had found each other. Two lonely drifters in a world that doesn’t understand them. They don’t understand each other even but they can share in the mutual feeling at least, share a few moments and their bodies before again going their separate ways, living their separate lives.
There’s not even a handful of people that truly understand me.
It’s a harrowing feeling that comes with the thought in the moment of realisation. And it worsens with the thought that perhaps it’s only one. Her uncle.
The more she had learned about him in the recent past the more she had realised how similar they are. She always had admired him, always had an inkling that he knew what she was thinking and feeling. Perhaps that is why he was so distant in his closeness to her. To watch while she grew but always ready to guard, to adjust her tracks, to incentivise. And here and now, where this massive task lies before her, she knows that he did right by her. Made her able to deal with this, with the world. Made her able to be one of the few people that actually could deal with it. And on the other hand, perhaps his distance originated in the same reason she is staying away from her loved ones now. To not endanger, to not persuade giving into the pull, to not corrupt. Instead he tought her to learn, to control, to see the power as a dry, emotionless, mathematical resource and not as what it truly is as long as possible, this ability to shape the world to one’s own liking, this deep emotional and sensual all-encompassing fire of your soul. Something not many people truly understand. And those that do are wary of each other.
She understands why he kept alone all of his life now. Why the only respite he gives himself from this loneliness is in a controled, safe space. As does she now. And she understands why the two scourges are bonded together, why even just seeing them stand next to each other feels intimate, knowing.
She knows they are one of the less than a handful of people in her closer circle that understand her but there is the wariness too as they all have. Should have. Must have.
The urge of pulling her love, closer to herself is ever-present in her heart but she knows that it will pull him as well as herself away from her, the one they both love. And she doesn’t deserve that. She, that without her own doing was pushed into this life with them. She, that has accepted and welcomed them doesn’t deserve to be thus abandoned, to become a lower priority. So she stays away from them for them.
It’s a sad thought but as it sinks in it settles in a comfortable space. It is how it is. No one deserves her life without choice. She chose it. She is walking this path with open eyes and, admittedly, loves every minute of it. And she has someone that understands her only a magical message away as well as she has someone at her side that walks his own path but their paths are so close to each other that they can hold their hand while walking.
I am who I am and I’m looking forward to who I will be.
Life is good.
And with that thought she goes back inside, dresses herself quietly so not to wake her and paints a circle of chalk in the small garden through which she vanishes a minute later.
0 comments