Thirteen Years in One Hundred Steps: Theme 80 – Words

They cannot even begin to explain the pain I felt when I saw him disappear through the light.

I saw his tears. I saw him reach out for us.

Words cannot even attempt to describe my want to hold his hand. To guide him to her and hold her hand.

I know he wanted someone to explain to him why she and I did not join him in the warp. Why we couldn’t say goodbye.

I don’t think he would have understood even if we explained it to him.

Words cannot describe the knife I knew that stabbed her heart. She must have seen his tears and his hand. I know she wanted to reach for his hand and hold it to her heart. I know she wanted to kiss his tears away, just like she did when he cried for the first time in years.

I know she wanted to tell him how we felt about him.

How much her heart went out to him.

How much I loved him as a friend.

But he wouldn’t have understood. I know he wouldn’t.

I saw the confusion he had. He must have thought we hated him.

We don’t, though.

I couldn’t say how much she loves him, for her words are not mine to say, and I can’t say what I feel without making it sound so jumbled.

Other things are easy to explain with words.

The touch of a lady’s lips on her lord husband’s cheek.

The smell of Nature’s flora on a brilliant spring day.

The taste of the sweet thickness of honey freshly made.

The sound of the nightingale’s ambiguous song, a lullaby for all three of us.

I can get words around those subjects.

But for the pretenses of these feelings she and I sensed when we pushed him into the light, I can’t find any words that he would be satisfied with hearing as an explanation. Never have I seen him so hurt, so confused.

I can’t put words to that look. He has never looked at us with such contempt or hurt.

Perhaps she was trying to avoid that gaze, and maybe that’s why she decided not to say goodbye. She didn’t have the words she needed to say goodbye.

Or maybe she did, and just didn’t want to say them. Maybe those words held too much meaning. Their weight perhaps pressed down on her shoulders too much. The burden of those words, the sheer pain of “goodbye”; I think I see why she wouldn’t want to say that word.

“Goodbye.” Why does it hurt so much? It’s such a small little word, but depending on who you say it to, it can either matter naught or too much. Say it to an enemy, and we feel so much better after the crime of murder is committed. Say it to Marth, however, and the feeling is like suicide. For me, at any rate, that’s exactly what it feels like. Saying “goodbye” to Marth is the same as asking someone to stab me through my heart. That’s the magnitude of that connotation. For that simple little word.

What is it for Aliana? I can’t speak for her.

But that single tear I saw before the Doluans came in should say enough. That silent “goodbye” I saw her lips form. The way she held her swords tighter. The fact she didn’t put up a fight when all she, Ellis, and I were finally captured.

Never have I seen her eyes reflecting such turmoil. Such sorrow.

All of that because of a simple, silent “goodbye.”

We’re in a sort of dungeon now. I’ve never been this far below Castle Altea before, but I know this is the castle’s dungeons. The lighting is dim, with nothing but failing torchlight. It’s a bit musty and humid down here – no one has been contained here in ages, so there’s nothing unpleasant about it. Perhaps the fact of being contained within our own country is what makes the stay in this dungeon so unnatural and bitter.

Our only source of fresh air is a little slit within the wall. It is a lonely little slit, and only so much light comes in to repel the ominous torchlight.

I stay in this little amount of light as much as I can. My eyes are failing with this limited torchlight. I can’t heal my eyesight like I usually can – my hands are bound together with words of darkness. Words that have conformed into chains of black smoke that tie down my light. The words revolve and spin around my head – I have a migraine like no other. They cut into my flesh and keep my wrists from healing, always always bleeding. Sunlight eases the pain of the dark words that continue eating at my wrists, a slow yet excruciating pain. I have to stay in the light.

Aliana is somewhere in the darkness. I see her in a shadowed corner, huddled up against herself. Her swords have been taken away from her. Her pride, stolen. Her love, gone, possibly forever.

I hear her chipping away at something.

I use what little power I have left to ask the light to show me what she is doing.

Her darkened corner manifests a little better. It’s filled with words. She must have found a stray stone to help her scratch away at the walls. This is all she has been doing since being thrown in here.

