MidoriRai
"I'm entitled to that."
She was distinctly unimpressed. "No. You're not."
He glared. "I want it and I will have it. It's mine by right."
She sighed. How many times had this scenario played out? Too many to count, that was for sure. And every time, there was the same outcome. Him getting what he wanted, and she scolded for not giving him his 'due'.
This time though, she'd had enough.
He looked at her, unimpressed.
She stared back defiantly.
For many moments, the impasse continued, both participants stubborn and unwavering. She started to scowl, fire burning in her verdigris orbs, fists clenching at her side. He glared back, dark optics set in a determined expression. The wind began to pick up, swirling around the two with strong breezes that tugged on their hair and clothes.
"Let me go." The words came out stronger than she intended, a fierce edge to her voice.
His face could have been carved from stone for all it moved. "No."
"Why not?" She was yelling now, her passionate words heard even over the now howling wind. "Why can't I? I'm strong enough now, I have been for years. All this time I've stayed here, all this time you've refused to let me go, all this time I've listened to you because you were right! I can go now. It's over. There's not much danger anymore. I want-" she broke off, almost sobbing. "I want to see the world. I want to experience freedom. It's time for me to venture out."
For a split second, his carefully guarded mask slipped and a flash of pain flickered across his face. He looked away, running a tired hand over his eyes. "I knew this day would come." His voice was soft, full of unnamable emotion and bone-deap weariness, yet still heard over the gales. "I knew that one day, you'd stand in front of me, full of fire and passion, and ask to venture out. I knew that one day, you'd be right to ask for this, that you have met every one of my requirements. And I knew that one day, I would have to give my final reply."
He met her eyes with his own, exhaustion and agony warring over his normally impassive face.
"I knew that one day - today - I would have to shatter your dreams."
"You can't go."
"Ever."
The winds howled around her, wreathing her figure in a shimmering maelstrom of icy silver rain. Blades of air sharpened by the force of their movement tore at her dress, the flimsy fabric long since soaked through yet still billowing around her legs in an imitation of soft silk. The cold had seeped into her very bones, her skin as numb and frigid as the pale alabaster appearance, and shaking hands clasped a sodden cloak close to her breast in a futile attempt to retain heat in the heart of this storm.
A stray verdigris lock, almost obsidian in the night, blew across her face from the harsh wind. She paid it no mind, studiously ignoring it as she did everything else. Grey-green eyes were firmly trained upon the flush of gold creeping across the horizon, visible even beyond the thick grey of thunderclouds. Slowly, softly, the storm petered out as the heavens stopped weeping but for a continuous curtain of misty rain.
A second, two, minutes, hours passed as the sun steadily rose, dominating the sky with it's bloodied gaze, till the inevitable came true. Day had broken with a red light. She stared forwards, unseeing, with empty eyes. Frozen lips barely moved, breathing but one sound.
"No…"
A last flash of lightning lit up the heavens, thunder roaring it's defiance as the last of the tempest faded away. In it's wake, a clear sky paved the way for a dance of dawn. The sunrise was truly magnificent - vivid splashes of orange and pink, of infinite blues and streaks of violet - all encompassing a vermillion sun, yet she did not see.
She could see nothing through tear-blurred eyes.
I value many things. I value my life, I value my freedom, I value my family and friends. But I think, the one thing more valuable than any other to me, is my perception of the world. It is what defines me what makes me me; it is what lets me discern issues of morality, and to navigate the webs of truth and lies. In a world where language is far too crude to define anything, perception is the one thing that lets me know justice and grace, forgiveness and joy, beauty and love.
Is it no wonder that I value perception so?
My mind is active even in sleep. To wake up is merely the decision of whether to open my eyes; no cloud of sleep fog misting my consciousness. Perhaps it is for this reason that I do not dream, even as half imagined images of rose tinted clouds and a shimmering garden of sunlight dance through my thoughts. I wonder, with a deep seated longing bruising my heart, if dreams were really as pleasant as the images I conjure up.
Perhaps, I think, an active mind is not always necessarily a good thing.