Untitled as of yet

[celest]

this is something i've been slowly working on. I'll let you know when i get a title. i hope you all like it.

By the way I'll probaly do a mass posting of the first parts that I have and then slow down.

[celest]

Alile entered her room slowly. With out even thinking she weaved through the darkness like a wraith finding her way to her dresser. Her pale fingertips graced the oil lamp causing light to flicker into the room, illuminating the area. The room hadn’t changed at all from the last time I had visited her. It hadn’t changed for eight years. Everything in the room was placed in the exact same place it had been that stormy night eight years ago. I looked out the window too see clouds gathering once more. Tonight’s storm would be just as fierce. A flash of lightning added its light to the room for a moment allowing me to see more clearly. Things on higher shelves were turning grey with dust. Everything else had a light coating. I knew few things had been moved since my last visit, and those that had been mover were returned to the place the occupied eight years ago. Again I looked at the dust. Only occasional movement in the room and the wind from the window had wiped away the years of neglect.

I was sitting on the bed as she came into the room. Her black hair hid her face from me as the small flame appeared. She didn’t notice I was there. She never did. I had visited every year on this day for the past eight years and every year her mind slipped farther away from me. Slowly she raised her bowed head to look into the mirror. I stared into the once beautiful face. Her marvelous dark green eyes, set like emeralds in ivory compared to her pale skin. Her small chin curved gracefully upward meeting her high cheekbones. Her lips like her skin were pale, a soft pink. All was perfectly framed in jet black hair, shinny, smooth and perfectly straight. It cam down past her shoulders to the small of her back, just like her mother’s had. It saddened me to see her. Her beauty was still there in the physical state but it was gone from her soul. Her once shinning eyes were dull and lifeless. She hadn’t change much since last year. Her looks had matured a little more. Her face was thinner, more hallow. I was nearly taken back. She now looked just as her mother had when we placed her in the ground. There was one difference. Her mother had a look of peace as the casket was closed. There was nothing in my daughter’s eyes. Emotion had left her.

I wondered if she had ever cried for me. Some how I knew she hadn’t. I stood up and walked slowly around the room, seeing if she would detect my presence. I walked around to the side of the bed opposite her. Quietly I touched the spring time quilt her mother had made for her. My fingers followed the seams as memories flooded back to me.

[celest]

The day was warm. The flowers were just beginning to bloom this early spring day. I walked quickly home from my workshop. The day had been long. I had woken up early so that I could return home early. After finishing the rapier I had been working on I left the rest of the work, mostly horse shoes to my two apprentices. I entered my home and listened. Everything was quiet. There was a strange peace hovering in the air. “They must be sleeping,” I thought to myself. As quietly as I could, I washed the remaining soot from my hands. I walked over to the bedroom door and listened. All was silent. I walked quietly into the room. Adamina sat in bed while Alile slept next to her. Her fingers moved quickly as she quietly stitched a new seam in the quilt. Softly she hummed the song she had sung for as I long as I had known her. The music was almost too soft; it was hard to tell if it was real or imaginary, something that simply played in my mind when ever I gazed upon her. She looked up from her work and smiled at me. Her eyes glowed yet her smile was weak. I sighed softly so she wouldn’t hear. I walked over to her and kissed her cheek. She closed her eyes and gently touched my rough face. I raised my hand to hold hers. She opened her eyes and gazed into mine.
“What’s wrong?” she asked me in a whisper. Her voice was soft so not to wake Alile.
“Nothing,” I replied, trying to keep her from worrying.
“I heard your sigh,” she smiled cunningly at me. It was impossible to keep anything from her.
“How was Alile today?” I tried to change the subject. Adamina’s look was not pleasant; there was no escaping her question. “I’m worried,” I gave in, “about you.”
Her smile was soft and kind. It was the reason I fell in love with her. “You mustn’t worry about me. You must keep your head high with your spirits. I will be fine, we mustn’t let Alile worry.” She turned away from me to pet Alile’s hair. She stirred gently under her mother’s touch. I gently held her shoulders as we both smiled at our sleeping daughter. “Her birthday is next week.”
I nodded in agreement. “She’s already eight. I still feel like she was born only yesterday, like I could still hold her in my arms.” I reached down and placed my hand on my wife’s. “What does she want for her birthday?”
“Medicine,” she replied with a sad smile.
“For you?” I already knew the answer to my question. She nodded gently. Her eyes began to water.
“We try so hard to keep her sheltered yet she always knows.” One tear fell down my wife’s pale cheek. She wiped it away and began once more to sew the quilt. I watched for a moment. The quilt was almost finished. The design was an intricate star pattern in soft spring colors. Adamina had been collecting bits of fabric for years to make the quilt. She had begun it only a month ago and it was already near completion. I never thought that all those random pieces would come together, yet she had done it. There was a magic in her ways that I had never figured out. I smiled knowing that Alile also had that magic.
“She is a very smart girl, and a very kind one. She is just like her mother,” I wrapped my arms around my wife and watched Alile smile in dreams.

