for @searchingforartemis‘s #jointhehunt
I have a story that I’ve been writing for a while(not posted anywhere yet) that I thought I could do a piece on for “time.” The story is a fantasy piece that I’d love to talk about if anyone has questions or is interested and two of the main themes that made me think of it for this prompt are immortality and polyamory. Immortality and the consequences of it that don’t occur to people who are young and surrounded by people who are full of life was my connection to ‘time’ and being poly is a part of my identity that I don’t talk about as much as being ace and since this is a pride event, I thought the idea fit.
the sun is sticky and hot and you think you might melt away in bliss as the seasons go by. you lay back on the grass and let the dew mix with sweat on your damp skin. you let your head loll to the side and look at him in the grass next to you staring up at the clouds. he looks like a fantasy with his golden skin and his dark hair, his eyes a glimmering green like the forest that he loves more than you. you don’t resent him that. he loves that forest more than he’s ever known how to love anyone else.
you tip your head to the other side and see her. the picture of beauty, her raven locks long and tangled with flowers and leaves, her warm skin glowing like an ember in the sunlight, her eyes as fiery as her passion and as bright as the flowers that spring up under her feet. his forest worships the ground she walks on. you don’t resent her that. if you could be a flower springing up in her path, to make her smile at your beauty if only for a moment, you would be.
you are other to them in all the ways that matter the least. your hair is bright and your eyes are dark. you are small while they stand tall enough to shake the earth. you would dance where she would rage and you would rage where he would dance. you would flicker out where she would burn and you would fan the flames that he would douse. you are the viewer, the painter, the artist, and they are the painting, the photograph, the captured image of idealized fantasy. you yearn while they take.
you laugh with him and dance with her and live with them and the time slips by and away faster and faster with each passing moment, hour, day, month, year, decade. you let her take you to fly in the clouds and fall knowing that she will catch you. you let him take you to walk the paths and the branches of his forest, so far off the ground that it’s almost dizzying. you hold her hand and he pulls you close. you melt in their hands.
her raven hair begins to fade, becoming coarse where it was once silken.
his strong and steady hands begin to tremble and fall back from the challenges they had once grasped eagerly.
her eyes are still passionate, but it becomes a more steady warmth than the untamed wildfire you fell for.
his heart is as steady as it has ever been in spirit, but as the years pass the beats flutter.
your hair stays bright. your skin stays smooth. your eyes stay young.
you never love them an ounce less for it.
you never resent them time.
she slows and he softens and you stay the same, as bright and youthful as you had been that day in the hot and sticky sun when they were barely sixteen and thought they had all the time in the world. you don’t know how old you had been.
her hands are spindly and thin and the version of her you fell in love with would have hated them. you press kisses into her palms and whisper promises into her hair. it’s lighter than yours now.
his back is bent in a way that the version of him that you fell in love with would have scorned and been ashamed of. you trace constellations onto his back and kiss his neck and tell him you love him enough times that he can never forget.
they are not the versions of themselves that you fell in love with but you love them nonetheless. you are the same. you are the same as you were the day they met you and the same as when they fell and the same when you made your promises to grow old together. you’d pressed those promises into their hands and known from the start that you would break them. they grew and you were there. they aged and you watched. they never resented you that.
you hold their children close. you hold your children close and you love them. you hold them and you watch them grow until they look older than you. until they look older than you and you hold each other as you say goodbye to Him and to Her. you hold your children, by bond if not by blood, and you look them in the eyes and come to terms with the fact that you will outlive them.
you rock your great-grandchild to sleep and he smiles at you. he smiles and he has Her smile. he has Her smile and His eyes. Her smile and His eyes and… and… your nose. he has your nose. you kiss him on your nose and he smiles Her smile and you think that maybe there are some promises that are better off broken.
you kiss your great-great-great-granddaughter’s forehead and spin her around so you can braid her hair.
you watch them grow and grow and you see Her eyes in some and His posture in others. some have His hands and others have Her hair and Her feet. you love them. you love every single one of them. you cry for every single one of them. you make your promises. some you keep and some you break. you love and you live. you smile.
