“ i am made of memories. “
THE TENDER AMITIES OF THE IRRECONCILABLE / WHAT IS THE WIND / IF NOT ANOTHER THING WE WANTED TO HOLD / BUT COULDN’T.
you are nothing more than four years old when your father says that monsters are real, and wait right outside your door. he probably says it before then, as well, but this is the night you remember above all the rest. he says, the gods have made for us a world to prove ourselves in – BLOOD FOR BLOOD – until only the victor remains. history is then written by their hand, in fire or blade. he says this, and the roof goes up in flames. he says this, and the village is half ash, half rebuilt by first light. he says this, and still, you go out into the woods midday, looking for trolls. i guess what i am trying to say is, we are who we have always been leading towards. even in someone else’s dream. even after the thirteenth day of the worst blizzard you have ever seen. even in a village where you hide away by the riverbed, miles away from your home, in some kind of secret, childish hope that it would be over by the time you returned, while something moves just beyond the tree-line, teeth intact.
you remember the day of his arrival, during something like almost-spring, toothless and you are soaring low, surveying, when something strikingly colorful, almost a bifröst, opens up and dumps a boy out. later, your father says something about practicing for diplomacy with other tribes that will be strangers, too, but at that point you are already only too curious about the boy unclaimed by a tribe with a strange name who fell from the sky itself. later, the boy says trollhunter, and you are awe-struck as it continues to echo around the great hall, and you decide you want to know everything he is willing to tell.
afterwards, vikings whisper their doubts in shadowed corners that this boy is some messenger of the gods, something to take berk storm-driven, reminding us of what we owe. like he is testament to the slick days of winter, of every sun that set the day peaceful. like he is some shimmering ghost who has come to haunt a place that of which is not yet dead, but will be. but will be.
they are half-right, in a way only a ghost, half-myth themselves, could understand.
curiosity is a never ending thing when it comes to jim, how everything you have lived and known everyday of your life, each crevice and plot of your home is suddenly - new, again. berk set aflame in fresh light. you sit beside him in the firelight, and his eyes are so blue, you think it outshines his amulet and makes even the sky envious. on this day you decide you are sure of it – nothing like him has ever graced the shores of berk before.
there is some ancient glory he holds in his hands and it names him, like treaded light upon a pedestal, or some sacrificial stone. it speaks to him in a kind of mean flattery, tells him he is the sole chosen for a mantle that will do everything in its power to crush him beneath its own weight. he knows both worlds, two, three, four worlds, boy, hero, son, stolen. placed here, where it takes all of it from him and names him anew. you hope, if nothing else, that berk will change in its unrelenting cruelness, that for once, for him, it is kind.
there is too much of him unspeaking, too much of him you understand. you don’t know how to say it, don’t know how to ask, where to even begin, don’t know how to measure the hurt in a way that is translatable. it is something, with all of your words, all of your runes, cannot name. but the feeling of it – like lightning in the back of your neck. like sleeping with your eyes open so the darkness could not swallow you whole. like wanting to be alone with your hands, and be unafraid of what they have done – sometimes, you think you can see it in his eyes.
it is summer, somewhere, maybe where he comes from, but not here. he mentions it, sometimes, as the time passes, his home amongst the california oaks. you wonder what plans he had, as he is talking, integrating himself amongst your people, and how many years there are between you where his dreams do not exist. something in you wants to make them alive again, here, even if berk is no place for beginnings.
here is a morning buried deep-winter, and the chill it holds – something that goes through the heart of you. you wake up and jim is missing, bed empty and covers smoothed back into place. the sun is barely stretching above the horizon, toothless crooning soft in his sleep as you pass by on your way downstairs.it doesn’t take long to find him - jim sits early at his spot at the table, hair mussed like the night was unkind, knees drawn up and gaze set towards the sea, a sheer sky. he looks like he is lost in it, and you make to step lighter, as to not disturb him in this, a fading dream. you move to start breakfast, listening to the morning, but the quiet wind of it is solemn, like for this moment, all sound is sad.
out of the quiet, he says, i am made of memories, and you almost drop the pan. it is so soft, and so mournful, that it goes through you, like the cold. somehow unspeakably, this stings worse. you look for the words to say, some kind of comfort for his heart, some familiarity, how there is always a part of you that waits, even for the nonreturnable, that leaves him grasping for some other horizon at the center of some other world. nothing comes to mind, and you are left with the realization that you don’t know how to voice the hurt you can’t talk yourself out of.
you finish breakfast, and let the sizzling of food fill the empty air of the room as you walk over, and gently lay a hand on his bicep after setting down the plates. you open your mouth, and the words now line themselves up on your tongue : how can i help / we’re going to get you home / i promise you will see them again / i’m so sorry, i - before something determined covers your features, mouth closing and quirking into a small smile. ❛ hold on just a sec, alright ? ❜ you say, tone something knowing, tender, before softly squeezing the skin beneath your hold, and racing back up the stairs.
when the clicking of your prosthetic meets the wood of the first floor again, you are holding a piece of parchment the height of over half of yourself, with a medium-sized sketchbook pressed beneath your arm, and charcoal pencils messily gripped between fingers.
determined, you lay out a map of berk and its surrounding archipelagos before him, stretching topographical across the table – your whole world fitting between the tableware. you take another sheet from your sketchbook, and begin to draw an arch, a bridge, charcoal striking across the page. you shadow it in, and roughly do the rest to cover the empty space - the curvature of his astrolabe, your image of the staggering height of the heartstone in trollmarket, the arc of the cul de sac before the front porch of his home, windows in all the wrong places. all of the things he has described to you, in some way, given half-life again, like this. you hope it is enough, for him.
you place the paper atop of the ocean next to berk –––– both worlds, apart but together, your criss-crossed histories falling into place between the maps’ torn edges, like puzzle pieces of some far-off land. you say, it’s almost california, right ? while grinning at him, because you don’t know that it isn’t, and maybe that is the point.
place yourself in your usual spot next to him, pull another new page to the surface and begin drawing his portrait, tufts of hair to the flush of his shoulders beneath a tunic. it’s a little messy, but you’ve had practice, colored the sky in full, and he has always managed the feat of knocking the wind out of you.
minutes pass, and you turn the book, show him the hasty but finished portrait, tapping the end of your pencil against the empty space, awaiting friends, places, ornaments. memories. the air holds its breath –––––– ❛ tell me about them ? ❜ your tone is casual - if he wants to keep his past-future where it used to live, you will let him. you will give him that. you will savor the savior while you have him.
you want to, and so you almost say, speak about the summer. the first hum of pollen, your bike, your best friends. tell me about the life you dreamed of living, all of the things you have left behind and i will help you remember them when you feel them fading from you. you know the weight that hazy memories hold, and you want to brush it all out of his hair like blades of grass. you want to say, you are carrying so much. you want to say, you can put it down, here, if you want to. i wouldn’t mind.
if you could grant him – peace, here, in the cold, in these rough winds, would it be enough ? you are trying. you are trying. you hope it could be, one day.
