I regarded Acis, or this shadow vaguely of her appearance, with care and awe. I did not try to influence her, for Hortensia had cautioned me against it. Still, as she worked at the same feverish pace, crowding the walls with still deeper marks, I could scarce bear the eeriness going on uninterrupted. How I wanted to look away, as one would by instinct cover their ears at a deadly siren’s sight. And yet I could not abandon my sole duty to keep watch, so in slow breaths, and seated atop fallen stones, I followed her every action.
I could sat there for hours and hours, perhaps days, and would have not made much sense of her doing or purpose. But as I watched I learned to feel, not in the preternatural way Litzia possessed, but in a much cruder sense, like how a mother learns of her babe’s various ways through patience and familiarity. Whatever Acis’ purpose in untiringly scratching the ancient wall was, if there was indeed any, she worked at it with great intensity. Each labored stroke made on the wall was charged with as much effort as I ever could hauling a halyard, as though her life depended on it, or something else precious to her did. And when she crossed one depressed scratch upon another, she did not do so with a careless haste, but great deliberation, and observed it too, after each, as though discerned somewhat a meaning amidst the sea of nonsensical patterns. Not least did she sometimes sit back in awe, espying something she had not conceived in thought before doing. In a manner she seemed a sculptor working on something otherworldly, the canvas being in entirety incomprehensible to my dumb eyes.
And then her form flickered. It happened only occasionally, as though a chance wind had shaken invisible boughs from above, dancing storms of lights and shades upon the knight. But there were no such things, only her being shuddered. And when it did so, different shades and hues overtook her, or made it transparent. And these occurrences grew frequent the longer I observed.
There was no sight of Litzia’s return. ‘Twas a long way to travel across the ruins and then back, and she must find Galanthus also. I grew impatient.
Rising from my seat, I approached the girl with doubtful steps. She paid me no heed, at first. Her pace slowed as I came closer, though I had no intention of physically disrupting her.
“Who goes there?” she said weakly, and her arm drooped, as though all her strength and fervor had suddenly vanished.
“Aster. Acis?”
“Are you?” she said dreamily.
“I am Aster, your sister in the Ala Estival. Do you not remember it? Who are you?”
She cast down her face, and tilted her head at the transparency of her hands. “I do not know for certain. Though I know it is a strange thing to be unsure of oneself. I have many names.”
“You do, I know you as Acis, but before becoming an Anemone, you had another name, I think.” At this point I wanted to withdraw from her, recalling Hortensia’s warning. But her attention was firm upon me once she had turned away from the heavily scratched wall. “Can you recall it?” I asked.
She was still in thought for a while, and then, slowly, “I may. I may, I think. But I fear to do it, I am not sure why. There’s a familiarity in that name you spoke – Acis. There’s sweetness, joy and all that is good. But I can not quite grasp it, it escapes me still. But if I think of the other names, if I think—I can’t quite get to it either, unless I try and grope about in the white, for something—anything… but when I find something at last it is empty of meaning and I could not take on any of it. Or that I could not see? As though a terrible, unsurmountable wall stands between our reunion… Is it something or nothing? I know it to be there! It is there—” she picked up the stone and hovered it at the wall, “—somewhere.”
“You mean,” I said slowly, “your name is in there—in the marks?”
“Not quite,” she answered, vaguely, paused and broke in uncertainty, “Many other things too, I think, but all are empty, all white.”
“White?”
“White…” At this, her eyes lit up, though only a dim light, and it soon darkened.
“Does the name Galanthus hold any meaning to you?”
Now her face lifted in earnest, and she stared at me aghast, then looked about. “Galanthus… Galanthus—that is right—Galanthus! Where might she be! She is not near. How come? Oh, I must return then to the ship. Aster! Aster, help me up, for we must go and be quick!”
She grabbed onto me, soft hands seized on my arms, and I winced from pain. She was weak, much too weak, like a child, and unless gently, I fear I could shatter her apart with a sudden movement. With as much ease as could, I lightly held her shoulders. “Peace, Acis, peace! Calm yourself, there is no need for fear. She will be here soon enough—Litzia went to fetch her, and she’s coming, any second now.”
