"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
All of the voices inside of my mind will never be silenced
The water laps rhythmically against the sand, a ceaseless ebb and flow that clings as desperately to the winding shores as she does. She couldn’t seem to help herself anymore, couldn’t stop the way her feet would bring her to the water’s edge. But it seems she cannot get more than a toe into the crystalline waves before fear drives her backwards.
Those waves are compelling, seductive, calling endlessly to her. But she is plagued by fear, uncertainty. Ever since that day when the water had swallowed her beneath it’s hungry surface. Her frantic struggles had proven useless against it’s pull, her screams silent in her throat as it had dragged her down, tossing and tumbling her small body until she hadn’t known up from down.
She still remembers the fire in her lungs, the first stinging, burning inhale of salty water. She remembers the blackness, a blessed relief from terror, from the pain in her chest and spasming muscles.
And she remembers the silence. For the first time in her entire life, she had heard nothing. No voices in her head, screaming, whispering, endless. Momma had told her they would always be there. But Momma hadn’t told her the water would silence them. And perhaps that, as much as any instinct that now resides within her, is what calls her, time after time, to the water’s edge, despite the fear that clutches cold, cruel fingers into her heart.
She doesn’t know how she had ended up back on the beach. Doesn’t remember anything after the darkness had claimed her. She only remembers waking on the sands, seaweed clinging to her legs and neck just as the mark of the ocean had somehow bled through her entire body. Had left her irrevocably changed.
She had heard the way it had affected her parents, unable to avoid their thoughts. And as she stares at the water, inching forward until it laps her hooves, she wonders if it could help her forget. Her feet shimmer with faint pearlescence each time the water washes across them, as lovely and delicate as the seashell they now resemble. Feet that are both hers and not hers, just as the thoughts that clamor in her mind are hers and not hers. Just as the body that had blurred from red and white into ocean blue and seashell is both hers and not hers.
It’s tempting, to lose herself beneath the waves once more, to forget all the things that had gone wrong that fateful day. A siren song that only deep-rooted fear could keep her from answering. She already knows what waits for her there.
until I can find a way to let go of what we left behind
02-08-2019, 12:05 AM (This post was last modified: 02-17-2019, 08:07 PM by lynx.)
Perhaps if Lynx were a better mother, she would have been the one to save Persea.
It is a thought that she cannot escape—a thought that plagues her at night. It is her own failings that have led to this moment, that left her to turn her attention from her eldest so that she could walk into the water and find what lies beneath it. It is her own failings that let her daughter nearly find her own death.
It is a weight and an anchor that sits heavy in her chest as she makes her way around Tephra, her body once again slim, her dual-colored eyes sharp beneath her two-tone forelock. When she sees her sea-bound daughter, she almost stays away, but she doesn’t ignore the maternal tug in her belly. She doesn’t ignore that steady pull toward her teal and seashell daughter, that alien warmth of love flooding in her.
She doesn’t bother trying to hide her own musings from her daughter; she knows better than most that she would be unable to shield her daughter from the darker underbelly of the world for long. Instead, she lets it sit open, unashamed of her own fears and regrets. “Daughter,” the word still feels strange on her tongue, but it is wrapped in a warmth all its own, an affection that Lynx has never held back from her children.
She closes the distance between them, navigating her daughter’s thoughts easily, and placing a quick kiss on her forehead. “I won’t bother asking how you’ve been,” her icy voice defrosts slightly and she studies her daughter’s eyes for a moment, finding answers that do not exist alone in the sound of her mind.
“I’m just glad that you’re here.”
Stories like this do not always have a happy ending.
Love is not always enough to protect the things you hold dearest.
All of the voices inside of my mind will never be silenced
It’s ironic, truthfully, that her parents guilt should create a guilt of her own. Even though it’s a foolish thing, it seems there is no preventing the foibles of the mind. They way it inevitably and invariably must turn back on oneself. Even now she can feel it in her mother, the thoughts that weigh so heavily, the self-recrimination at having allowed her eldest daughter to nearly drown. She shakes her head, but it does not clear the thoughts. Just as she had known it wouldn’t.
