#hk*

[rhettroblues]

PRESS PLAY (2022) — dir. Greg Björkman

[halliserres]

CITY OF TEARS

[helenaklein]

take me to your river

The steady trickle of the river creates a gentle melody that accompanies your afternoon. There’s a lightness to the air today, as if the world itself is breathing easier than it has in far too long. Your world certainly is.

Helena’s back rests against a tree on the water’s edge, and her fingers weave loose braids through your hair as your head lie in her lap. You’ve been dozing in and out of consciousness for at least an hour, basking in the simple luxury of your wife’s company. More than once, you wake to the sound of rustling leaves and the sight of slow movement in the branches above you, growing spontaneously to provide continual shade from the sun’s glow. Mirth lights up her entire face each time you catch her; her disbelief and her confidence providing a uniquely endearing combination you can’t get enough of.

You and Helena have yet to leave for any sort of honeymoon, but moments like these provide such a stark contrast to your life together thus far that you can’t imagine time even more rejuvenating.

You crack your eyes open just slightly when her hands still. Helena stares out towards the water, looking thoughtful but lacking the telltale crease on her brow she gets when something’s troubling her.

“What’s on your mind?”

There’s no surprised reaction to your question, only a small smile at the unspoken familiarity you’ve cultivated together.

“Much.”

“Well,” you sit up to reposition yourself further in her lap, her arms immediately wrapping around your waist to pull you closer, “I think we’ve got time.”

Helena hums appreciatively and presses a lingering kiss against your cheek. The warmth of her lips against your skin persists even as she begins to speak.

“Do you remember our first riverside venture?”

You recall the day fondly. 

Those were such fraught times. So much was uncertain. Helena herself was different then, the cloud of hurt and regret that surrounded her so palpable it could have easily created insurmountable distance between you. But it didn’t.

Instead, moments like that trip to the river were a window into a gentler life, a glimpse at the woman she could become.

Your chest tightens at the memory of all you’ve gone through to get here. You wrap your arms around Helena’s neck and hold tight to what you fought for.

“When I pushed you into the water? How could I forget?”

Helena’s laughter comes unrestrained now. You think it might be your favorite change.

“I returned your dirty trick in kind.”

“It ended pretty well for both of us, I think.”

She reaches for your hand and brushes her lips lightly against your wedding ring, “I agree.”

You steal a kiss in the silence that follows. Because you can’t help it. Because she made you blush. Because Helena is your wife and because you’ve found the kind of love most people can only fantasize about.

“I asked you something that day.”

The words tumble from your mouth ungracefully, summoned from the same place of uncertainty they were conjured all that time ago, “‘What am I to do with peace?’”

Her eyes seek something distant out across the water as she nods. “It was difficult to picture myself in the life that comes after war. Growth and repair felt so foreign, so distant to what I knew of my soul. Even now, I find myself asking the same question: what am I to do with peace? There are so many possibilities before us. I struggle to envision what choice is best.” 

“It doesn’t have to be the best choice, you know. Maybe peace is more complex than that.”

The notion seems to strike her deeply, and she looks back out towards something you can’t reach.

“Is this about Chicago?”

Despite her previous insistence on the decision to move after the wedding, the commitment had yet to be followed through in any meaningful way. The two of you went as far as escorting Sophie home before stepping right back through the portal because Helena had told Altea she’d help transport her to potential locations for the future school of magic, and didn’t want to go back on her word. So many things have come up and postponed the move that you’ve begun to consider that Helena may be doing it deliberately.

You haven’t asked about it until now, figuring her reasons justifiable and her faith in you strong enough to share them when she’s ready. In truth, you don’t mind the delay, grateful for the opportunity to mull over the logistics on how the hell to make any of it work. The more you think about it, the more anxious you get. 

You have to go back to work, first of all. Which means job hunting and the whole host of inferiority issues that’s inevitably going to dredge up. You’ll need to find something that will let you work from home, as you aren’t keen on the idea of leaving Helena alone all day in a world she doesn’t know, and something for her to do in general that won’t ask for any identification. And, perhaps most complicated of all, you need to figure out a way to divert the attention that sharing a face with a dead, beloved celebrity will draw to her without asking Helena to disguise herself again.

It’s been a head-ache inducing process, to say the least, and you’ve barely had time to consider some of the pressing emotional concerns you have about any of it.