“Is she now?” The fit seemed to have exhausted her greatly, and her hold slackened. Between labored breaths, she muttered, “She is coming, aye. Galanthus is coming—coming for me! Oh dear, by the Dawn, no!”
Suddenly she jerked away with what strength she had, crying and rambling as though stricken by arms. “Oh no, no, not her! She will take me away and make it white. Oh no, no, no. Augh under this sky but her. She will take me and take it away, and I shall no more remember... remember what? What must I recall, what memories must I keep always? I forgot, I forgot! No! Give it back! Give it back to me!”
She crawled away, knowing no more that I was there, standing still in alarm. Back to the scratched wall she went, and her trembling hands touched it all over, her bleached fingers ran over each mark, searching, despairing.
A sharp cry started me. One of anger, pain, and panic all at once. I turned and there was Acis who had made the sound. Gladiola, Hortensia and Litzia gaining on her as she stormed the cistern’s grounds.
The white wyverness eyed quickly the broken wall and her pledge, who was all over it, as though her dear life depended upon it. Never before had I seen such a display of emotion in Galanthus. An immeasurable pain corrupted her face and speech as Acis drew away from her, drawing sharp gasps of terror. Acis, reduced to a wretched bundle on the ground, cried, and cried. Her eyes beheld her pledge-sister with immense hysteria at every closer step she made. “No!” she cried, “‘Tis the devil, the devil in white that comes assailing me!”
And though Galatnhus seemed sure of her purpose and relentless in her doing, as she seized the girl, the white wyverness’ own body shook violently for each heartbeat. Then, despite the brutal rejection, the embrace was complete.
After a while, Acis ceased her struggle. And when she slid to the ground, her eyes were open but lifeless, and the whiteness of her being took over the dark hues and transparency as I had known of her. Now she was solid again. And quiet. And obedient.
But what had she been before all this? Before the White?
I might never know.
Galanthus never stopped shaking.
As I sat there, countless questions whirled in mind, but it was not the time to satiate them. It eased my heart somewhat, at least, when I counted Acis’s even breaths as she lay between her pledge-sister and Gladiola on Hortensia’s back. And then they were away.
Beneath the darkening sky, I walked back with Litzia, our quarrel almost forgotten. What I told her of Acis’ strange behaviors before they came confirmed somewhat her vague feelings. But she could discern the full truth none more than I. Yet all the more it affected her, casting a silence deadlier than ever I have known on the wyverness. She kept her distance, her emotions closed as a sealed crypt.
And, I felt, in my heart of hearts, a keen loneliness. More than ever I longed for a lie that I could blindly accept, for the comfort of a familiar touch to alleviate this immense dread. Yet neither of which I could then afford, not in the presence of someone to whom I was known more deeply than aught other. And who would now only lie for her own sake and not mine. In the pledge, we were one. And yet in this pledge, we were alone.
We walked abreast in the silence imprinted by the swaying branches and trickling water, the little animal’s cries, and the many sounds of the unknown in the wilderness of Tithonus. Much concealed was the sunsetting now, and there was a transition in the air from day to night, where dusk carried the great fire to rest, until tomorrow when it would dawn again. The songbirds had waned and the breeze turned cold from cool. Things grew larger in the lightlessness, and the streams were no more clear but a flowing of splintered dark.
As the trees thinned and my eyes first descried a lamp light at a distance, Litzia halted and pivoted. She faced me. Her back was against this light, and the moon could not reach her from beyond the trees. In this way she leveled her gaze at me with determination.
“Aster,” she said in a low, grave voice, “there are things in this world irreversible, and things that must be done regardless of the will in one’s heart or one’s mind. Yet what I asked of you that day was neither of these. And now I relieve you from what you promised when I bade you lie. Whatever I am, whatever I shall be, I do not want to force the pledge, no more. For what unreasonable deeds I have made you do, I beg only for forgiveness. I have nothing to give, another slave that I am. And what I have, you need not.”
Very still, she stood in wait for my answer. So still, she might have stood there for hours or even for the night. But I grieved - grieved, for in doing so, she had pained us both, or at least me to a greater degree.
