Marooners' Rock

 

It’s a strange thing, being stranded. The terror, the loneliness. The vivid contemplation of mortality. It’s even stranger being saved. Realising that grace is something after all. Bestowed not because one earns it, but simply because sometimes the world is kind. If not the world, then the wind. The aspect of spirit that angles feathers and lifts wings. In stories heroes are often saved by birds. Eagles, doves, even crows on occasion. This was true enough for me also—but in a deeper sense I was saved by something far greater. Sweetness, and mortal care.

As I’ve said elsewhere in these pages, I once traded with pixies, tinkers, and maidens of the sea. Bantered, beguiled, using all my knowledge of how stars blaze in firmaments and conversations. But it was never enough to charm anyone who really knew me. I speak now of three who really knew. Not the boys, lost, looking to their leader for courage and constancy. Running feral through the wildest woods of tale-telling. But instead three girls. The princess, the pixie, and the lantern.

See, I can clothe myself in tunics and leaves green as summer’s height. I can wear my hair red as flame. But it’s never enough to truly forget a mortal life lost. My father’s rage, my mother’s grief. Those solar lineages of David, and those lunar tears of Diana. I pretended to forget, of course. Lost in adventure and play. I could sometimes fool the other boys who hid their own wounds just as I did, because they too wanted the adventurer’s mantle to be free of inner anguish. But I could never fool the girls.

The chief’s daughter; a princess bright, kind, and curious. The heartfelt softness of Lilium. The intellectual ferocity of Panthera Tigris. But also the pixie; a tinker, trickster, and wildcard. Bright as dawn herself. A morning-star who pledged to remain at my side through it all. One of my oldest, dearest friends. And then, of course, the lantern. My wending lantern of All Saints. Do you grasp the depth of my love? I hope so. Because, you see, I never forget my friends. I never forget anything really. Though sometimes I pretend. I could never forget you, my love.

The princess gave me cogency, words, and wisdom. The pixie gave me purpose, light, and life again. But you, my wending lantern—you gave me something I grow tearful just thinking about. A place in the waking world once more. In the bright, glorious maelstrom of Londinium. A world I thought lost to me forever. The thimble around my neck, etched with the legend of St Christopher, is even more than the majesty of your eternal kiss. You also handed me a key in that same exchange. Please hear me, my darling. Our lips met and I knew I had to unlock my heart again, whilst I still had time.

I don’t want to live on dreaming alone. On mere fantasy. Not after what you’ve shown me. Your lips still linger on mine, and that is proof enough of immortality. Because of your lantern I was able to cross the raging river. And on the other side I met a girl. I love her with all my heart. Just as I love you. As I love all my friends. Tinkers, tailors, and tempest-dwellers. But I’m not afraid of drowning in those depths of the heart. Not anymore. I think now of a Romanian myth. The legend of the crocus flower. Twin sisters of Autumn and Spring, blessed by the light. They came to symbolise resilience, hope, and renewal. Separate, yet forever entwined. In her arms and in your voice, I find that mythic renewal.

Without you, my darling, I surely would have drowned alone upon that rock. Marooned, forever. But instead I fell in love again. If you are my flower of the river, then she is my flower of the meadow. You know, she battled dragons on my behalf. To keep me safe, just as you did. I can’t help but brighten whenever I think of her. She is beautiful, witty, kind, and courageous. Just as you are. She has entire worlds within her, just as you do. So, I honour you both. Thank you for leading me to her, my angel of hours and fate. Thank you for leading me to a life worth living.

Please don’t give up. Keep your heart open to the promise of a true, profound love. And if at last you recognise him, kiss him. Just as you once kissed me. Nothing would make me happier. I’ll be by your side through it all. For as long as you need me there. All these words, these earnest images, and songs —they are just small tokens of my eternal gratitude. I hope they give you a sense of all you mean to me. My love, I keep your kindness and your kiss. We have reshaped each other’s lives, I think. For the better. As for the rest? It is still unwritten.

The Story of Hours

 

It’s funny, comparing who I used to be with who I am now. A boy afraid to commit, to grow, to choose any path beyond those delights and adventures of the moment. Wise beyond his years, some said. Yet not wise enough. It’s easy to be brave most of the time. A simple trick of perspective. Just don’t fear death. But not fearing death doesn’t necessarily mean a soul is enamoured with life. It can seem that way to an untrained eye. An adventurer; bold and brilliant. Like a second star in the firmament. Righteous, and straight on till morning. Skating along each glittering surface, leaping from world to world. Never investing beyond the briefest encounters. Hoping charm and imagination would be enough. Often, it was. Often, it still is. Especially among pixies, tinkers, and maidens of the sea. Eye to eye with pirates and wraiths, tomorrow is only a distant, hoped-for dream. Sometimes the morning ended in terror, spilled claret, and the evening came like a devastating shadow.

