I am the pattern, the plague, and the prison --
The storm has passed, but his confusion has not. It has settled deep into his belly. Planted there like an ancient oak and began to curl upward. It branches through him until he can feel the edges of it on the tip of his tongue and through the crackling length of his veins. The storm still exists there. Just beyond his reach. When he wakes in the morning, he can feel it. He can close his eyes and reach for it, can feel the way that the flame of the lightning licks upward, how the thunder rolls, but it disappears before he can grasp it. Disappears so quickly that he is left empty-handed and hollow and alone.
He still rises though.
He pulls himself up each morning and sighs. This body is so much smaller than he is used to, so much more feeble, despite its relative size and strength. He is grateful that the fates gave him some concessions. That he was gifted these wings to carry himself into the skies is a gift, he knows, but it is difficult to be thankful for such things when he had once commanded them—lifted himself without any effort.
It is difficult to be grateful for the crumbs when he once had the feast.
Still, Morrowind has never been the kind to cower before a challenge. His spine does not bend so easily. So he meets it every morning. He explores this new land, these new horizons. He studies the inhabitants and finds he does not understand them. They are so different from his comrades before. So very different from the creatures of storm and sky and he feels utterly removed from them. A different species entirely.
But he knows that if he is truly stuck here that he will need to blend somehow. So he decides that this day will be the day that he finally breaks the space between himself and the others. He watches from the shadows during the morning, his heavy eyelids drooped close so that it was only the barest hint of white that flashes underneath. When he sees the girl walk in front of him, he stirs, shaking the dust from his coat as he steps forward. “Hello,” his voice booms and rattles in his throat and yet sounds so very quiet to him.
MORROWIND
