09-09-2016, 03:10 PM
Ashley was still dripping with sea water from his body; from the tip of his nose all down his belly and clear to the end of his ginger-tinged tail. He shook again, his entire body smelling like salt and sea, and he found that he was invigorated by the smell. The immortality that took his blood had not taken his age from him—he still felt as old as he was, and yet, this rebirth, this new land, the ability to see a future in something so beautiful and remote almost allowed him to forgive the selfishness that the fairies displayed at the top of the mountain.
The All-mother was still on his shit list… for how dare she spout love and peace and prosperity while being so stingy with her gifts? And forcing them to get on their knees like beggars—he was having a hard time getting over that. He had refused to bow. He had, instead, said nothing at all. It was almost as if he was absolved of any guilt of the current generation. But now that he lived among them, this was his penance. He could live as one of them, or he could rise above them. In this case, the old man decided that perhaps living with them and settling might be better for his battered soul, which still was not entirely at peace in a body that was, for the most part, mortal.
Eventually he sees Tiphon, relieved that his friend had found him, and relieved that this place was not one that he imagined to be theirs. He was, indeed, at the right place. The land almost seemed to call to him. Ischia, it said, lapping up a rich blue glow that uplit the trees and cast eternal shadows among the foliage below. It was hauntingly beautiful, and Ashley found that he wanted to go further inland and explore what else this paradise had to offer. Upon realizing that Tiphon had actually walked here, he stares at the path, blinks, and lifts his head to the heavens in a laughter that had not been heard from him in Lord knows how long. “I suppose they did,” he says between bellows of laughter, his anxiety put aside for the moment to enjoy and relax in the fact that for now, things were going to be okay.
Laughing with Tiphon—perhaps they were becoming friends after all.
The All-mother was still on his shit list… for how dare she spout love and peace and prosperity while being so stingy with her gifts? And forcing them to get on their knees like beggars—he was having a hard time getting over that. He had refused to bow. He had, instead, said nothing at all. It was almost as if he was absolved of any guilt of the current generation. But now that he lived among them, this was his penance. He could live as one of them, or he could rise above them. In this case, the old man decided that perhaps living with them and settling might be better for his battered soul, which still was not entirely at peace in a body that was, for the most part, mortal.
Eventually he sees Tiphon, relieved that his friend had found him, and relieved that this place was not one that he imagined to be theirs. He was, indeed, at the right place. The land almost seemed to call to him. Ischia, it said, lapping up a rich blue glow that uplit the trees and cast eternal shadows among the foliage below. It was hauntingly beautiful, and Ashley found that he wanted to go further inland and explore what else this paradise had to offer. Upon realizing that Tiphon had actually walked here, he stares at the path, blinks, and lifts his head to the heavens in a laughter that had not been heard from him in Lord knows how long. “I suppose they did,” he says between bellows of laughter, his anxiety put aside for the moment to enjoy and relax in the fact that for now, things were going to be okay.
Laughing with Tiphon—perhaps they were becoming friends after all.
ashley
I walked the path, it led me to the end.