This journey took me swiftly, it’s intense and I feel I have lesser control than previously. I let go, allowing it to take me. I tumble through darkness for a long while and for fear of being lost in it, I summon my ship. Calling the midnight dark wood to my hands and landing just before the wheel. I find my first mate and sink my fingers into the familiarity of his fur. Settling into my grounding, I beckon just as before. Relinquishing the wheel, along with any map or path. I ask the winds around to carry me where needed. We sit still, waiting for a long while, and I question if I’m being tested. A familiar idiom floats through my mind, the girl born with no patience, a label I’d inherited the day I joined this world and one that has followed me still. A notion I’ve faced in previous journeys as I’ve practiced relinquishing expectation and immediate interpretation. I watch the sails lay stagnant and say to the wind around, I’ll wait. I’ve nowhere to be anyway and when’s the last time I’ve had an afternoon to just lay about the deck. I lay, directly in the middle and fold my arms behind my head, soaking up the warmth of the wood below me. As if in answer, a gust of wind fills the sails and shoots the ship forward. We travel faster than I have before but I trust and ride the path. The wind whips at my hair and I can feel the air passing over and through my skin as I hold my arms out to cut through it. At once we dip over a steep end, falling fast. I cannot see the ship below me but only dark open sky above. Free falling at a speed I cannot fathom to a depth I cannot predict. I feel a tug at my face and layers of masks begin to peel away. I continue to fall leaving a line of faces I never wanted to bare floating in my path. As the last peels away I begin to fear the impact of the ground I can't see behind me. I demand a soft landing for my body and will the air around to deliver. Gently my body lowers to lay once more on the deck of my ship.
The Crescent sits still upon an endless dark ocean. I know my journey is not complete. I beckon the wind again, take me. Without hesitation, it blows forward pushing the bow through the water. We sail and I can’t make anything out in the darkness until we land at a single dock. I can see the peeking stones of the castle rising above the town and for a moment feel disappointment to have been brought here but not surprise. I knew we’d need to do this eventually, we might as well today. As I walk through the streets, the painting I’ve been haunted by since Spring comes to mind and I expect I’ll find them the very same. Sitting upon their cracked thrones, still blinded, the same black inky goop dripping from the malice at their backs. I expect it’s taken over most of the space by now. I enter the castle and make my way diligently through the halls to the center. I part through the crowd to the very front. Their image the same as the unpainted portrait that’s sat in the back of my mind these past months. A thick layer of inky goop spreads from their seats and covers much of the surrounding space, dripping from the walls and seeping through the stones of the floor. I stand before them, aware but uncaring for the crowd who will also hear what I have to say.
I forgive you. For all you couldn’t give to me, the same you cannot give yourself. I have found a heart and it breaks for the anger and malice you soak in and the cruelty you spread out within the world. I yearn to show you all the wonders that could be had if you too could break open the cage trapping your own. I know I cannot. I know you are as unseeing as you are deaf to these very words. I can no longer live in this frame, the portrait of a silent daughter hanging in your great halls. I have not fit within the bound canvas for some time now and I can no longer stand by as it hangs in my image.
I call the portrait to me from the wall behind and let it hover between myself and them. I give it one last look, empty eyes above sewn lips stare back. I fracture it, sending splinters of the embellished frame in all directions, leaving me staring at their unphased faces still blindfolded. I unleash the golden shine I’d found in the lagoon and let it fill the space from wall to wall. My body rises from the ground and ancient rusty shackles break free from my limbs. I’m brought up into the sky high above the kingdom, illuminating the darkness around. I can feel my face and body begin to change. Like fingers through clay, I can feel my features, my bones, my innards being reshaped. I hear a laugh from the artist just before me, my laugh. I hear her speak as she works, I have made you in my image. Not theirs. We have traveled far and molded our own likeness, one that could never be claimed by our beginning.
I cannot see but the image of the stone goddess at the end of the golden river comes to mind. The two suns carved into the backs of her hands. Upon finishing, my skin ignites in a fiery blaze. It takes over every inch of me and provides the deepest warmth I’ve ever felt. I stretch out wide and let the flames engulf my new form. Once a girl born between two suns, now unleashing the flames of her own. I tip back letting the rays shine out, pouring this love and light down over the kingdom. Over all who inhabit it, even them, even if they are unable to receive it. I lay in the sky commanding my own sunrise and letting the light spread as far as I am able. I could live in this warmth, I could stay here forever, a sun in the sky with nothing more to be expected of other than to shine. I allow it for a short time, reveling in the warmth and heat of the flame. I call The Crescent to me and land on its deck. Spreading the golden light from bow to stern, I cast the ship in the same flame and stand at its center. I will the vessel forward, a sun sailing through the sky. Light and darkness coexisting together. I can see the path forward, in balance of one another. I sail on knowing I can now summon this flame, carry it with me, and release it at will.
