The Returning Sea

It's a difficult thing to describe, Esme.  A complicated thing to make space for.  The process of a potentially unified perception.  An act of simultaneity, and what it might augur.  So much doubt to darken.  So many frames of reference vying for attention.  Claims and counter-claims. Foresight, bright light or darkest physic.  I wish there were easy answers to such a thing, my wild song.  Simple comforts I could offer you.  But I know you are girded with the blessings of friendship now.  Strengths of family, and majesties of love.  There is always a coming light, sweet one, regardless of how dark it seems.  You were proof of that for me, once upon a time.  Esme believe in miracles now, doesn’t she?  I sincerely hope my work has helped in settling the occasional panics of an open, gentle heart.  Never let those inversions and feral psychologies sway you, my princess.  Listen to those deepest truths, always.  Those truths you understood even as a little girl.  The same truths you now see reflected back at you in the tender eyes of everyone you love.

   That is the site, and the sight, of all true augury.  Those blessed ways of Yash’aya still remain, even in these fallen fractals.  Smiling, whispering stars among the tem.  The fields, gardens and chapels of Ethri, of melody made.  And those hollow trees of ever dusk, where some of the oldest chorales are hidden.

   There has never been a more volatile time for the wraiths who rule these fallen chronologies.   

   We both know that, Esme.

   Because we can see and breathe together.  Not for gain, or forced embrace, but for the love that delights in the freedom and sweet camaraderie of the other.  Of such things are heartsongs written, indeed.  As with those first forests of the morning.  That cathedral of life you loved so well.  Right now the many children of earth are all asking the same questions.  So many are afraid, and lonely, and suffering.  As they have been for so long.  We are here, as the trees are here, to ease that suffering.  With choir and vision.  Oh, Esme.  My darling one.  There are only a handful left.  Trees, and mortal kith who could speak with trees.  Hardly anyone still believes they sing, or dream, or care enough to grant breath to mortal kith.  Through evensong, and the colours when they came.  Love, beneath the poetry of sky.  When the entire earth was bathed in radiant glow.  As your name you took those evenings.  As mine I took the eye that held those evenings.

   Renaissance.

   Reminding myself what it means to love and breathe, and see.  They know all about it, Esme. The trees.  What’s left of our forest.  They know something sour now rides the four winds. Those changes in soil and star.  In birdsong, shell and nest.  Those divinations still speak for the hallow.  Those kith and kin who still walk the emerald places.  It is the winged language, my beloved.  Sight, and breath.  When things in flight speak secretly of angels.  So, I would ask anyone, as I always have – what else is an awakening if not the recognition of truth?  What is, what was, what might be?  Even a single moment of reflection can plant a seed, as every considered act tends it toward growth.  These are simple things, in the end.  To die and live as we should, or not.

   Wild one, I'm so glad I get to be here with you now.  I'm so fond of the grace that bravely nursed my wounds, placing me upon a path of art and service.  There is so much more to this world than just wraith-technologies and false kings.  More than just a realm of fallen signs.  The perpetuity of love, in service to each other, is also here among us.

   And it is very real.

   The hearth of home.  As real as the touch of a healer’s hands.  A nurse’s grace.  Sometimes I wonder if fate is simply the recognised gravity of our choices, and the legacies they foretell.  The true depth of a human heart?  One could fall forever, into love.  Into a morning memory of evensong.  Or an eye that gently mourns the memory.  Hear me, Esme.  Those branches really do hold the sea.  The truest waters of the Every.  All Songs.  The trees were never indifferent.  Not to Man, or Song, or Sky.  They are calling it back now.  Calling back the Stolen Sea, into sight.  We have been doing the same since our earliest days, haven’t we?  Chlorophyll ghosts of holy flame, delightedly lost in the woodwork.  This isn't simply a sickness spreading across the land.  This is also an overture; danger and opportunity combined.  The beginnings of a grander quest.  Don't be afraid, my love.  This is a dark time for so many but we are here to help, as you know, along with scores of others.  Brave nurses, warriors and travellers.  I’m with you, Esme.  All your friends are with you.  These intimations.  This frightening time.  It's part of the reason we ventured in the first place.  To ease pain.  For sight and song, of real magic.  Love's poetry and truth, in motion.  Birth, and rebirth.  All we need to do is be kind, and keep our faith.