“And what?” my voice was hoarse, my throat parched, the effect of Acis’s terror lingering still in my throat, “What? So that when the time comes, someone else may make the choice in my stead? Or, oh, do you plan to take another azure for your wings? Is this how it is?” Unconsciously, my voice had risen to a thrilling pitch, “Ah, I see it now! The entire reason you approached me was for my being an azure! So that your pledge-sister would feel neither pain nor remorse in following you. But, you erred. Mere chances had you picked one who fails even in what an azure should excel.”
A heavy weight upon my lungs forced these words out. So that she may suffer the pain she’d inflicted in equal measure. I wanted for her anger, a reaction. I wanted her pushed to retaliation. That she is to fathom how unreasonable her declaration of promises forfeited had been. What had I been doing all this for? But if she would treat my feelings as mere fulfillment of a promise, a practical purpose, then I would have her know what it is like to be accused just so.
But she answered with an even worse blow, of silence. Utter silence struck her still as before. Yet it was the changelessness that horrified me, for in it she confirmed the truth of my accusation, that for all I thought I was, she thought of me as little more than a tool broken, empty of uses. And in my effort to draw a reaction from her at my expense, I had but sentenced myself to the dark truths best left untold.
It is for such times that one has need for lies.
But what I fear, she was too charitable to inflict in the end.
The wyverness turned away, averting eyes I could not see in the dark, and softly she said, “You know it is not so, so perish the thought - banish it altogether from your mind! But choose, Aster. We have a few days left until the ritual, to preserve or sever our pledge, will you decide by then?”
What could I have done but nod along? With Gladiola, I had had the naive resolve to venture from the dreadful dark of unknowing. Yet now when the full measure of it was but revealed in the slightest glimpses, it terrified me. And I shrunk, even as the brave Acis had shrunk before her own pledge-sister.
My head hung low as we emerged into the lit streets of Tithonus. Far aloft, the Sanctuary was almost lost in the dark, but it was somewhere within that mysterious place that a few days hence the course of our future would be set.
I regarded Acis, or this shadow vaguely of her appearance, with care and awe. I did not try to influence her, for Hortensia had cautioned me against it. Still, as she worked at the same feverish pace, crowding the walls with still deeper marks, I could scarce bear the eeriness going on uninterrupted. How I wanted to look away, as one would by instinct cover their ears at a deadly siren’s sight. And yet I could not abandon my sole duty to keep watch, so in slow breaths, and seated atop fallen stones, I followed her every action.
I could sat there for hours and hours, perhaps days, and would have not made much sense of her doing or purpose. But as I watched I learned to feel, not in the preternatural way Litzia possessed, but in a much cruder sense, like how a mother learns of her babe’s various ways through patience and familiarity. Whatever Acis’ purpose in untiringly scratching the ancient wall was, if there was indeed any, she worked at it with great intensity. Each labored stroke made on the wall was charged with as much effort as I ever could hauling a halyard, as though her life depended on it, or something else precious to her did. And when she crossed one depressed scratch upon another, she did not do so with a careless haste, but great deliberation, and observed it too, after each, as though discerned somewhat a meaning amidst the sea of nonsensical patterns. Not least did she sometimes sit back in awe, espying something she had not conceived in thought before doing. In a manner she seemed a sculptor working on something otherworldly, the canvas being in entirety incomprehensible to my dumb eyes.
And then her form flickered. It happened only occasionally, as though a chance wind had shaken invisible boughs from above, dancing storms of lights and shades upon the knight. But there were no such things, only her being shuddered. And when it did so, different shades and hues overtook her, or made it transparent. And these occurrences grew frequent the longer I observed.
There was no sight of Litzia’s return. ‘Twas a long way to travel across the ruins and then back, and she must find Galanthus also. I grew impatient.
Rising from my seat, I approached the girl with doubtful steps. She paid me no heed, at first. Her pace slowed as I came closer, though I had no intention of physically disrupting her.
“Who goes there?” she said weakly, and her arm drooped, as though all her strength and fervor had suddenly vanished.
“Aster. Acis?”
