‹ Prequel: Lead and Gold
Vernacular
Remedies
When entities of our kind are so long secluded in our own hell of darkness, our vision becomes something akin to a triviality. We have walked the world for so long that we believe we have seen all there is to be seen. The moon is still a mercuric disc in the sky, the sun a godly star of fire, and humankind a wretched an resistant plague.
It is not until that triviality is stripped away from us that we realize exactly what a gift it is.
When Maharet lost her vision, I felt a wound within me that was unfamiliar, if only for the lapse of time since I had last endured it. It was something beyond the bite of fire, beyond the smiting kiss of sunlight; it was the pain of a shattered heart. I had long since believed that such heartache was a weakness of my mortal counterparts, something to be contemplated by those with a limited lifespan. Yet, as soon as I saw her contorted features, heard her anguish, I realized that the darkness that lingered within those broken sockets was some unrealized abyss incomparable to the darkness that I traversed nightly. In those recesses, I understood terror, loss, and nightmares beyond anything--almost anything--that I myself had ever endured.
And it was all because of another triviality: Love/
I loved her, irrevocably and unexplainably. The night her eyes were taken from her, it was as if a veil of that darkness that completely enveloped her had become a shade over my own vision. Things did not appear as vibrant and mysterious as they had been; everything was mundane, mortal, and dull. I had never realized how much of what I saw was intricately connected to her own insights and contemplations...
It is not until that triviality is stripped away from us that we realize exactly what a gift it is.
When Maharet lost her vision, I felt a wound within me that was unfamiliar, if only for the lapse of time since I had last endured it. It was something beyond the bite of fire, beyond the smiting kiss of sunlight; it was the pain of a shattered heart. I had long since believed that such heartache was a weakness of my mortal counterparts, something to be contemplated by those with a limited lifespan. Yet, as soon as I saw her contorted features, heard her anguish, I realized that the darkness that lingered within those broken sockets was some unrealized abyss incomparable to the darkness that I traversed nightly. In those recesses, I understood terror, loss, and nightmares beyond anything--almost anything--that I myself had ever endured.
And it was all because of another triviality: Love/
I loved her, irrevocably and unexplainably. The night her eyes were taken from her, it was as if a veil of that darkness that completely enveloped her had become a shade over my own vision. Things did not appear as vibrant and mysterious as they had been; everything was mundane, mortal, and dull. I had never realized how much of what I saw was intricately connected to her own insights and contemplations...