#taethath

SCENE I. Twilight, in the fallow courtyard at the Kyralian Academy, Logopolis.

AT RISE: TAETHATH walks through barren raised beds, which once housed flowers. The ceremonial pyre burns in the background.

TAETHATH:

You plucked those ruddy roses with all the red of rue,

Deriding me for biding time, my branches slowly grew.

And as those scarlet blossoms fade, as flowers surely do,

Sticks and boughs I'll gather: bows and arrows made of yew.

((TAETHATH stops to let some STUDENTS cross her path; they are late to evening meditation. Once they exit, she continues.))

But, deep within the brambles brushed, half-forgotten, pale of hue,

Are all the thorns you left behind that pricked your fingers through,

With buds that lingered dormant, waiting rested, blooming new,

Untouched by spite's shaping shears, and fed by what is true.

Settie Taethath Serdanhia&Adept Hathir Sauros

Taethath was sleepless, as she often was, but it was no ordinary night. The womb of the moon was rounder than she’d ever seen it, and she did not need a candle to write by in such gilded light. Perhaps this silver lady was carrying twins, Taethath thought ruefully. Twins..., as she herself had once, in a dream, but that too was no ordinary dream. Two Minds within her, safe and nurtured, until cruel consciousness had stolen them away. All that had been left with her were their names.

...Perhaps that was all that would ever be of those children.

Her poem finished, she held it up in the light like a toast to a monarch's long, glorious life. She read it to her audience of one, though her guest was a grand one indeed.

--- “Some bound up leaves - forgotten lore, A Book of Hours, a blood-smeared floor, A dress of velvet splashed with gore Seams split, sleeves stained and hems are tore.

The body ‘neath no better wore, Dispatched to some low base knave’s chore As debt repaid, a settled score, All parties sated, set, and swore.

It makes one wonder: what's it for? In those pages, an open door? And through them, power, heights to soar? And magic straight into your core?

It’s said: thick blood cannot be poured, Kept by time with tight bonds of yore. ...Within our veins we've quite the store, And I do plead, worth all the more.” ---