Helena seemed so sure when she talked about this move before that you haven’t really had the heart to bring up how complicated it’s going to be. You would do absolutely anything to secure her comfort and happiness, even hop dimensions and steal an identity for her. But still, the situation is more stressful than you’ve let on.

“Your world is a wondrous place. Its creativity and progress excites me. In many ways, it is the perfect answer to what I have craved for the majority of my life. Escape. Freedom. A new beginning. A chance to start my life fresh.” Helena smiles as she speaks, her blue eyes locked onto an imagined future. “If you had asked me two seasons ago where I wanted to spend my life, I am sure a place like Chicago would have been my choice, without question or second thought.”

“And now?”

“Now… it is as if I turn to what it represents to me on reflex, or out of habit,” Her gaze drops down and shame darkens her features before she shakes herself from it and meets your eyes directly, “but it has been quite some time since I have let the instinct to preserve myself rule my actions.”

“You said you feared people never letting go of your past.”

Helena repositions you slightly to better face you. You straddle her lap and catch both of her hands in yours.

“Yesterday, I met a farmer living in countryside surrounding Reiner’s castle who had been struggling to attain crop yields comparable to what he managed before the Witch Queen’s army occupied his land. What little actually took root molded by harvest time. I found him reduced to tears, clutching his ruined crop in his fists and kneeling in the dirt. He feared destitution for his family and starvation for his child, a little girl named Maya who just lost her first tooth. He thought himself a failure, and assumed that he was doing something wrong. But the land itself was cursed. I could sense the poison embedded within the soil the moment my palm touched the ground,” her words come more quickly as the story progresses, betraying her agitation at what this stranger endured. “She sabotaged his entire livelihood for no reason other than that she could, that it brought her pleasure to know he and all those that depended on him would suffer.”

You squeeze Helena’s hands in an offer of strength when you feel them start to tremble in your own, “breathe, Helena.”

She takes the suggestion immediately, clenching her eyes shut and giving herself a minute to get her breath under control. When her trembling ceases, Helena opens her eyes and continues, voice noticeably steadier.

“I offered my assistance to him. He was distrustful of magic after having seen the destruction it wrought so close to his home, and skeptical that anything could mend the damage after he had tried so hard to fix it. But he had nothing left to lose, and said as much before allowing me to help. I lanced her poison from the farmer’s field with ease. The look of wonder on his face as the crops still clutched in his hands were restored to perfect health, and that I could so effortlessly erase the evidence of her wickedness… it made my heart soar.” 

The memory puts a note of awe into her voice, her smile lights up her entire face, and you could swear the shade you rest under brightens with the grace of her happiness. You know how much it means to Helena that she’s learned how to help others with her magic. She’s formed a better relationship with herself as a result of it, with the knowledge that she is so much more than her capacity for destruction. 

Her smile fades before she begins speaking again, “there are other stories like that farmer’s. People whose lives have yet to return to sustainable conditions, let alone something resembling normalcy. Many whose homes were consumed by flames and whose possessions were seized by her soldiers, who are still in search of family members unaccounted for, whose minds and bodies are gravely wounded and continue to live without respite. The Witch Queen is dead, but her touch upon this world lingers.”

The statement would make you worry about her if not for the hard-set determination that settles across Helena’s features.

“I do fear what my reputation in this land will be. But should the burden of that fear fall upon the shoulders of those whose resentment is just? Should I extend no offer of help to people in need on the chance that they may dislike me? Is it not the worst of crimes to have great power to make change, and choose instead to do nothing?”

Helena’s voice carries the same sort of impassioned delivery she used to rouse the army to stand with her as she brought back the sun. You can’t help but burn with pride and an immediate desire to do something, armed with the knowledge that her cause is inspired and righteous.

“I have more magic at my fingertips than has ever been thought possible in our recorded history.” She pulls one of her hands from yours, holding it outwards and summoning an amorphous ball of energy to demonstrate. 

Particles of magic dance around one another, a glowing light show contained at the palm of her hand. What she holds then disperses outwards, and when Helena gestures around you, you’re caught breathless at the sight. The flow of the river has ceased altogether, fallen leaves and stones previously strewn across the forest floor levitate seamlessly in the air for as far as you can see. She holds it only for a moment, before dismissing the spell with a slight wave, and shows no sign of strain at the exhibit, if she feels any at all.

