// to the green lessons //
Gods, every time he offered her some sentiment in return all she wanted to do was cry. Something felt very broken, raw, and real, scraping against her chest, contorting around her pulse. It was an amalgamation of misgivings, apprehension, and distortions for him, and half a dozen other tremors and distinctions of emotional zeals reeling through her heart. “I think all your feelings are rational.” She couldn’t imagine the detrimental wake of dying, and then being brought back – the fear, the hesitation, the disbelief in one’s power and distinction, and how quickly things could go awry. She’d seen it enough times, simply in the wake of wars, or pulling family out of rubble and ruin, to comprehend the lapse of loss – just never of her own soul. “And I understand why you don’t want to become stronger here.” Where the Family loomed, breathed, and presided, frightening, terrifying, and horrifically bending people to their will. She just couldn’t do the same.
Responsibility had kept her tied and tethered amidst the ancient stones and the celestial gardens, and likely would until she breathed her last. If she were to do the same as him, it would be abandoning those who needed, required, her constant and unending aid. It would be defying a god’s role placed upon her shoulders. It would be an act that Lena simply couldn’t commit; no matter who sat along the throne. She swallowed down so many other things, but not this one. Not this time. Something had to make sense in all the ether and smoke. “But I think the lack of cohesion between any of us, all of us, is exactly what they want. The moments where we drift apart from our friends, our families – it’s so easy to take us apart.” Maybe she’d been foolish, to believe their efforts hadn’t been in vain, that the three of them, and so many other dragoons, had made worthwhile teams. Striving together. “You could always train elsewhere, and then return home, instead of staying away for much longer-,” and she cut herself off, beginning to wrangle her hands around her mug.
But she didn’t want to be unreasonable, and she wasn’t going to ask him to completely defy everything his mind told him. “Because I guess…when do you come back then?” When would it be enough? Months? Seasons? Years?
Responsibility had kept her tied and tethered amidst the ancient stones and the celestial gardens, and likely would until she breathed her last. If she were to do the same as him, it would be abandoning those who needed, required, her constant and unending aid. It would be defying a god’s role placed upon her shoulders. It would be an act that Lena simply couldn’t commit; no matter who sat along the throne. She swallowed down so many other things, but not this one. Not this time. Something had to make sense in all the ether and smoke. “But I think the lack of cohesion between any of us, all of us, is exactly what they want. The moments where we drift apart from our friends, our families – it’s so easy to take us apart.” Maybe she’d been foolish, to believe their efforts hadn’t been in vain, that the three of them, and so many other dragoons, had made worthwhile teams. Striving together. “You could always train elsewhere, and then return home, instead of staying away for much longer-,” and she cut herself off, beginning to wrangle her hands around her mug.
But she didn’t want to be unreasonable, and she wasn’t going to ask him to completely defy everything his mind told him. “Because I guess…when do you come back then?” When would it be enough? Months? Seasons? Years?
Lena
// of soft, simple quiet beneath the sun //
