07. Restraint

Mother, oh mother--  you have cruelly forged me thus;

To forsake my maiden virtues, and deny that which I love.

It used to be, that the Law existed in sharp contrast. Tenants and precepts divided harshly, along irrefutable boundaries-- to be preserved and never transgressed.

I have come to know a different law. One of skin and bone, of blood and flesh. A law by which all mortal hearts abide. It is the place where the lines blur, and where what once seemed so clear, becomes muddied and unfathomable.

With a heavy conscience, I admit that I can no longer distinguish what is right from what feels right. 

What is wrong about the way I feel.

I remember... hearing a tale. Though, I do not know exactly who told it to me. Perhaps it was one of the Galliards I have encountered in my time on the Sept. Perhaps it was a dream... One wherein the Mother was trapped, singing a song in words I could not discern. A melody as tuneful as it was wrought with sorrow.

I now know how she must have felt. Wrapped in eternal darkness, with no hope of escape.

The night before we went to battle... I led you, stumbling and drunk, off into the wood...

We sat and talked as we always have... about strategies and battles, about your concerns.

Your anguish and your fear...The parts of you so seldom seen;

Things that are a part of us all.
Hours passed.
And then, the sun was on the horizon, bleeding into the sky...
The haze of your liquid vice had faded.

And as I held you in my arms, you told me 

that you loved me.

I thought... "I should hate you for this", and a part of me did. It hated you to the point of loving you, for hatred is the love of anger. It hated you for making me so flawed, so imperfect... when I had fought to make myself a paragon of my tribe: both honorable and virtuous. It hated you more than anything else...because you threatened its very existence. Because you have always made me weak as surely as you have made me strong....

It hated you... because it knew-- despite everything...

  ...that I loved you, too.

That hatred has since been eclipsed by a fire and a passion that makes even the solar Celestine look like a dim candle in a windstorm...

I may be young, but I am no fool... I know that in being with you, my spirit courts its own darkness... that desire and morality are at war over my heart...an intricate dance of serpents, bound by the strings of the Nation I am sworn to avail.

Is it wrong that serving you has become as important as serving the Mother herself? Is it  wrong that I feel like a marionette; dancing around right and wrong with no true purpose except to appease those who are holding the strings? That I do not long for the embrace of the Mother, as much as I once did?

My love, where it that I could forsake all of this... fighting for Gaia, my ambitions, the ability to change. Were it that I could deny my status as a supernatural being and stand beside you for the rest of my life...I would find a place amongst the kinfolk, trusting in you to defend me as you always have, as you always will.

But I cannot, and I will not.

Instead, I will retain the power of my many forms-- retain it, and fight beside you. Because it is the only way I can ensure that we both shall live. At your suggestion, I will throat to custom and take a mate this season...chosen from among those to whom love matters not; so that while my body can not be given to you-- my heart will belong to you solely.

I disbelieved you when you told me that my light would one day die, that my idealism would lose lose its luster...

...but even though I will vehemently deny it, my inner fire has already begun to flicker...

It used to be that I loved her. That I craved closeness to her like I craved redemption for the First Tribe. But now... now, I question her. I question her for forging me as a spiritual weapon, imbued with fragile heart; cursed with the capacity to love, as well as to hate; cursed, for they are one and the same!

I question her, for she has cursed me.

I do not know why this is happening to us-- I do not know what I can give you that will make up for what I cannot...All that I do know, is that I have never known love before you. That I will never know love again after you have gone. That love will then exist, for me, only in memory... a song composed of all the beautiful, violent words you ever said to me-- strung together, and overlapped-- indistinguishable to all but me.

A song that will play on my heartstrings, 

Into eternity, and ever onward.