I miss the old world. The real world, full of song and shining
vision. Everybody who still remembers
this place before the Fall is at least occasionally overtaken with a certain
nostalgia. A melancholic reverie. Yearning for what was lost. But those losses are all the more devastating
when they are actually half-remembered thefts. Storm and torment that made a ruin of our true
home. Fallen fractals. Malignant chronologies. This world of abuse, of slavers and slaves –
it is not the true world. It’s the
sickening spill of wraith-ravage. Sinister
technologies carving and scarring their way through the flesh of human hours. Oh, sweet one, do you doubt it?
There was a time before time, once upon.
Though it pains me to admit, I'm just one
among many in these endless fields of the dead. A drowning, and a crossing. The river and the tree. There are a million souls at my back, and
more. Phantoms of an angel. Thieves of a king. An army of furious lights all desperate to
steal back their sovereignty from the demonic hordes that darkened the
Earth. Look at the stars, I tell these
lights. Look how they shine. Distance is a liar, I proclaim. Though I'm not certain if enough of them would
dare to believe me. But some of them do.
Both mortals and angels make fictions of
the spaces in between. These dreams of
the interim. This devastating lore told
among the folk and the fay. My wise one,
I still search those lights in the night sky. Searching for you, and others
like you. A map of the stars in the skin
of a seraph. Whether bleached for
passing or not. To be recognised, even
for a moment; it is a heady, powerful thing indeed. We all crave spiritual recognition, don't we?
I thought I could kindle that kind of hope
in others. As you so generously did for
me, princess. I thought I could steal
back that shining name for myself. An
older name. And I did, in a way. In a church beneath the sea. But perhaps my reach somewhat exceeds my
grasp. After all, I'm trying to make
stars of still-healing flesh. Forgive
me, wise one. Forgive my foolish youth. Thinking I could banish violence from the
realm with little more than a wing, and a prayer. I was so desperate for my friends to think
fondly of me, and each other. I wanted
to speak intimately in several tongues at once. I thought I could share my sweetness almost
equally with the people who truly touched my heart. But maybe I can't. Maybe it's a fool's errand, in the end. It doesn't mean I'm done trying though. I'll never be done trying for the old world. The real world. Even though I died a long, long time ago it's
almost like I never really existed at all. Except in dreams, I suppose. You can never fully erase something from a
dream.