[Drabble]
They talk to her sometimes. On the worst days they never stop.
And it's strange: how she knows things she cannot know and feels a ghost in her own flesh.
everything is nothing is everything
hello aurbis are you there
She knows, for example, that her brother's voice comes with a wisp of smoke from a crooked nose and says:
'Try the coda seeds, if you can find any. They used to grow near the temple in Vivec. I remember that-- yes, I remember that, the flags and the fires and a vast night sky. Stars and flowers. Can you imagine a world of flowers, dreaming eternal across a sea of stars-- and in the end, what are we but the echoes of other people's minds? Do we die while people still remember us and imagine us real? B'vehk, but this is strong. What was I saying? Don't use dragon's tongue again. That's got a kick like a guar. Getting closer, though.'
Oh, it's nonsense. It's nonsensical. It's nothing. Her detested darling brother with a broken mind. If one can call that broken. Broken open, maybe.
no, no, I never thought so
(they slid a spear into his spine they stripped his face from his skull they stole his feet from his legs and in return we waited)
(they mocked her they laughed at him they sucked away all he had they filled her with all she did not want and in return we loved)
but I hope you found what you were looking for.
'The darkness taking shape. A dragon-- a worm. Lanterns, or stars, or-- or-- oh, something beating, something ticking, something going silent, and yet it feels so warm here in their arms, yes. You came back for us. You love us still. Never leave again except to go where we all must go when the lanterns burn down and the water rises and the last clock stops dead beneath the earth...'
maybe you still can.
'No, don't use coda flowers. They-- don't use them. Burn them.'
it cuts to the quick
it cuts against the bone
it cuts through to the marrow
'Too close.'
What would she say to him? What could she pretend would make it better? If she had taken his hands in hers, would they have been thin and breakable, and when she said she loved him and she worried for him, would he have pulled a smile out of those swollen lips and told her, it's nothing, hla'lah, it's a phase, it's a thought in passing?
everything is nothing is everything. hello, aurbis...
it's everything, hla'lah. it's everything, and it hurts more deeply than the bones breaking beneath my skin.