The Seamstress and the Soul

 

I know your hunger better than you imagine, my radiant kiir. I know your thirst. Not in the sense of domineering patriarchs who falsely claim to grasp the unspoken secrets of the innermost. But in the sense of one who walked with you before the earth was shaped. Before the sky was raised to life and lumen. Dreamwalking, I suppose it might be called now, across bridges of shine and shimmer. Through verse and refrain. Together we wandered through shifting fictions, half-concealed. This isn’t presumption. I presume nothing here in this endless, blinding black. I recall your hunger only because I shared it.

Nobody drank the twinning river like we did, Afkarr. From chalices of gold, or from the hull of a lifted longship. The sea of stars had three-faces in those days. So, drink with me now, Mother of Myth. Keeper of Twine. In honour of Verdandi. Much like T’alis, night-bard of the shining brow, or M’ithriin of the hidden-folk, my storytelling doesn’t begin or end at the North Way, or upon the shattered straits that once connected our lands to Albion. Beloved, you and your sisters are far older than that. Older than Yarden’s ebb, or those lost whispers of Navah’tri.

Stones into bread, my dear one. Rivers into red. Long before Man first found a form for story. The taste of cherry. The stain of grape. In every word there is wine, believe me. I sang such lyric first, long before the little one was even a glimmer. Then again, I was taught everything I know by the darkling dawn. Nobody steals the river’s heart like the Choristers of All Songs. Know it in your bones, seamstress. Know it in your soul.  I was a Victorian long before the night began its thousand-year exile. I was a hooded thief of dreams in the wilderness. A ghost among men, crafted to perfection. But I didn’t weave the depths of those myths alone. I wouldn’t have had the skill. I needed help from a speaker of threads. A supernal one who knew the value and strength of cloth, the armour of accent.  

I was a wild rebel and you made me an elegant wraith, my love. A spirit that men respected and feared. I was a seer, a thing of visions and prophecy, yet you made me a standing one. Something larger than space, or time.  A voice that would echo. A visage unforgotten though half-concealed. Indeed, Ka’rai, you knew me then. We have always been more than lovers, or friends. We were co-conspirators in those darkest of days. Storytellers safeguarding the Soul. Blessed with winged imagination. Enough to spark a chatter at the city’s edge. They still talk about us, my imperatrix. All these centuries later. Witches, and kings. They have no fucking idea. But you do, if only just a little. And in dreams. The flesh in the fruit and the blood in the wine, as when the dark dresses lightly. Silently so.

It’s because of your genius that I was even able to thread that needle of creation with a thrice-great star.  Birth, and birth-rights. So, I thank you now, seamstress. And I offer you this token, this modest gift, like a kiss upon the collar. Cherry upon the lips of my wildest weaver. From your mouth to mine, and mine to yours again. The stain of grape, and ferment. The dizzying pull, full-bodied, with notes of freedom and raven-feather. Fly well, my raging fury. Fly to the river, and drink it dry. You know my hunger far better than you realise. You know my thirst.