[ how we rise until we fall ]
ficathon: write your darlings
fandom: prosa; prose: wanderer
characters: valor x scout
prompt von blumenkotze
i saw galaxies in your eyes.
At first, she doesn't seem like much. You look at her, and see another one of those heroes, destined to fall, to crash and burn, to end up like you. Another one of those who will fail. Self-proclaimed heroes always end up like this, you've seen it countless times, the wanderer who think they are special. Truth be told, you were one of them, and oh, you fell.
You want to cross the room and grab her, tell her to back down while she still can, that nothing good will ever come out of trying to be a hero, but she looks up and smiles at the boy with the curly hair who makes the room light up, and you know it's too late. He has decided for all of them, a long time ago, but you don't know that. You only know that you won't watch another lionhearted girl falter.
But you can't help them, so you do what you do best - you run, and you never look back.
It sounds much better that way, much more like something Kalypso would have pulled off, but you aren't Kalypso, with her thunder and lightning heart and the smile that makes boys and girls loose their minds all the same, heroes or not heroes. They say the world you own is your heart, created from the very bottom of your soul, carved into something physical. Kalypso's world is all edges and cliffs, mountains that stretch all over the horizon. Her whole world makes you feel small and insignificant.
It's weird, because that's exactly what the girl with the brave name says, when she shows up at your doorstep, except there are no doors in your world, only grass, only desert, only flatness. You can run for hours without seeing a single thing on the horizon. If that's your heart, you figure it's really boring. Just like you.
“How can you live here?”, she crouches on the ground, fingers brushing against the grass. In some parts of the world it's edges are sharp like a blade, cutting your legs bloody when you try to pass through it, but not here.
“Because it's so boring? You get used to it.” She shakes her head, getting up again. You want to offer her a hand, but you resist.
“That's not what I meant. It's not boring. No world is boring. No person is boring”, she crooks her head and smiles, “that sounded like something Orion would say.” “Is he your leader?” She just shrugs. “We don't have a leader. Circles don't have a beginning. It's complicated. Orion is just the most passionate about this whole thing.”
Her gesture includes the whole world, but you know it's not only this world. It's all of the others as well, all of the million worlds out there, dying or living or reborn, and you're so glad you failed at being a hero, because the weight of a single world is too much to carry for one person, but the weight of the whole universe carried by four children seems more cruel than all the legends.
You could've walked away, Atlas, but that's not the part the legends tell. Heroes who run aren't heroes anymore. And sometimes, you can't run. Sometimes it doesn't matter if you can be brave or not, because sometimes, you have to pick up a sword even if your hands are shaking. You just wish the universe didn't have to be so cruel on her.
“How can you bear it?”, you don't want to ask, but you do anyway, because you need to know.
She looks confused, a strand of her hair is falling into her eyes, and you resist the urge to gently push it back. “What?”
“Everything.” You aren't sure what she is going to make of the answer, but you look at her and she looks at you and she understands. There's a glimmer within her deep blue eyes that makes you shiver, but you don't know why.
It's the same glimmer you saw in the brown eyes of the other boy, his blade against your throat, daring you to leave.
You push the thought away. They are nothing alike, you remind yourself. It tastes sour under your tongue.
“I've changed.” Her voice is steady, and it feels like for the first time, you really see her, not the girl, the hero. “I was afraid of everything, you know. In the beginning. Of myself, especially, of them, of the sea.” Her smile is almost sad. “Of my powers. It's true what they say - we are different. We have powers, each of us, that might above what even gods can do.”
When she grabs your hand, you let her, and you don't look away, from the breathtaking smile and the shine in her eyes. Not the glimmer you saw before, but something entirely different, something you're sure she's not aware of, because it's what they say about the dreamer and his fire spirit. That there are galaxies in his eyes, painted across his skin.
Hers are different, a little more soft, more gold and silver, but you see them.
“I'm still afraid. I know heroes don't end up happy.”
You want to tell her that it's not true, but you can't, because you can't name a single hero who was happy.
“It's okay”, she smiles and smiles and smiles, “I'm going to be the fucking first. Watch me.”