04-20-2021, 09:15 PM
GRAVITAS
Tirza plunges into the water with her trademark reckless abandon and it calls to mind the memory of the day they’d stood shoulder-to-shoulder when their father had found them in the forest looking for their mother. Why had they felt any urge to protect their mother? (Had that been their intention or had they simply been testing the limits of their rebellion?) He remembers how, together, they had surged into the fray of that army of bones and fought for their lives. He remembers it so fondly that it distracts him from his annoyance and he almost laughs as he follows the two of them into the water.
Will he ever get used to watching the ghost turn into something real? He doubts it with the way his stomach somersaults violently as she solidifies before their eyes. He glances at Tirza to see if she has noticed, if she is affected by it at all but he cannot make her out through the darkness.
The water ripples outward as they move through it, splashing in the darkness, and he cannot tell which sister is which as they swim. It is a taste of normalcy in a world gone strange (though their world has always been strange, he knows, the three of them have never known a normal world). And somewhere out there, not far from where they swim together as a family, is the mother who gave them up. Who gave up on them. And he thinks again of the promise he’d himself, the promise he’d made his sister and a sense of peace slithers through him.
He is on the verge of seeking Tirza out, to splash her with a fresh wave of water, when it happens. When the eclipse finally splinters and breaks apart and the Cove and the lake and the three siblings swimming there are bathed in brilliant light. Stunned, Gravitas forgets to continue to tread water and sinks beneath the surface.
Gripped by panic, he swims hard for the light and emerges again.
What is it that spurs him back to the shore?
He does not know what it is that seizes him but he goes. He does not wait for his sisters, he just goes. And he leaves the stars in his wake. And the sun is so warm, warmer than he remembers even and he is gasping by the time he makes it to the shore and the stars are left in the water behind him. As is whatever color he’d inherited from their mother. By the time he reaches the shore, he is red like fire. Red like a phoenix. Red like rebirth.
By the time he reaches the shore there is nothing left tethering him to the viper. There is nothing left tethering him to the Father. There is nothing left that speaks of the parents. He turns abruptly, heart pounding. It is not fear, exactly, but it’s not anything else either. His chest heaves with adrenaline as he turns to face the water again, electrified by the change as his forelock drips down into his eyes. And it glows so vibrantly that he thinks it must be a trick of the light.
“Tirza?” he calls to his twin, his voice strained.
Will he ever get used to watching the ghost turn into something real? He doubts it with the way his stomach somersaults violently as she solidifies before their eyes. He glances at Tirza to see if she has noticed, if she is affected by it at all but he cannot make her out through the darkness.
The water ripples outward as they move through it, splashing in the darkness, and he cannot tell which sister is which as they swim. It is a taste of normalcy in a world gone strange (though their world has always been strange, he knows, the three of them have never known a normal world). And somewhere out there, not far from where they swim together as a family, is the mother who gave them up. Who gave up on them. And he thinks again of the promise he’d himself, the promise he’d made his sister and a sense of peace slithers through him.
He is on the verge of seeking Tirza out, to splash her with a fresh wave of water, when it happens. When the eclipse finally splinters and breaks apart and the Cove and the lake and the three siblings swimming there are bathed in brilliant light. Stunned, Gravitas forgets to continue to tread water and sinks beneath the surface.
Gripped by panic, he swims hard for the light and emerges again.
What is it that spurs him back to the shore?
He does not know what it is that seizes him but he goes. He does not wait for his sisters, he just goes. And he leaves the stars in his wake. And the sun is so warm, warmer than he remembers even and he is gasping by the time he makes it to the shore and the stars are left in the water behind him. As is whatever color he’d inherited from their mother. By the time he reaches the shore, he is red like fire. Red like a phoenix. Red like rebirth.
By the time he reaches the shore there is nothing left tethering him to the viper. There is nothing left tethering him to the Father. There is nothing left that speaks of the parents. He turns abruptly, heart pounding. It is not fear, exactly, but it’s not anything else either. His chest heaves with adrenaline as he turns to face the water again, electrified by the change as his forelock drips down into his eyes. And it glows so vibrantly that he thinks it must be a trick of the light.
“Tirza?” he calls to his twin, his voice strained.
@[Tirza]