She had known better than to wade so far into the sea. Even as she’d splashed farther and farther, distracted by the buoyant water, by the way she could splash and roll, she’d had the niggling thought she should return to shore. That she shouldn’t go so far out. It wasn’t safe. But it had been fun, and before she’d known it, she had found the sand dropping from beneath her feet. Only moments later the riptide had snagged her, before she could rectify her mistake.
It’s her fault. All of this. But she doesn’t know how to fix it.
So instead she comes here, staring into the ocean, wondering why it had been her. The answers never come, of course. Only the ceaseless crashing of waves and the nauseating prattle of thoughts.
For a moment, she has trouble distinguishing the thoughts for her mother’s voice, but when she does, she lifts her head, eyes rising to meet the dark gaze of her mother. She closes her eyes briefly as she presses a kiss to her forehead. For all that the thoughts pressing in constantly might trouble her, she is comforted to know the unfailing love her parent’s feel for her. Sometimes her mother seemed only able to think of this ability as a curse, but Persea knew it could be a gift sometimes too.
Her breath catching softly in her throat, she crushes herself into her mother’s chest, pressing her face into the familiar shoulder as she curls against her, needing to feel the comfort of her mother’s embrace and the warmth of the love she so often struggled to show the outside world.
“Me too, Mom,” she whispers against her, squeezing her eyes closed. She regrets the grief she had caused them so much, the pain she knows they feel. “I just… don’t know what to do,” she finishes after a moment. She didn’t need to say it aloud, she knows, but doing so made it real, in a way. Made it into something that, maybe, she could solve.
until I can find a way to let go of what we left behind
Lynx has never been able to view her as anything else. Even when she had first learned that she was with child—when that night with Fox turned into something more than she could have ever imagined—she had never been able to feel anything but love. That desperate desire to do right by her daughter. That crushing need to provide her with a love and stability that she had never found during her childhood; that desire to find something that her father had ripped away from her: something pure, something whole.
So she doesn’t hold back when Persea crushes into her chest. She just holds her closer, presses her lips to her poll and feels the beat of her heartbeat in tandem with the beat of her thoughts against her skull.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispers, and it is more than just empty words. Lynx opens up her own mind and lets Persea see the whole of it—lets her see the unfiltered thoughts that pour through her. “We are going to figure this out,” she says softly, “as a family.” The second part comes a little more difficult. It is difficult to claim them as a family—to put that kind of trust into their dynamic—but Fox has never given her any reason to doubt him. He has been nothing but stable, nothing but loving, nothing but what she has needed, and it is easier to admit that she’s grown that kind of trust when he is not looking her in the eye.
She glances down again to the girl against her chest and feels a slow, unsteady warmth in her.
“I love you, Persea.”
She feels the faint prick of tears in her eyes and she closes them to steady herself.
She never knew how terrifying it was to cherish something you could so easily lose.
All of the voices inside of my mind will never be silenced
She’s too young still to fully comprehend everything that lies between her parents. To understand them much beyond that they are her Mom and Dad, and that they love her a great deal. She doesn’t know of all the things that had brought them together, only collecting stray bits and pieces from their thoughts. And for a youth, it is not something she has cared to dwell too closely upon either.
She had not truly paused to consider, before now, the depths of her parent’s relationship. The way they feel towards one another, and all of the thoughts and feelings that rest beneath the surface of their simple, quiet life. Hadn’t realized that perhaps things are not quite so simple, because she hadn’t particularly cared to look. Since her birth, she had been far more interested in learning to quiet the voices. To block them out, pretend they didn’t exist, that she hadn’t taken the time to truly examine them.
But as Lynx opens up to her, she can see there is far more than she had known. Far more she might have known if only she had cared to look. For the first time, she begins to understand what it had taken her parents to get to this point. To be here, with her, with each other. And perhaps that means her situation isn’t as hopeless as she feared it might be.
Pressing closer to her mother, she rubs her face against the comforting shoulder, drawing a deep, shuddering breath to settle herself, inhaling the warm and familiar scent of her mom. Of home. Of family. “Yeah,” she agrees softly, exhaling shakily. “Yeah, ok.” Leaning her head against her Lynx’s shoulder, she nods faintly. “I love you too.”