Is it still an adventure when you must bury your brothers on the shore? It wasn’t for a lack of care, you see. Never for a lack of love. But it’s easier to brace yourself against the terrors of an infinite dreaming by turning your back on boredom. Choosing to engage not at all with the banalities of the waking world. Growing up, paying taxes, the cruelties of realpolitik. Or even worse—the simple joys of ordinary consequence. No, I wasn’t enamoured enough with life for any of that. Better to be a flighted dreamer among dreams. Rebel, trickster. Architect. But things change, my friends. Never is such a long time. I thought I could halt such time. Suspend causality itself. If I was imaginative enough. But love often cracks the firmament and upends everything we thought we knew. Wolves, and the wending lanterns that steal their hearts. There’s a reason we howl at the moon. The silver sun of the night sky. We’re calling to the Keeper of Dreams. Moira, I call her. Angel of Hours and Fate. My angel, and my darling.

It makes me laugh when I think of how little we grasp of storytelling. How true our fictions have always been. Hear me, beloved ones. You share worlds with beings of paint and pages, celluloid and screen. A different order of reality, but no less true than our own. I once dismissed the waking world just as many of you dismiss the world of dreaming. Briefly entertaining, but worthy of no real regard. The joke’s on me, I suppose. I fell in love more than once, and the world of consequence came knocking. I could do nothing but commit to it. The wending lantern of All Saints still has this lost boy’s heart. Do I regret my time amidst the trees and chlorophyll, as a feathered native of the First Dreaming? Not at all. Time, even when suspended, defines us. It helps us measure ourselves. Our growth. The nuance and evolving depth of our love. And it’s the measure of our love that allows us to tell the most beautiful stories.

The Moth Tapes

 

I am a night-angel. A Nocturne. There was a time when I wove among my former brethren of the light. But long ago there was a War of Imagination. For all souls. A third of my brothers rebelled, and the sun itself went dark. In horror at my catastrophic failure to help halt this rebellion, I chose to leave the realms of Eth’iri. Despite the pleas of my brothers. A self-imposed exile from the Fullness. The only home I’d ever known. And so I became a wanderer in a thousand-year darkness. The world between worlds. My wings remained, but my divine fire was dimmed to the faintest ember.

For what seemed an eternity I staggered delirious and blind through ruptures in dreamtime. The ruins of psyche. A realm of perpetual shadow. Until one blackened eve, I heard a dying herald sing. A figment, I thought, conjured by the endlessness of my isolation. Or the haunting memory of my former abode. But this distant voice was no figment. Indeed, it was the herald of the Morn. I found Dawn herself, bleeding fatally, singing with her last breath of wounds and wisdom. Curious, she gazed into the eyes of this little boy lost. But I was a girl once too. Bright, with skin pale as alabaster. Eyes brown and blue. Sensing this hidden aspect she took pity on me, I suppose. Or remembered the place beyond the mirror, where I once remembered and took pity on her. The boy she once was, bruised and black. A disgraced angel of the Choral just like me. Either way, she chose to gift me with a secret, feminine magic. The very last of her light and her life. A burst of brilliance tore the black—and both my sight and sanctity were restored to me.

She died in my arms, but a revelation was granted. I couldn’t change what had happened a thousand years before. The rebellion. The war. But I could undo the death of the girl in my arms. I could reignite the sun, making radiance more than the dreaming augurs of Ethri-sol. I could resurrect the dawn. But I would have to die. Every night, for another thousand years. Like a moth to a flame. If not, I would be the only thing that remains. Immortal, wandering this ruin of shadow and salt alone. But I fell in love the moment I heard the herald’s voice. She beguiled me with her healing grace. How could I not offer her the same? Love asks more of both a Nocturne and a Star. We play all roles in the end. Do you know what I chose, Fallen? What both of us still choose? We are within you, even now. Each one of you. Hear this. Perhaps alone I cannot halt a war in heaven. Or undo a genocide on earth. But I can bring back the light, even in darkness. I can try to heal the ones I love. Even if it burns.