The Bright Star of Hope: Memories

  • There is a spot high up on a balcony in the Jarl's palace of Dragonsreach that I have become accustomed to visiting. It has been something of a meditation to come here at the end of a day. From here it's like I can gain a fresh perspective on all that has happened as I gaze down at the dark streets and districts of the city, while the cool and soothing stars above in turn gaze down upon me. From this vantage point I can see the sapling Kynareth bestowed, its beautiful leaves and blossoms are almost glowing under the red and silver light of Masser and Secunda, and its bows gently sway in the nighttime breeze. That tree has already grown so much in just a handful of days, is demonstrating each moment that it has the potential to be greater in size and majesty than the previous Gildergreen, which was sadly struck by lightning. But it was Kyne's will as the goddess of air and storms, the Kiss at the End, that the tree's countless years be over so that new life could grow.

     

    Endings, seasons, death and new life. The Arkayn Cycle. I had a friend, once, a long time ago it feels like, a priest of Arkay and former Knight of the Circle. Death was his life for he would bring it, save people from it, and console those touched by it. I haven't met anyone since whose faith was so strong in the face of it, but yet be so burdened with questions by it, that it seemed he would break at the next. The day I met him he held a baby boy in his arms while he recited the last rites before the child's mother and father who were wracked and broken with grief. They looked up at him, dazed and numb, a couple whose future had ended. Within that chapel where sobs were the choir and tears flowed like holy water, his words alone, calm, soft and deep, could bring some small comfort to people for whom all hope had fled. Or, at the very least, was something for them to focus on when all around them the world stopped making sense.

     

    Sometimes there were no sounds apart from his voice, at times the enormity of loss was a void people brought in with them, a hole in reality where only madness and dark, mis-shapen horrors dwelt. His voice would act as an anchor for those whose minds teetered on collapse and whose thoughts walked the edge of a fathomless abyss in which monsters prowled. Once the light of hope for the future flees, how does anyone rekindle that flame? What voice, what words could console the mother for whom there would be no other? To what does one say to the father who now must continue each day, bearing upon his shoulders the weight of two people's lives? The truth is that there are no words. There is only time, the seasons, Arkay's cycle. In time, grief lessens as memory fades, and those memories form the wax of a new candle, one that maybe, someday, will be ready to be ignited with the light of hope once again.


    Strong are those who can find that new flame and keep it lit. Blessed and adored are those who can breathe it back to life in another.

     

    Yet ever will it be a fragile flame, easilly snuffed out by the winds of fate.

     

    For everything must come to an end, but each ending is also a new beginning, a new candle from the wax or sapling fom the soil. That process is such a shared undertaking among the Divines that it becomes almost impossible to see where one begins and another finishes, for Arkay's dominion over the seasons in the cycle of life in Kynareth's own realm all fall within the structure created by Akatosh when his perch from eternity allowed the day.

     

    I look up and can see that eternity stretch off into the blackness of Oblivion, an eternity pricked with innumerable points of silver hues, and feel their magic and light wash over and through me, Aetherial bridges to a realm of such magnificence and allure that it makes me feel so small and vulnerable under the radiance of that cosmic dance. It won't be long before the constellation which marked my birth becomes prominently visible in the heavenly mystery.

     

    Vulnerability is mortality, "kindle beloved by the Gods for its strength-in-weakness, a humility that can burn with metaphor and yet break easily and is always, always doomed to end in death, and this is why those who let their souls burn anyway are beloved of the Dragon and His Kin..." To be beloved of Akatosh is the greatest gift the Divines have given me, and I have never before been within His presence as much as I am now, and it is humbling and somewhat terrifying to ponder so many of the questions that I ask each night.

     

    I do not know what it means to be Dragonborn, or even what a dragon actually is, but from the scant volumes I have read, from the words of Nordic folklore among Whiterun's guards and citizens, and from the teachings of my own order, when I absorbed the soul of that dragon it was as though "offering myself to that daybreak allowed the girdle of grace to contain me. When my voice returned, it spoke with another tongue. After three nights I could speak fire." Ironic that the words of a blasphemous book provide a context I can understand, although breathing fire is not exactly what happened. In any case, to be part of St Alessia's line and be blessed with the same connection to The Dragon she had makes me hang my head in unworthiness while my soul itself sings out praise in her name, freedom's name. "Akatosh, looking with pity upon the plight of men, drew precious blood from his own heart, and blessed St. Alessia with this blood of Dragons..." If I, as a Dragonborn, share the same blood Alessia herself shared with Akatosh, then so too must each dragon. For if only a Dragonborn can take the spirit of another dragon, then each spirit must be part of Akatosh as I am: "we of all the Aurbis live on through His fragments."

