04-10-2021, 10:16 PM
GRAVITAS
He carries the memory with him as he travels, the image of the viper standing alone on that same outcropping. He imagines her miserable as he goes, lets the thought sustain him. Because they have all changed, the viper’s children. There is no trace of the serpent left in any of them, though they are all still draped in their father’s galaxies, and the only son is still all full of bitterness.
And in the darkness he lets the weight of his bitterness drag him into that nondescript lake where they had agreed to meet. He sinks. Sinks until all that remains above the surface is the mouth, drawing breath. And the water is warm despite the lack of seasons, the lack of sunlight.
He thinks about how they’d had fun once, when they were children, he and Tirza. How they’d laughed and splashed in the water in the Cove. How they had chased each other down the length of the beach. Before. Before the Father had found them. Before the viper had slid backwards into whatever darkness had consumed her. And he thinks of the promise that sits like a stone in his chest, the promise he’d made himself and his sisters. He will see to it that they have revenge. He will see to it that the viper never harms another child.
He swims slow circles in that lake, waiting for his sisters, unbothered by what dark things might be watching him from beneath the surface. Nothing can touch him here. Nothing can hurt him here. He draws in a long breath and swims slowly back to the lake’s edge, dripping water into the soft dirt there. He stands and he listens for the girls, waiting.
It is the ghost he hears first, more talkative than Tirza. There is a dreamy, spectral quality to the voice and there is a twinge in his chest when he wonders (not unlike his twin had) how things might have been different if they could have intervened sooner. If they’d had the opportunity to provide her with a family before the viper had had the opportunity to discard her. Because she is a strange thing, the ghost, flickering in and out of focus like she cannot help it and Gravitas does not always know what to make of her.
He turns to face them as they arrive, tries to smile for their benefit. Tries to be kind for the ghost who has never known kindness, not really, though it’s fair to say that neither he nor Tirza ever really have either. But they are a family now, he thinks, or they can be.
“You’re late,” he announces with a kind of sideways smirk, sliding back into the water and out of reach before either of the girls can retaliate.
And in the darkness he lets the weight of his bitterness drag him into that nondescript lake where they had agreed to meet. He sinks. Sinks until all that remains above the surface is the mouth, drawing breath. And the water is warm despite the lack of seasons, the lack of sunlight.
He thinks about how they’d had fun once, when they were children, he and Tirza. How they’d laughed and splashed in the water in the Cove. How they had chased each other down the length of the beach. Before. Before the Father had found them. Before the viper had slid backwards into whatever darkness had consumed her. And he thinks of the promise that sits like a stone in his chest, the promise he’d made himself and his sisters. He will see to it that they have revenge. He will see to it that the viper never harms another child.
He swims slow circles in that lake, waiting for his sisters, unbothered by what dark things might be watching him from beneath the surface. Nothing can touch him here. Nothing can hurt him here. He draws in a long breath and swims slowly back to the lake’s edge, dripping water into the soft dirt there. He stands and he listens for the girls, waiting.
It is the ghost he hears first, more talkative than Tirza. There is a dreamy, spectral quality to the voice and there is a twinge in his chest when he wonders (not unlike his twin had) how things might have been different if they could have intervened sooner. If they’d had the opportunity to provide her with a family before the viper had had the opportunity to discard her. Because she is a strange thing, the ghost, flickering in and out of focus like she cannot help it and Gravitas does not always know what to make of her.
He turns to face them as they arrive, tries to smile for their benefit. Tries to be kind for the ghost who has never known kindness, not really, though it’s fair to say that neither he nor Tirza ever really have either. But they are a family now, he thinks, or they can be.
“You’re late,” he announces with a kind of sideways smirk, sliding back into the water and out of reach before either of the girls can retaliate.
@[Tirza] i stuck this here because it's the only logical place i could find that had a lake lmao