[twwm] absolution: an apology - polaris

I don’t remember leaving the last chamber of this empty gallery, but I am now somewhere else. Somewhere new, covered in small, glowing mushrooms. This room is engraved, like the last, but moss, small grasses, and daisies and Black-eyed Susans litter the floor, their centers and middles glowing orbs that led up to a large pedestal, casting the rest of the walls away into darkness. In the middle of this open area, there is a pool of water, rippling below the largest of the balls of light, thrumming like the deep strings of a bass guitar after being plucked. There is a high hum to the energy, an expectant breath, a waiting hand, excited to play the music hidden under the waving lazy heads of the flowers.

I don't want to look at the orb immediately, fearing it will show me another vision I do not wish to see. Instead, I pace around the room, peering in the rest of the small, shallow cups of water, seemingly scooped out of the marble floor like it was done with a giant's spoon. The floating light seems to glint in the corner of my vision every now and then, causing me to shake my head and keep walking forward. I don't know why this sense of foreboding fills me near the pedestal, but there are no exits to this room.

The glow flickers in my vision again, and I finally turn to face it - angrily spinning on my heels - as it forms a shape. It's me. I am standing facing my mirrored self, and she is wild and wily and untamed, fierce like summer storms that rocked our home from before.

The lantern swings from the branch on her back as the storm warning light of gales used to swing from the lighthouse on the peninsula, and she steps towards me. Currents flow through her fur and I am utterly terrified, watching the reflection of myself advance, with hate in her eyes and a whipping fury of rip currents pulling at the long tail we both share.

"You left me behind," she growls, and her words flow towards me like a wave of cordial, sickly sweet, sticky and thick and a trap. "You left me alone! You abandoned our purpose!" I suddenly realize what she's talking about - the quest that was doomed from the beginning, finding Skiá and healing ourselves with her help. But there is no Skiá, not anymore. "You are supposed to live on in memory of her! In search for her!" My mimicking double steps towards me, predatory, like an adder coiled to strike. I know she wants to destroy me, with the grief and hate and weary weight of loving someone I needed to let go.

I know she is reflecting the self destruction I have just saved myself from, during my change. Instead of letting her corner me, I lower my head, and lay down. Not in defeat, or surrender, but in peace. "Sit." I say it, and my voice rings. I am no longer discordant, unfounded like a boulder without its niche. I sound strong, and sure.

My mimic sits, by the sheer sureness of my tone.

"You are wrong. You are right," I start, and she seems to seethe righteously. "I did live to find Skiá once, only hoping to be with her again." I meet my match's eye, and hers are full of tears.

Mine stay dry as I continue. "That was all I had, the memory of what we had in the before. There is no life, laying in the grave of a love dead. It took me…too long to learn it. It took me until coming here, remembering the faded out name on the headstone, recalling everything I have always been."

"Just because Skiá is gone from being, and from both of us, does not mean we have to lay down in the coffin with her. I was strong before Skiá, in the bricks of my home. We were strong with her, and after her. We have not changed without her love - we are still us."

My double breathes out softly. Her head slowly lowers to the reflected glowing pool of water below her, and her tears stop. "Are you sure?"

I feel her pain as sharply as the fresh sting of a wound, as the pluck of the violin. "I'm sure. I'm sorry." And I lay my head beside her. "I'm so sorry we lost her. I'm sorry that we did not know how to be without her." She nods. I watch as she looks towards the orb hanging over our heads, and something leaves her.

Like the last notes of the chello fading from the arms of the player, my double faded away, with a murmured "I forgive us."

The light dims, and I am plunged into darkness again, this time alone.