     

    Perhaps none so much as me. 

     

    'Neath pale orbs in night's velvet robe

    An ebony shroud studded with jewels

    I hear the sound of sacred falls

    Shimmering in the light of Jone and Jode

     

    The blackness stretches on, eternal

    An endless void of blessed Oblivion

    I gaze up at its cloak, obsidian

    Walled by works and realms infernal

     

    Something breaks in the mind's cage

    Noisome mist obscures the light

    I smell the start of endless night

    Where shines no warrior, thief, or mage

     

    The future is of blood-cursed prophecy

    Or of dawn's first fierce and fiery blush

    I feel the colour of early winter's hush

    A dead but relentless apathy

     

    Foggy tendrils like a murky rope

    Part before an unexpected kindle

    I taste the bitterness start to dwindle

    Replaced by the rays of fecund hope

     

    A presence of love, pure and divine

    Strides towards me with measured tread

    I sense the spark shrouded by subtle thread

    Emerging from a form, proud and fine

     

    The rift re-seals and cool night returns

    Lit by the missing's flesh divinity

    I touch the familiarity of affinity

    Yet for the endless dream my heart still yearns.
     

Comments

9 Comments   |   morrowindnostalgia and 9 others like this.
  • The Sunflower Manual
    The Sunflower Manual   ·  November 17, 2017
    Finally up and finished this short. Was really enjoyable throughout all six chapters - really well-defined characters combined with that Phil poetic flair I've come to expect :D
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  July 7, 2017
    The only thing I don't like about this was the fact that it took me so long to catch up and read it. 
    You captured the whole moment here. The words you chose really makes one stand back and think about life and death. It almost echos as you rea...  more
    • Paws
      Paws
      Sotek
      Sotek
      Sotek
      The only thing I don't like about this was the fact that it took me so long to catch up and read it. 
      You captured the whole moment here. The words you chose really makes one stand back and think about life and death. It almost echos as you read further. 
        ·  July 7, 2017
      Hey, thank you Sotek :) I meant to delete this, am almost glad I forgot to :D
      • Sotek
        Sotek
        Paws
        Paws
        Paws
        Hey, thank you Sotek :) I meant to delete this, am almost glad I forgot to :D
          ·  July 7, 2017
        Why delete it? Every time someone deletes a piece of fiction whether it's poetry or a story a werewolf dies...... 


        don't do it.....
        • Paws
          Paws
          Sotek
          Sotek
          Sotek
          Why delete it? Every time someone deletes a piece of fiction whether it's poetry or a story a werewolf dies...... 


          don't do it.....
            ·  July 7, 2017
          Haha, I like that. Your outlook remains an inspiration :)
  • Paws
    Paws   ·  June 21, 2017
    Thanks Karves, "...and that this was proof that he was a myth-echo, and that where he trod were shapes of the first urging" :)


    Thank you Lis :) Pagliacci, Vesti la giubba was the soundscape.
    • The Long-Chapper
      The Long-Chapper
      Paws
      Paws
      Paws
      Thanks Karves, "...and that this was proof that he was a myth-echo, and that where he trod were shapes of the first urging" :)


      Thank you Lis :) Pagliacci, Vesti la giubba was the soundscape.
        ·  June 22, 2017
      I love that aria. It's so epic. 
  • The Long-Chapper
    The Long-Chapper   ·  June 21, 2017
    This is very moving Phil. I can see a certain someone thinking about this very carefully, almost saying the same words even. Funny, how you really can sometimes capture his moods. 
  • Karver the Lorc
    Karver the Lorc   ·  June 21, 2017
    Very deep, my friend. Very deep and dark waters here, with plenty of undercurrents. Not an easy thing to overcome, the realisation you are a myth reborn. Very deep indeed.