“Are you?” she said dreamily.
“I am Aster, your sister in the Ala Estival. Do you not remember it? Who are you?”
She cast down her face, and tilted her head at the transparency of her hands. “I do not know for certain. Though I know it is a strange thing to be unsure of oneself. I have many names.”
“You do, I know you as Acis, but before becoming an Anemone, you had another name, I think.” At this point I wanted to withdraw from her, recalling Hortensia’s warning. But her attention was firm upon me once she had turned away from the heavily scratched wall. “Can you recall it?” I asked.
She was still in thought for a while, and then, slowly, “I may. I may, I think. But I fear to do it, I am not sure why. There’s a familiarity in that name you spoke – Acis. There’s sweetness, joy and all that is good. But I can not quite grasp it, it escapes me still. But if I think of the other names, if I think—I can’t quite get to it either, unless I try and grope about in the white, for something—anything… but when I find something at last it is empty of meaning and I could not take on any of it. Or that I could not see? As though a terrible, unsurmountable wall stands between our reunion… Is it something or nothing? I know it to be there! It is there—” she picked up the stone and hovered it at the wall, “—somewhere.”
“You mean,” I said slowly, “your name is in there—in the marks?”
“Not quite,” she answered, vaguely, paused and broke in uncertainty, “Many other things too, I think, but all are empty, all white.”
“White?”
“White…” At this, her eyes lit up, though only a dim light, and it soon darkened.
“Does the name Galanthus hold any meaning to you?”
Now her face lifted in earnest, and she stared at me aghast, then looked about. “Galanthus… Galanthus—that is right—Galanthus! Where might she be! She is not near. How come? Oh, I must return then to the ship. Aster! Aster, help me up, for we must go and be quick!”
She grabbed onto me, soft hands seized on my arms, and I winced from pain. She was weak, much too weak, like a child, and unless gently, I fear I could shatter her apart with a sudden movement. With as much ease as could, I lightly held her shoulders. “Peace, Acis, peace! Calm yourself, there is no need for fear. She will be here soon enough—Litzia went to fetch her, and she’s coming, any second now.”
“Is she now?” The fit seemed to have exhausted her greatly, and her hold slackened. Between labored breaths, she muttered, “She is coming, aye. Galanthus is coming—coming for me! Oh dear, by the Dawn, no!”
Suddenly she jerked away with what strength she had, crying and rambling as though stricken by arms. “Oh no, no, not her! She will take me away and make it white. Oh no, no, no. Augh under this sky but her. She will take me and take it away, and I shall no more remember... remember what? What must I recall, what memories must I keep always? I forgot, I forgot! No! Give it back! Give it back to me!”
She crawled away, knowing no more that I was there, standing still in alarm. Back to the scratched wall she went, and her trembling hands touched it all over, her bleached fingers ran over each mark, searching, despairing.
A sharp cry started me. One of anger, pain, and panic all at once. I turned and there was Acis who had made the sound. Gladiola, Hortensia and Litzia gaining on her as she stormed the cistern’s grounds.
The white wyverness eyed quickly the broken wall and her pledge, who was all over it, as though her dear life depended upon it. Never before had I seen such a display of emotion in Galanthus. An immeasurable pain corrupted her face and speech as Acis drew away from her, drawing sharp gasps of terror. Acis, reduced to a wretched bundle on the ground, cried, and cried. Her eyes beheld her pledge-sister with immense hysteria at every closer step she made. “No!” she cried, “‘Tis the devil, the devil in white that comes assailing me!”
And though Galatnhus seemed sure of her purpose and relentless in her doing, as she seized the girl, the white wyverness’ own body shook violently for each heartbeat. Then, despite the brutal rejection, the embrace was complete.
After a while, Acis ceased her struggle. And when she slid to the ground, her eyes were open but lifeless, and the whiteness of her being took over the dark hues and transparency as I had known of her. Now she was solid again. And quiet. And obedient.
But what had she been before all this? Before the White?
I might never know.
Galanthus never stopped shaking.
