The Academy: i. patterns and how they change the visible world

He sees, at once, everything and nothing at all.

Like slow window-shades, his dark lashes flutter closed and shield his eyes from the world. In darkness, the king finds comfort; he has always thought solace lives in the unexpected places, beneath two ingrown trees at dawn or in a sand dune now erased by the wind. These places, he thinks, do not exist in the mountains. When angular stone meets the force of sharp, dedicated ice, there lives no direction for grappling hooves but down. Blindness allows him to forget: the year, brutal and magical, strange and lovely, erases itself from the darkening shadows of his flesh. He breathes in, but doesn’t taste the wintering evergreens or the sharp, clear scent of snow looming on the mountaintops. He tastes the desert and her warmth; he can imagine her, quite distinctly, in all her old glory. For a moment, an old king meets his old queen, and they dance in the twilight.

The memory ebbs and flows like the quiet, steady pulsating of the tide. Darkness brings him a seldom-known relief, and he revels in it. His hooves dance the patterns they forgot they knew. Spells from the old lore carve themselves from his iron feet in the absorbent soil and embed themselves, weaving into the new magic of this place. For the desert had teachings all her own, written and erased in her unforgiving dunes. Mostly, they could not be compared the magic the mountains beheld. They were subtle, little-known but quite revered, bearing mortal names like Agony and Knife. Few survived the lessons they taught. Those who did became broken, shattered into a million pieces, and even if they were put together again, they always lifted their dark heads to find they had left something in the desert. Perhaps this is what he seeks as he falls into his Sight, dancing as no monolith should be able to dance. Perhaps he searches for the final piece of himself.

He finds, instead, the water.

At first, he thinks it dreamtime; in the old lore, nothing is forsaken, and nothing is forbidden. The dark edges of his lips curve into a strange expression that could not be called a smile except by those that know him best. His thick crest curls poignantly and he lifts his dark knees up, letting his hooves perform funeral marches on what feels like sand. Only when the wave crashes over his head, cold and completely immersing, does he remember reality. For the second time, his lips taste bitter salt, and he Sees the ocean’s blue.

Oxygen climbs from his lungs, desperate to escape the cataclysmic water-chamber. He does not fight. The water purrs gently in his ear not to open his eyes, and he agrees; although there are those that would call him king, he remains no more than a pawn. Tonight he steals the White Queen.

Oddly, in his final breath, he remembers Hypatia. He could smile at the memory, not in fondness, but in appreciation of sweet irony. He considers her his first downfall here, and he will consider her his last. Briefly, he tries directing his thoughts to others. He draws names – Eyesore, Choke, Aian, Magnolia, Elemmírë – but only Hypatia’s stark, accusatory face. He Knows, not because he wants to, but because he must, that she does not understand his spite. He Knows that even his wolves, faithful in the face of nearly any storm, think him brash and foolhardy, malevolent without reason. Perhaps, he thinks, her ignorance is why he cannot forgive her, and never will. Silence makes the loudest sound.

He opens his eyes. He must. He finds himself too weak for blindness, and, in stumbling, needs sight – so his dark lashes flicker open, weakly, and his dark eyes take in the world or lack thereof, weakly, and he knows he is drowning. He will not fight. His dark head bobs silently beneath the waves, and they fall brightly atop him, unaware (or perhaps all too aware) that their might can suffocate a king. In water, he finds his long-sought comfort. His eyes close again and slumber meets him like a long-lost friend.

All he sees is brightness.