Words fill the walls and floor next to her.

I don’t understand why she wrote some of these words.

“Wind.”

“Rain.”

“Moon.”

“Night.”

Aspects of nature. What do they mean to her? Why does she write these things in her bout of sadness? How do they explain her anger with herself?

“Blood.”

“Sword.”

“Ribbon.”

“Ruby.”

What is this mess? Where did those words come from? What happened to make her write these things? Is this what they call stream of consciousness? These words she has around her seem random. Too random for anyone to comprehend with logic.

“Fire.”

“Water.”

“Air.”

“Us.”

I know these words she is writing have some sort of meaning to her. We are all somehow tied to the elements of fire, water, and air.

I only know that in the context of magic, though. Humanity is tied directly with the immortal elements of the world. We humans can use the elements to our advantage. The elements are linked to us.

How does she see it, though? I know she has no clue about the magical aspects of the world, so there shouldn’t be any way she would know that link. How is she linking humanity to the elements?

Or is she focusing on a group of people in particular that includes her? What do these words mean?

There are more words around her.

“Love.”

“Heart.”

“Mark.”

“Marth.”

Wait. His name and mine? His name, I understand. She loves him dearly, and I know she misses him too. But why mine? Why either of our names in the first place?

I suppose names can be considered words. They are, after all, letters that form up into something that addresses something or other. Names are just special words. They refer to someone. A name is just a word that identifies someone.

That means that just as any set of words can have a symbolic meaning, names can have a deeper meaning other than what they refer to.

But why my name or his? She’s known us for the past ten years, so our names should be normal and not all that special, even if they are words that have some sort of meaning to her. So why do those names, those words, stand out to her? Such normal words and names. How are they special to her?

My light is starting to fade away. The sunlight’s disappearing.

I’m starting to lose sight of her. My light’s starting to fade away.

Words of darkness wrap around my wrists ever so tightly. Light is starting to fade away. Words of darkness cut into my wrists. Blood falls from my wrists and form a pool on the floor. Words of darkness dig into my wrists and plague my soul.

Words joined together in chains of shadow, tying me down, restricting my light and taking it away from her, someone who needs it now. Eating through my wrists, causing me such pain that I want to scream and cry for mercy.

I can’t allow such words of pain to escape my lips. It has to stay inside my heart. I have to be strong for her. So, I won’t let my tearful words escape my heart. I have to bear through this terrible ailing without shedding any tears. It’s for her. It’s for her.

Light’s fading even more. The pain increases even more. I’m losing sight of her.

Stay around a little bit longer. I want to be sure she’s safe. He would want to be sure she was safe. I take on that duty in his stead. Light, stay a little longer. What is she doing?

She’s picked up a stray stone again. Maybe it’s the same one she used to scratch the other words around her.

She turns the sharp stone in her hand for a while longer. It’s almost like she’s waiting for light to fail to begin writing again. As if she plans to wait until I am blinded by dim torchlight and my own tears. Why wait? I’m already blind. I can’t see what she’s writing, if she does –

Wait, she’s writing. Scratching. I can’t see it because dark words make tears in my eyes, but I can hear the scratching. The grating noise of stone against stone.

I’ll check when I wake up tomorrow to see what it is she wrote.

~~+++===+++===+++~~

I’m not blinded by tears anymore. Morning light as alleviated much of the pain. I don’t bleed during the daytime. Light lifts the chains from my wrists a little. I don’t have my usual migraine.

But here I am, still contained in a dungeon within the borders of my own home, still sitting with her. Still waiting for something to happen.

At least she seems to be sleeping rather peacefully. That’s a first ever since we were locked down here. I can tell through her mere air that something has changed within her. Maybe I’ll find out later, when we both can finally talk.

There’s enough light that I can see what she has written. It surprises me though.

There are definitely scratches in the ground with her rock next to them. Her hand is bloodstained, though. But she has no injuries on her. Then that’s my blood. Why mine?

Her hand covers the writing, but I can see from where I am the thing she covers.

In stony chalk. Traced with my blood.

“Believing in you.”