As I sat there, countless questions whirled in mind, but it was not the time to satiate them. It eased my heart somewhat, at least, when I counted Acis’s even breaths as she lay between her pledge-sister and Gladiola on Hortensia’s back. And then they were away.
Beneath the darkening sky, I walked back with Litzia, our quarrel almost forgotten. What I told her of Acis’ strange behaviors before they came confirmed somewhat her vague feelings. But she could discern the full truth none more than I. Yet all the more it affected her, casting a silence deadlier than ever I have known on the wyverness. She kept her distance, her emotions closed as a sealed crypt.
And, I felt, in my heart of hearts, a keen loneliness. More than ever I longed for a lie that I could blindly accept, for the comfort of a familiar touch to alleviate this immense dread. Yet neither of which I could then afford, not in the presence of someone to whom I was known more deeply than aught other. And who would now only lie for her own sake and not mine. In the pledge, we were one. And yet in this pledge, we were alone.
We walked abreast in the silence imprinted by the swaying branches and trickling water, the little animal’s cries, and the many sounds of the unknown in the wilderness of Tithonus. Much concealed was the sunsetting now, and there was a transition in the air from day to night, where dusk carried the great fire to rest, until tomorrow when it would dawn again. The songbirds had waned and the breeze turned cold from cool. Things grew larger in the lightlessness, and the streams were no more clear but a flowing of splintered dark.
As the trees thinned and my eyes first descried a lamp light at a distance, Litzia halted and pivoted. She faced me. Her back was against this light, and the moon could not reach her from beyond the trees. In this way she leveled her gaze at me with determination.
“Aster,” she said in a low, grave voice, “there are things in this world irreversible, and things that must be done regardless of the will in one’s heart or one’s mind. Yet what I asked of you that day was neither of these. And now I relieve you from what you promised when I bade you lie. Whatever I am, whatever I shall be, I do not want to force the pledge, no more. For what unreasonable deeds I have made you do, I beg only for forgiveness. I have nothing to give, another slave that I am. And what I have, you need not.”
Very still, she stood in wait for my answer. So still, she might have stood there for hours or even for the night. But I grieved - grieved, for in doing so, she had pained us both, or at least me to a greater degree.
“And what?” my voice was hoarse, my throat parched, the effect of Acis’s terror lingering still in my throat, “What? So that when the time comes, someone else may make the choice in my stead? Or, oh, do you plan to take another azure for your wings? Is this how it is?” Unconsciously, my voice had risen to a thrilling pitch, “Ah, I see it now! The entire reason you approached me was for my being an azure! So that your pledge-sister would feel neither pain nor remorse in following you. But, you erred. Mere chances had you picked one who fails even in what an azure should excel.”
A heavy weight upon my lungs forced these words out. So that she may suffer the pain she’d inflicted in equal measure. I wanted for her anger, a reaction. I wanted her pushed to retaliation. That she is to fathom how unreasonable her declaration of promises forfeited had been. What had I been doing all this for? But if she would treat my feelings as mere fulfillment of a promise, a practical purpose, then I would have her know what it is like to be accused just so.
But she answered with an even worse blow, of silence. Utter silence struck her still as before. Yet it was the changelessness that horrified me, for in it she confirmed the truth of my accusation, that for all I thought I was, she thought of me as little more than a tool broken, empty of uses. And in my effort to draw a reaction from her at my expense, I had but sentenced myself to the dark truths best left untold.
It is for such times that one has need for lies.
But what I fear, she was too charitable to inflict in the end.
The wyverness turned away, averting eyes I could not see in the dark, and softly she said, “You know it is not so, so perish the thought - banish it altogether from your mind! But choose, Aster. We have a few days left until the ritual, to preserve or sever our pledge, will you decide by then?”
What could I have done but nod along? With Gladiola, I had had the naive resolve to venture from the dreadful dark of unknowing. Yet now when the full measure of it was but revealed in the slightest glimpses, it terrified me. And I shrunk, even as the brave Acis had shrunk before her own pledge-sister.
My head hung low as we emerged into the lit streets of Tithonus. Far aloft, the Sanctuary was almost lost in the dark, but it was somewhere within that mysterious place that a few days hence the course of our future would be set.
