Fault
by llamajoy
author's note: because alexis wanted something folkenish, way back when. because rose sent a cd with just the slightest crack in the jewelcase. ...because tenshi said so.
Sometimes, when the moon is just right, I dream of another world.
Tonight you are alone, and you cannot hear my voice. The mystic moon is dim beyond your chamber window; your candle has burned low. Surely you can't see the text in the book at your elbow; the ink has faded. I know; I have some of those thumb-worn pages learned by heart.
Fanelia sleeps easily, you should know that. Look outside the circle of wavering candelight, cast your sleepless eyes over the slumbering world and taste their peace.
Step to the window and greet the stars.
They are bright tonight, where the moons are not, spreading their broad jewel-net over the sleeping world, shaping dreams. Watching over your Fanelia and steadfast in their loyalty, spinning ancient stories in their silent tongue. Look, the borders of your land-- sweet countryside laid neatly from the knot-belt of the Lady of the Sea in the north, to the unblinking milk-purple eye of Ryuu, there, in the south.
Yes, I mention his name. Ryuu, the lawmaker-king of Atlantis. Perhaps now they should not hush their voices to speak of Draconian heroes-- it was *they* who named the constellations. You will have to help the people overcome their fear; I trust you. Show them your wings.
It was a dark night when I was born, the chill air weeping dew for the new moon and the early thaw, Ryuu standing high in the sky. Under such a heaven was I born, and mother said the purple star winked when I cried out. Father said it must have been the pain.
Not so you.
You, you were born in the trembling clear stillness of dawn, white Dragon rising in the warm spring east. Mother wept for holding you, I remember brushing back her hair from her cool forehead. Somber as only a ten-year-old prince can be, I told her not to cry.
She smiled a little, though I could see the hurting on her face. And she brushed my cheek and said she wept for joy.
It was the first time I had thought of such a thing.
Rest your face in your hands, my brother, and sleep until the morning.
*
Van had almost gone to bed. He could not have said why he sat at his window until his candle flickered out, waking with his face in his hands when the sky grew pale with the dawning.
Nor could he have said why he remembered the gift, at that moment.
Never long on explanations, Dryden had presented him with the fist-sized box with only a smile and an insistence that its contents belonged to Fanelia. He had left before Van could open it, headed back to Palas before the afternoon grew too long.
Van had forgotten all about it, until now.
The box itself was worthy of a king, finely-wrought filigree clasp and panels of iridescent shell, carved and polished by Asturia's finest craftsmen. But working that intricate catch, Van opened the box to discover nothing more remarkable than an 'energist.
He lifted the 'energist dubiously, turning it over in his hands. Smooth to the touch, redder than blood. Unfaceted, too-- no skilled engineer had laid a finger on this jewel. It wasn't as if he was in need of any; Fanelia exported 'energists to Asturia, not the other way around. The native dragons, even now, were thriving, enough to sustain a--
There, at the heart of the raw 'energist: a tiny fracture beneath his fingers.
A flaw. He blinked. A fault, as he turned it in his palm, that glimmered palest purple against the spreading sunlight. He'd never seen such a thing; it intrigued him.
Was the dragon killed uncleanly, to cause such an odd imperfection? Either the dragon had died or not, though he supposed an expert blow to the ribcage might have caused damage to the 'energist. But such a tiny flaw? He smiled wryly. Had it had its reptilian heart broken? Amused with that line of thought, he turned the 'energist between thumb and index finger.
For a moment, as it sparked and caught the light, he thought the crack was shaped like a-- teardrop?
More carefully, now, he turned it, and if he angled it just so, it was--
Shaped like a pair of spreading wings.
Aniue--
Van bent his head over the 'energist, his heartbeat loud in his ears. His eyes burned with the sting of coming tears, but he forgot to look away.
*
I wanted to lift that burden from your shoulders, such things a child is not meant to bear. I wanted to close that heavy storybook and whisper new stories to you. To breathe words brave and new, to paint a landscape of change, to fill your night with dreaming. I wanted to show you that all things are possible, that a human heart is all that is needed to change the world. Fate, unaltered, would have it that you might learn such things in spite of me.
May you learn to weep not only in sorrow, but in joy.
And sometimes, when the moon is just right, may you dream of that other world, my brother.
~o~