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Chapter 77: Sáeril – Nostalgia
Sáeril Almost didn’t recognize the taper fingers attached to his own hand. He traced the lines on the palm of his hands. He had never noticed his nails and thought that they were curious looking, at the same time familiar and alien. Trimmed short, softly rose, clean. How long since he last saw them? Four hundred years, give or take. They used to be so very natural, now he wasn’t sure what their use was.
The Sáeril that had those hands, the elf, didn’t exist anymore. Only in the memories of the very few who knew him before he became a mystery, back when he was only a mage. Nowadays it seemed so easy to be just a mage. All the uncertainties of his former existence meant nothing when tompared to not knowing what he was. Mysteries. Creatures that were unique, inexplicable, Líran, Yukari, Nuille. Me.
Funny thing: he thought of Yukari and the next moment she was coming in his direction, pushing fog aside like diaphanous curtains. She had known Sáeril before the eleves became extinct. But his, Sáeril knew, was not a memory: it was a dream.
Yukari stood in front of him. She was wearing the black uniform of the Imperial Guard, the silver brooch in the shape of a wolf clasping the red cape to her shoulder. Yukari’s hair was liquid blackness; her skin, white velvet. Slender body, beautiful movements. Adorable, if not for the eyes: two tears of infinity in the white of her skin, black holes that swallowed stars, galaxies, the universe. Hard to imagine that someone with those eyes would say something as mundane as:
‘Hi, how are you?’
‘I’m weak. Is this dream mine or yours?’
‘Fregósbor’s.’
‘Has he been dreaming a lot about you?’
‘He’s been dreaming of many things,’ she said, than called, ‘Fregs, some tea would be nice.’
The fog gave away to a silky grass under a cherry tree in full blossom. In the shade of the tree there was a white towel with all the necessary things for tea.
‘I remember this cherry tree,’ said Sáeril. ‘This is your old house in Sátiron.’
He turned and there it was, the little house, meticulously pretty, complicately simple, without one ornament too much, every pebble perfectly in harmony with the rest of the dream. Yukari hadn’t lived in that house since the eruption of the Land of the Banished.
‘He is waiting for a story that will change the future,’ said Yukari, ‘but dreams of distant past.’
She sat on her heels and began to prepare tea with gestures as smooth as the petals of the cherry tree. Yukari was an eternal ballet.
Sáeril sat facing her.
‘Maybe he wants to be part of the story.’
‘Then why dream of the past?’ asked Yukari.
‘Because then he knew who he was.’
‘Fregs,’ said Yukari. ‘Please dream me as I am now.’
In na instant, the founder and commander of the Satironese Imperial Guard vanished. In her place there was a child. She was still wearing the black uniform, which was now too big for her. She raised her arms and Sáeril folded the sleeves for her.
‘Sáeril might also feel more comfortable as himself,’ she said.
Sáeril had no time to protest, beg to wait. He was again under the black cloak. Hands, fingers, nails: black gloves. How sad not to be himself again, but what a relief to be himself.
I’m a paradox, he thought.
Yukari’s black eyes didn’t lose intensity in a child’s face. She prepared tea in silence and served Sáeril, offering his cup with both her hands. He had missed that tea, seeing Yukari prepare it.
‘Are you coming to Chambert?’ asked Yukari.
‘It was not in my plans. Why?’
‘I’d rather not be part of this story, but I don’t want to leave Fregósbro alone. He is fragile, lost. I imagine he would die if he knew how. Or live if he remembered how. Instead, he is stuck like a wrecked ship at the bottom of the ocean.’
They savoured their tea. Cherry petals fell from the tree, danced in the air, never touched the grass.
‘Maybe this is such a story that will bring sunken ships back to the surface,’ said Sáeril.
From far away they heard an eagle cry.
‘He dreams with Sátiron, but Franária is hear, if only an echo,’ said Sáeril.
‘Fregósbor hasn’t dreamt of Franária until now. Maybe the story has reached Chambert.’
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