06-06-2016, 01:36 PM
For what it’s worth, he’s not sorry she’s called him, either.
He’s not sorry, but he should be. Because the family that he leaves behind when he heeds Gail’s call is everything to him (or almost everything). The black woman is a light here, in the everlasting dusk of death, guiding him like the tireless beacon she is. But she cannot help him out there. She cannot take the reins from him like Ea, directing when his soul grows too weary of the responsibilities it carries. She cannot make him a child again like Sela. She isn’t wide-eyed with questions or ready to take off in chase at any given moment. Gail is a light, but not the same yellow sunshine of his little girl or the sensible, silver sheen of his queen. She is the absence of shadows, despite her dreary location. She is a place he must return to long after the mission has ended; he comes back like a soldier reliving the days of glory, full of his own life but unable to forget the past. She is unlike either of them in so many ways, but somehow, she still means as much.
She is a part of his family kept away from the rest.
Ramiel studies her even as he thinks it. He is lost in the word secret for a moment. He knows he shouldn’t have them, shouldn’t keep anything from his family on the Other Side. But when he looks at the woman who has lost so much in her life (peace, love, time), he thinks he is only protecting her. If he stopped coming here, who would she have left? If Ea knew of their hidden rendezvous, what would she say? Would she sense anything nefarious about the way they seemed to call each other at their times of greatest need? Would she suspect that his admiration for the black mare’s strength lied deeper within him, down passed the muscles that held his posture straighter when he stood before her, down between his lungs, squeezed but beating faster with each breath?
Even he does not understand himself when it comes to Gail.
The grey ghost shakes his head dismissively when she apologizes, but she continues on. Her words are as uncertain as the monochrome sand shifting under his feet is unsteady. “Changing…” he echoes, his voice carrying out over the waves that rise like the dead on the horizon. Ramiel remembers changing himself. He can recall the exact panic that had gripped him as he become less alive and more dead with each second (even if most of his worry had stemmed from his need to escape the Other Side at the time, rather than his newfound ability). He wonders if she is experiencing the opposite effect, if she is growing more alive instead with each passing day.
In some smaller way, she plays Sela’s role, then. Because he can feel the careless hope of his younger self slipping through, despite her fears. He is a fool, a dreamer; he can’t help but ask. “Can you come home now? Back to the Other Side, with me?” The matured, greyed part of him knows it is not the root of her change – he knows that life is not so perfect, knows that she will never again walk the grounds of Beqanna – but as he also knows, it is hard for him to let go (Gail is proof enough). The grown stallion moves to her because she says she is scared and he knows she should be. He knows what to say, but he means it, too. “I am only a call away. Always.” He touches her neck like before, his muzzle brushing firmly against skin that should long ago have turned to dust.
“What can I do? What needs to be done?” He speaks like a man, like that same old soldier willing to take up arms again to whatever end he will meet. When his eyes meet her’s, though, they are still like a child’s. His hope is immortal, even here on this plane of expiration. But a thought occurs to him then and a dark wariness supersedes his optimism. “Is it Him?” Ramiel doesn’t have to name him for her to know. Something like jealousy flashes through him and once again, he becomes a stranger to himself. Carnage had failed all of them in so many ways (his sister, the other acolytes) but no one more than the woman who stood beside him now.
He’s not sorry, but he should be. Because the family that he leaves behind when he heeds Gail’s call is everything to him (or almost everything). The black woman is a light here, in the everlasting dusk of death, guiding him like the tireless beacon she is. But she cannot help him out there. She cannot take the reins from him like Ea, directing when his soul grows too weary of the responsibilities it carries. She cannot make him a child again like Sela. She isn’t wide-eyed with questions or ready to take off in chase at any given moment. Gail is a light, but not the same yellow sunshine of his little girl or the sensible, silver sheen of his queen. She is the absence of shadows, despite her dreary location. She is a place he must return to long after the mission has ended; he comes back like a soldier reliving the days of glory, full of his own life but unable to forget the past. She is unlike either of them in so many ways, but somehow, she still means as much.
She is a part of his family kept away from the rest.
Ramiel studies her even as he thinks it. He is lost in the word secret for a moment. He knows he shouldn’t have them, shouldn’t keep anything from his family on the Other Side. But when he looks at the woman who has lost so much in her life (peace, love, time), he thinks he is only protecting her. If he stopped coming here, who would she have left? If Ea knew of their hidden rendezvous, what would she say? Would she sense anything nefarious about the way they seemed to call each other at their times of greatest need? Would she suspect that his admiration for the black mare’s strength lied deeper within him, down passed the muscles that held his posture straighter when he stood before her, down between his lungs, squeezed but beating faster with each breath?
Even he does not understand himself when it comes to Gail.
The grey ghost shakes his head dismissively when she apologizes, but she continues on. Her words are as uncertain as the monochrome sand shifting under his feet is unsteady. “Changing…” he echoes, his voice carrying out over the waves that rise like the dead on the horizon. Ramiel remembers changing himself. He can recall the exact panic that had gripped him as he become less alive and more dead with each second (even if most of his worry had stemmed from his need to escape the Other Side at the time, rather than his newfound ability). He wonders if she is experiencing the opposite effect, if she is growing more alive instead with each passing day.
In some smaller way, she plays Sela’s role, then. Because he can feel the careless hope of his younger self slipping through, despite her fears. He is a fool, a dreamer; he can’t help but ask. “Can you come home now? Back to the Other Side, with me?” The matured, greyed part of him knows it is not the root of her change – he knows that life is not so perfect, knows that she will never again walk the grounds of Beqanna – but as he also knows, it is hard for him to let go (Gail is proof enough). The grown stallion moves to her because she says she is scared and he knows she should be. He knows what to say, but he means it, too. “I am only a call away. Always.” He touches her neck like before, his muzzle brushing firmly against skin that should long ago have turned to dust.
“What can I do? What needs to be done?” He speaks like a man, like that same old soldier willing to take up arms again to whatever end he will meet. When his eyes meet her’s, though, they are still like a child’s. His hope is immortal, even here on this plane of expiration. But a thought occurs to him then and a dark wariness supersedes his optimism. “Is it Him?” Ramiel doesn’t have to name him for her to know. Something like jealousy flashes through him and once again, he becomes a stranger to himself. Carnage had failed all of them in so many ways (his sister, the other acolytes) but no one more than the woman who stood beside him now.
R A M I E L
this is a man pulling at his iron chains