Posted by astarte on June 24, 2008, 7:06 am, in reply to "nam-tor wak yon svi-if yontau au ; thread"
122.106.177.103
Astarte’s memories of youth are few, staggered with holes (random, as if carved by meteorite-fall) scattered and representative of the whole: sand, with the sun behind her, shading to leaf and loam and dotted with the memory of two faces. She remembers life as if from afar, dappled images studded with emotion that even now she cannot accurately define, and, as such, her youth – such as youth is – was short, and bittersweet. Those faces, maternal and filial, haunt her still; even now in the child-like, adult gaze of Cefphle, Astarte feels too mature, feels the drag of months and years as if time had ceased its laminar flow, and now twisted and curved about her. Two hearts beat over her head,two, not one – two, throbbing in time with her heart and harshly in phase, the sound roaring and rushing through her veins like feelings, like emotions, like life - and she feels their weight grow and grow.
A voice comes to her from the depths of memory and time – she has never heard it before, she is sure, but it is ancient and pure and not, entirely, alien. It is like a shadow half-remembered, and she thinks she can see a face, a young and long-dead face, speaking it: but it flashes by, like a sunflash, and all she has left is the words. “Never lose your sense of wonder, Cefphle,” she says aloud, and wishes she knew the significance of it.
Moments pass that could have been hours, and Astarte discovers her eyes are closed, and her breathing sure, as regular and strong as the beat of Cefphle’s heart against her nose. Something in the air both dulls and sharpens her mind, and muzzily, she wonders which is which – is the dullness sight, and the sharpness the clarity of the blind? Her eyes open and there is still the same grade of shade on each of their flanks, and she knows mere seconds have been banished past. “Yes,” she says, “time lies between us. But not a heart. Hearts,” she says, and does not know entirely herself what or who she refers to. The Academy clouds her head with its haze, its fog and wind, and the sand that billows at the edge of her vision.
“I would never lie to you,” she breathes, softly, disjointedly - she thinks that breathing is an unhappy distraction, and would hold it if Skysong had not kissed her. Astarte breathes again, closing her eyes once more and feeling her power surge within her, ripple the earth beneath her feet before retreating to the misty singularity within her once more: it growls like a tiger, striped with its own fate, and she does not know yet what that means. Never lose your sense of wonder.
time is the fire
in which we burn
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