“Some of this magic was hers, once. She wielded it mercilessly against the people of this world, used it to impose her will over my body and mind until I thought of nothing but her and how to make the pain stop. I see no greater act of reclamation than my use of that same power to ease some of the destruction she wrought.”

“Are you saying you want to stay here, Helena?”

“As a child this world wounded me in ways unspeakable, and for too much of my adult life I wounded it just the same. But… perhaps there remains a way to amend some of the damage inflicted on both sides.”

“I just want to be sure you’re not trying to make a martyr of yourself in endless pursuit of everyone’s approval.”

Helena releases a hum of recognition at that, and turns her eyes towards the river once more. The sounds of the forest fill the lull in conversation between you. You’re grateful that she takes the time to consider your words, and are happy to grant her however long she needs to take stock of her feelings on the matter.

A chill settles in the air as the sun begins to fall. You tuck your face into the crevice between her neck and shoulder, seeking her warmth as much as you are protecting her with your own. Her arms come around you, pulling you close enough to feel her heartbeat against your chest.

You can hear her smile when she speaks next. 

“There is still so much beauty here. I notice more of it every day. In our view of the sunrise over the village from our balcony. In evening meals spent among our friends, getting our fill of laughter and hot food in equal measure. In the songs the village people sing together while working towards a common goal. In the jovial eyes of children who will grow up without fear. In… in the way Ishara and Asta embrace me as their own. In the dreams and aspirations of all around us certain that there is a future to plan for, and in the knowledge that this is the world that brought our hearts together. This world. She tried to crush it underfoot but kindness and hope yet lives. I see it and I can feel it take hold in my soul, and I know with certainty that this world and I are the same.”

Helena is beaming when you pull away to look her in the eye, and you can’t help but match her smile.

“I wish to stay, my love, if you are amenable to the idea. No thoughts on the matter mean more to me than yours.”

Pride and relief overtake you. The way Helena has grown since you met her still brings tears to your eyes. It may not be a fresh start, or a new beginning, but it feels no less important, no less significant, and no less a marker of positive change. 

“I wasn’t exactly looking forward to getting back to the daily office grind, to be honest. I’d be happy to stay, Helena.”

“Truly?”

“You’re here, aren’t you? And so are our friends. That’s all I need, in the end.” The people you’ve met in this world have filled your days with meaning in a way nothing else in Chicago ever has. Sophie is the only thing from your world you’ve ever been sad to let go of, though you know her place in your life will persist regardless of the dimensions between you. “Maybe it doesn’t make sense, with everything bad that’s happened. But it’s like you said, there’s a lot of good here too. I don’t think there is anywhere, in any world, without both. And we can help make more good. We can be happy here, I’m sure of it.”

Helena’s lips meet yours in a kiss that tastes of excitement and invigorated purpose. 

Your life together was never going to be easy, or simple. To ask for either of a woman like Helena is to deny who she is fundamentally, and ignore the long path she’s walked to become the person she is now. In place of what’s easy, you have what’s brave. It may be scary, and ugly at times, but it’s enough to know that neither of you will ever stop trying for your happiness together, the betterment of all that surrounds you, and the sort of self-improvement that can only be found by embracing challenges head-on.

“If my past catches up to me someday, I welcome it, so long as I have this moment, and the hope of another in the peace we will build together.”

The words ring in your ears. You love their sound, saying them back to yourself over and over as the truth of them resonates deep within your chest.

The peace we will build together.

That’s where you find the answer to Helena’s question. 

Nothing is to be done with peace, because peace itself is what must be done. 

Peace is what you build, not where you arrive at. It is not the hard-earned destination at the end of a long journey. It is not something you can chase, or hope to someday simply find, as neatly wrapped a resolution as that would be. It is the work you put in, the way you try, a purpose you dedicate yourself towards in ensuring tomorrow is better than yesterday.

As you walk back home hand in hand with Helena along the river, you know you aren’t taking your first steps towards a picturesque happy ending.

But together you will make tomorrow better than yesterday.

[chaekkung]

‘jealousy... baby, jealousy’

[catradorea]

hayley kiyoko music videos (2014-2018)

[tenthrees]

I just want to make art that connects with people and moves them on an emotional level. Any time I can put out music and place a story behind it and have people watch it and go, 'Wow, I was affected by that,' to me, feels like I've done my job. -Hayley Kiyoko

[addtothebeauty]

Sara Hurtado and Kirill Khaliavin--2018 European Ice Dance Championships (x)