Perhaps that was really all she needed. To know she wasn’t alone. To know she wouldn’t have to be alone. But it does make her wonder. About her parents, their past. About her Mom, and how she’d managed everything. If she’d ever felt like this. “Can you… tell me,” she begins, a little hesitantly. Not entirely certain if it’s something Lynx would want to share. She knows how private her mom could be. “About when you were a kid.”
until I can find a way to let go of what we left behind
Lynx has always been on the other side of the one-sided mirror.
She’s always known what it’s like to see into everyone else’s mind—to know their truths, their ugliest secrets, the darkest pieces of their mind. She’s always been able to see directly into their hearts and, because of it, she’s struggled to trust. How could she open her heart when everyone around her was so ugly? So deceptive? So cruel? It was only when she met Fox—someone so kind, so loving, so pure—that she had changed at all, that she had begun to doubt the blanket judgment she’d laid across everyone.
But now she has a daughter who can read her as well as she can read others—and she would be lying if she didn’t admit that she was at least a little shaken. She’s never experienced the invasion of privacy that she’s always enjoyed as a luxury against others. It leaves her a little off-kilter, wanting to be open with her daughter while also shying away from certain topics and the thoughts that they may raise within her.
Still, with her daughter so upset against her, she finds she can’t deny her now. Instead she simply sighs, taking a deep breath. “It is complicated.” Which is more evasive than she meant to be. “I have a twin brother, Levi. We were close.” As close as she could be to someone, at least. “And my parents, Offspring and Isle, were in love.” Lynx swallows, fighting to get to the truth of it, fighting to be honest.
“Until they weren’t.”
She leans down and presses a kiss to her daughter again. “Sometimes, things don’t last forever.” Her mind is a storm cloud, her thoughts tumultuous. “Even when you want them to.” Another pause as she attempts to sort out her own thoughts. “Some people are dishonest and don’t deserve the love you give them.” Her thoughts turn frigid when she thinks of her father but she shakes it off, shakes off the fury that curdles. “Because there are plenty who do deserve your love—and it’s taken me a long time to realize that.”
All of the voices inside of my mind will never be silenced
She is still so young, so naive, that the full extent of the deception and cruelty that exists in the world hadn’t made itself so boldly known to her. She struggles to wrap her head around the thoughts spilling from her mother’s mind, piecing them to the words that she speaks. The admissions she makes. Her own parents had never been anything but loving, and to see that Lynx’s parents (her grandparents) had shared that too, before breaking and splintering apart, is a concept she finds a little difficult to visualize.
Her own thoughts tumble through her mind as well, wondering if that might happen to her own parents too. Wondering if her own reaction would be so heartbreakingly bitter. She can’t imagine not loving her father. Can’t imagine feeling the anger she now knows her mother feels towards her grandfather.
She remains silent as Lynx continues, slowly digesting her revelations, her final, almost halting, admission. Her mother’s experience had been so vastly different from her own so far, and she wonders at that too. Wonders at the world her mother had grown up in. Wonders at those pieces of herself she had inherited from the marbled woman.
But then she thinks too of her father. Of everything she has gleaned from his warm, unfaltering love and open thoughts. In spite of his endless good humor, she knows he is not as naive to the world as so many expect. He seems to understand her mother so well, despite his inability to read her thoughts. And she wonders at those pieces of him she had inherited as well. Makes her wonder at why it is he is so unfailingly kind and happy.
After a moment, she looks up at her mother’s stark, lovely features, peering through wayward strands of teal hair. “I suppose… you’re right. Things change.” She pauses brief then. “Like me.” Her voice is a little small, a little uncertain, as she says that. “But what if the ones who are hardest to love are the ones that need it the most?”
She knows her mother will see her thoughts as she says that. Will see the influence of her father in them. But maybe, just maybe, that’s right too. She’d needed her mother’s love just now. To remind her she isn’t unloveable, even if she is a little bit broken right now.
until I can find a way to let go of what we left behind
Lynx would have spared her daughter from these thoughts, from these truths.
If she could, she would have never allowed her daughter to learn the rougher points of life. She would have kept her sheltered from the harsh realities, the evils, the ugly underbelly. But Lynx is a realist first and foremost, pragmatic to her core, and she recognizes that the life of a mind reader is not a sheltered one. Persea could not remain naive forever, regardless of this bubble of joy that she’s been raised in.
