in which eirlys picks at deeper issues buried beneath the doomed yuri cover story
I wanted to speak these words to you. But you are in far-off lands, defending your home. And when you return—for in my mind, I have promised you to not assume the worst of outcomes—I imagine you shall require rest. First and foremost. Plenty. But knowing you, dear, you shall be already moving to attend the guild’s matters, won’t you? Not a moment laid to waste.
And thus, not a good time for my self–enamored ravings, of me flowing like aimless little rivulets, drying up before they can meet the sea. When these words had come upon me, this dawn, they were so much hopeful. But the tides rose before the ink could stain the parchment. Look how easily I am swept away!
The books hold envy to be desire for something that is another’s. I, then, fail to understand this envy that wants yet does not seek to claim. Perhaps, we are too vain to become somebody else. Can shame exist without ego?
I veil my shame with flowery prose, when the plain truth is that I am simply envious. Of how you burn and contain your flames, to be light and warmth for your people, your land. When all I do is stay curled up, soaking in my thoughts and my feelings. Mine. Mine. Mine.
I would have never thought of founding a guild if I were you, for that I am ashamed. I can’t seem to understand it at all. I can’t seem to think like you at all. I can’t seem to be like you at all. I feel so ashamed standing next to you, of wasting precious breaths by existing wrong.
Wonder if it would have mattered less had I not held you so close to my heart. Have I ever truly loved or merely admired, wanting to be closer to something I could never be. You don’t spare it a thought, while I have dreams of reaching the pinnacle of my journey and looking at your flame that first day, and find myself lacking still.
I could have it too, for a price, but I loathe who I am just about the same as I loathe unbecoming. Such futile ego, such cowardice.
Fellmoon had woken up with her cheek smushed to the pillow, staring vacantly into the empty room for thirty minutes. Her progenitor is lazy but even the Simulacrum knows the telltale signs of a bad dream. Fellmoon would further argue that it wasn’t technically a bad dream but the Simulacrum cared little for semantics. What you see behind closed eyes shouldn’t dim the colors of morning light. Even that was too poetic for her taste.
Fellmoon hardly gives her the consideration meant for her non–construct friends. Right, ‘friends’ within quotes because this bitch is oh so complex. If there has been a drop in the frequency of trauma dumping, it went to the mage not liking the truth being spat on her face. That doesn’t quite spare the Simulacrum from finding Fellmoon huddled up over untouched documents—sniffling—half the time, and laying flat on her back as though a princess in a glass coffin the other half the time. How melodramatic.
It was an expected string of words: saw her again, she was so radiant, why did it hurt to look at her? It didn’t take too much digging into their shared memories to find out this wasn’t the first time. In fact, the Simulacrum is surprised Eirlys is coming around to it only now. You see, even when Eirlys Fellmoon thought she liked guys, she just hated herself more. It was only a matter of time until gazing at the sun hurt, it burnt, and the moon found herself dimmer floating next to it. It was only a matter of time.
“You are a fish in a pond watching a bird fly across the sky, and wondering why it can’t be you. You uprooted yourself to see her in her element. Don’t you think how it looks, when she sees you in yours?”
But Fellmoon hasn’t found her element yet —the Simulacrum knows that, too. At least one that could earn her the perceived steadiness she oh-so admired about that Oathsworn. Instead Fellmoon cries, broken little thing, and while the Simulacrum has been woven to be betterbetterbetter than her in every single way arcane limits couldn’t butt its nose into, she, too, was an extension of Eirlys Fellmoon. Eirlys Fellmoon, to whom shame clung like water droplets, just as her heart to her sleeves.
For better and for worse.
With a sigh, the Simulacrum wraps Fellmoon in a blanket burrito and pats the mop of dusk-washed snow hair, until the half-elf, who shall always have the chance to be better than her, weeps herself to sleep.
eir crawls back to solmere’s bakery like a wet cat
It didn’t take long before Eirlys realized that she had been picking on the wound again. During her time away from the snowed-in town, strolling aimlessly through trinket shops and bookstores, the mage had been able to put herself someplace else like a pebble away from the eroding tides. The Great Death’s defense was inevitable tied to things she had been trying to put behind her and yet she didn’t understand when Lames began to express his concerns. Doubt there could have been alternative, not when the town could use as many hands on the deck. She couldn’t have abandoned when they needed her, among others, the most. No one had truly said they had it under control.
The ruminating mind was oft like an uncomfortable cloth you could not take off. Eirlys had considered, morbidly, what if she casts her spell in a way that it discomforts her to think of— She then realized with a prick of humility that no magic was needed to make her feel bad. Why did the ruminating mind circle around thoughts that bore you down, it was all too strange.
The bakery was one of the places she had frequented just enough to know what to expect yet not enough to put it her mental map with the rest of the town. Herein within these red-bricked walls, Eirlys felt there was an escape from the town and her life. It was a feeble hope, the same childlike wonder she once held for a charm in her mother’s lockers.
Hope. Hope for peace.
What a peculiar word.
The baker glanced at her when she arrived, knuckles deep in sourdough, like time hadn’t passed between when the mage had stormed out and now, pushing through the same door she had slammed behind her on her way. The woman inclined her coral-pink head towards the table which now wore the same patterns as her apron, perhaps cut out from the same cloth.
Was this the same scowling woman from before, now matching with her furniture?
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