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Edit: I made a cover! :D
I don't know why it lingers,
The sadness that torments my heart;
A tale of old that festers
In my thoughts and won't depart.
At first, there is only darkness—heavy, pitch-black darkness, and the world is cast in it.
You are a shadow in this darkness, indistinguishable from the rest. Darkness without an end or beginning. A shape without shape. Without purpose or meaning, existing only through the quiet beat of your heart.
Nobody ever hears it. Even you barely do, and you hear better than anyone.
You drift from place to place and leave as if you never were there at all. No mark left by a shapeless being. No thing disturbed by a fragment of nothingness.
You are a shadow in the endless dark, and the dark is everything.
You are nothing.
The air is cool and gloomy,
The calm Rhine courses by;
Soft evening rays illuminate
A mountain ridge spanned high.
Strange, blurry faces rush past you. Indifferent. Unseeing. Going about their lives without care for the shadows filling darkened corners.
Most days you’re glad for it.
You drift still, though by now you’ve found your outline, and the fleeting moments of joy you steal for yourself. Flickers of dim light you clutch in your hands until the darkness extinguishes them. Each and every time.
You exist day by day, second by second for that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, and it’s better than the endless darkness. Far better than nothing, and it’s enough.
You hear a sound. A voice perhaps, beckoning like a melody.
For the first time in thousands, you follow.
A beauty sits upon it,
So marvellous up there;
Her golden jewels are shining,
She combs her golden hair.
You see him for the first time, and the world floods with light. Shapes, sounds, and colours you could never have imagined, clear in the light of day. The vibrant green of foliage against a cloudless sky. A narrow stream rushing over round white pebbles. The warmth on your skin and the pink through your closed eyelids.
And he, amidst it all, is everything.
Your heart beats loud for all the world to hear. Thundering like it never did before, even stared down by sharp blades and sharper words, and scared half to death. Like an endless symphony of joy and warmth and content.
It’s in his light that you first see yourself, and you invent yourself in him. The colour of your eyes. The smile on your cheeks. The way you walk and run and dance. The salt of your tears. The sound of your voice. The curve of your handwriting.
Every little detail of yourself you never cared to learn. And he’s there for every second of it.
For the first time in eternity, you feel truly alive. The sun shines bright upon you, and you wonder - not for the last time - how you could ever exist without it.
She sings a song enchanting
To match her comb of gold;
A melody so sweet and free
It makes your blood run cold.
He promises you forever. An eternity of shared existence, basking in the light and moments of bliss the darkness couldn’t ever hope to touch. An eternity with your sun, where being alone is enough.
It’s everything you ever wanted.
At this a nearby boatman
Is seized by savage woe;
Eyes only for the mountain
Neglect the rocks below.
He leaves you. For short whiles, at first.
Weeklong adventures to mainland to satisfy his curiosity. To discover the advancements of humankind and better your shared paradise. To keep himself entertained.
You learn to live with it. The days of twilight before the sun rises anew, spent caring for his kingdom in lieu of missing him.
You offer help in any way you can—in little things, like teaching the young suns to forage, or treating the sick. Making flower arrangements or guarding the borders. It's good work, and it keeps you busy. It's enough.
In quiet moments of darkness, you wonder why you aren't.
Then he meets them. Seasoned warriors with big words and bigger dreams, and plans put in place to execute them. With promises of thrill and adventure.
He drags you along by the hand, and you do your best to keep up with your rapidly broadening horizons. You listen to him ramble about battle plans and uniforms and tell yourself it’s worth it.
The others don’t like you much. They don’t say it out loud - wouldn’t, in fear of upsetting the king - but you can tell from the whispers they don’t know you hear. From the looks of pity, indifference, or outright contempt.
They think you an outsider. A no-good tagalong. A shadow trailing their bright, lively king. A coward.
It doesn’t matter though. No weight can last on your shoulders when the sun looks at you with stars in his eyes. You’d carry the world to keep that smile on his face.
And so you don a new name, smile through gritted teeth, and drink in the light that used to shine just for you.
You tell him it's a bad idea. All actions have consequences, and the action they're planning to take will prove disastrous.
You tell him because the others won't listen. Won't care. But he, who's been by your side for centuries, who has turned to you for advice in a show of vulnerability offered to no other, might.
He doesn’t.
Too busy playing the fool to amuse. Too busy entertaining a cheering crowd. You're not sure he even heard.
And yet, you are his warrior. You are a being who craves light like the air you breathe. And you are no coward.
Like a shadow, you follow.
It goes like you feared it would.
The sun is taken from you. Locked inside a stony pillar of an echoing cavern. Away from the sky. The home he so loves. Out of reach.
You do your best to keep things together. To placate the restless brotherhood, and console his kingless subjects. To hold both ends of a severed tapestry while keeping yourself from unravelling into a tangled mess of yarn.
You have little luck with one and less with the other.
You visit once you find him. Bring the only thing you thought to grab through the damning haze of giddiness. A single ripe peach, like the one he gave you years ago.
He tells you he doesn’t want to see you again.
You fight and crush your gift, run off into the shadows, and tell yourself he didn’t mean it. That he was blinded by anger and grief for the world he lost, and you can’t blame him for it. You are just the same.
Years pass. Centuries, and you think you remember what the darkness was like. It scares you more than anything.
You cope like you did all those times before. Throw yourself into work like he’ll be back in a week, and not some hundred years. Like he’ll be back at all.
You live day by day, second by second, counting the minutes until sunrise. It’s hard but you manage, because his kingdom needs you, and you owe him the help. Owe him everything.
Then the fires come, and even the semblance of normalcy is stolen from you. Ripped like stitches from a still gaping wound.
Everything blurs together after that.
He’s free.
He’s free and he isn’t coming back.
Released by a human monk of all creatures, bound by servitude. He goes willingly; doesn’t even attempt to snap the flimsy chains holding him in place. Doesn’t try to return to you.
You’ve waited. So very long. Watched, powerless, as the darkness flooded in, shrouding your world little by little. Watched as the rain washed away his footprints, as his warmth faded from your bed. As generations lived and died without having seen him once, knowing him only by the tales of their immortal elders.
You can’t do it anymore.
You are a shadow in the darkness, desperately hanging onto flickering wisps of light. A shape that someone loved, once. And as the light of a long-dead star passes Earth, as time reveals what was true all along, you face the darkness - and that truth - and drown.
You are nothing.
The river waves next morning
Will see the boatman gone;
This with her song's sheer power
Fair Lorelei has done.
He kills you.
A swift blow to the head. A cruel sort of mercy.
He kills you and takes the life he gave you, and all that was his in every way that matters. The light of your eyes. The breath on your lips. The warmth of your skin and the beat of your heart.
You were a shadow born from light, cursed to live in darkness. Someone who loved too deeply, and gave too much; Who needed the sun more than the air in your lungs - and died for it.
Someone who never learned how to let go.
He kills you and takes the life you found with him. The life you fought so hard to protect, but meant nothing in the face of losing him. The life you couldn’t bear to live on your own when the only good you found in this world was the good he gave you.
You only saw colour with him at its centre.
And in the end, even your death is his doing.
And even in death, you are his.