Her face is solemn as she holds her daughter, as she presses an absentminded kiss to her forehead. They communicate in so many ways in this moment. With the words that they speak, so carefully chosen and precise. With the way that the embrace, so soft and tender, unspoken love rushing between them. And, finally, with their minds, their thoughts a floodgate opened, both mother and daughter picking through the pieces as they are made available to one another. Lynx does not struggle to traverse all channels.
When Persea begins to question her parents, Lynx makes a soft noise in the back of her throat. “Your father is not the same as mine.” Fox was everything that Offspring wasn’t. He was genuine and kind and loyal—but Lynx doesn’t claim him as her own. “But I do not know what the future holds, Persea. Your father and I haven’t…” her voice trails off and a frown crosses her features. “I don’t know.”
She shakes her head, a smile curving the edge of her lips slightly.
“You’ll know the difference between someone who is difficult to love but worth it and the one who is difficult to love because they don’t. In your heart, you’ll know.” Her face softens a little. “And you will be surrounded by people who do not find it difficult to love you, even in the darkest moments of your life, little bird.” Her mind opens to her daughter, as brilliant as sunshine. “You are not difficult for me to love.”
All of the voices inside of my mind will never be silenced
It’s easy to get lost in the moment, in the way their thoughts can so easily answer one another. Forgetting, for a time, that words can be spoken aloud too. It feels so natural to her, but she knows it is not truly. Not with anyone else. No, it is something unique she shares only with her mother.
It does make her wonder then too, if it would ever become easier with everyone else. Or if she would always be an unwitting (and so often unwelcomed) voyeur.
But her mother is right, she could never remain naive in the world they live in. Even now, as young as she is, she recognizes she is often privy to thoughts and information she should not be. She is often left to wonder what something she had heard in passing means, often left to wonder if she even wants to know. Often left fearing she might never learn to control it.
With a soft, shaky sigh, she presses closer to Lynx, head returning to the comfort of her shoulder. Her mother’s revelations had left her with so many thoughts to consider (so many emotions to untangle), but she is grateful she had shared so freely with her. Can see now why her mother had always been so reserved with her father, despite their obvious affection. And, if nothing else, it leaves her with a slightly better understanding of her place in the world. Even if it’s slightly foolish, she feels a little stronger for it. A little more capable.
From something so simple as a mother’s faith in her daughter.
“Thanks, Mom,” she says softly into her shoulder, breathing in her comfort. Though she feels better for having had this talk, she still worries. Worries too much, perhaps. That she’d been irrevocably broken by the sea. That she would never be able to brave the world at large, with their thoughts so forcibly tumbling through her head. “Do you think it will ever go away?” she asks then, a little uncertainly. “The fear?”
until I can find a way to let go of what we left behind
She finds a peace with her children that she had never thought possible.
There is something in the quiet moments with them tucked into her shoulder that makes her think of all of the moments that she has spent alone—all of the moments that she has never known such love. Instead of bringing a sorrow for such things though, she is instead reminded of how lucky she is to have found it, to have found something to break the concrete walls around her heart, something to make her breathe just a little easier. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, letting the moment sink in just a while longer.
At her daughter’s question, she can’t help but frown, feeling the corners of silken lips pull downward as she contemplates it. “Hm,” she makes a soft noise in the back of her throat before finally opening her eyes again, turning the blue and the red downward to study these new colors and shapes of her daughter. The daughter born of Tephra and then born again of the sea, remade into something new entirely—
and yet, and yet, made into something entirely the same.
“No, I don’t think it ever goes away entirely,” she finally responds, unable to be anything but honest with her daughter. It wouldn’t do any good to lie to her anyway—not with her ability to dive into her mind to find the truth. “But you get better about understanding it and protecting yourself from it. You get stronger. And eventually what felt insurmountable begins to feel normal so that you don’t even feel it anymore.”
She is struck with the thought that she no longer feels afraid of Fox.
Not like she had in the beginning. Not like she did.
Her stomach churns and a flood of warmth rushes though her but she says nothing, instead just smiles.