[celest]

The memory shattered as Alile slammed her fists on her dresser. Light clouds of dust settled back down onto the dresser. Her face was covered by her hair again. I walked slowly over to her and hovered there behind her. I wanted to touch her, to comfort her. I wanted to take her into my arms the way I had when she was born. I wanted to hold her as I had when her mother was lowered into the ground. To hold her and cry with her, the way we had the nights after Adamina’s death. I knew it was useless though. She wouldn’t feel me. She would shrug me off and ignore my presence just has she always did. To her, in her mind, all she would feel would be the wind. Her mother’s magic had left her.
I stepped slowly away from her, looking away. Turning from her I reached out my hand and let it hover over items in the room. I stopped as dust blew off one of the items on the low shelf. Most of the shelf was filled with various books and other items. There was an old sewing kit, a small jewelry box, once belonging to my mother. All seemed to be in its place, but at the end there was one very small item. It glistened as the light hit it. The small clear stone shined brightly. With was naturally polished to a perfect sphere, round and smooth. The stone was no bigger than a pin head. It was set in a silver ring. I had set it in the ring myself. It looked so small next to the books and other items. It would take a hundred of them to fill the jewelry box. I smiled fighting back tears. So small, yet the memories that went with it were great, again the room faded around me as I began to relive the past.

[celest]

I pulled the small bit of silver out of the cooling water. Carefully I polished the silver ring. I wiped clear the last bits of soot from the clear stone. I had found it in the river. I knew that it was perfect in every way. I worked carefully to set it in the ring. It was perfect, everything was perfect. My father even praised me on the ring. I carefully wrapped the ring in the small square of red velvet I pulled from my pocket. I held it tightly in my hand as I ran from my father’s workshop. Everything was a blur as my mind raced over the events leading up today. I quickly ran home to prepare. My mother was waiting there for me smiling. I think she had been waiting for this day too. She stood there holding a new shirt. It looked as if she had only just finished it moments before I walked in the door. Carefully, so not to dirty my mother or the shirt, I hug my mother and with out saying a word I left to wash away the soot and dirt. I found the new shirt waiting for me on my bed afterwards with my good boots shinned and polished. Quickly I changed into my clean clothes. I picked my best vest from the armoire. I brushed out my hair with a comb and checked my self in the mirror. At last I was ready. I turned to again find my mother standing there. She smiled as she handed me the ring wrapped in velvet. “Now don’t run to fast or you’ll muddy your boots,” she cheerfully scolded me. Smiling at her joke, I walked out the door into the sunshine. The day was bright and warm outside. I ran from my home. I was ready. Now I had to find Adamina.
I knew instinctively where to find her. She would be by the river, she loved letting the cool waters run over her feet during the hottest times of the day. She would be sitting there with some work on her lap, some needle work, shelling peas, or maybe just making a daisy chain for one of the children playing nearby. She would be there just as she had been the first time I saw her. She would be there as she was nearly every time I saw her after that, smiling softly as she always did.