Disclaimer: The characters of Xena and Gabrielle belong exclusively to MCA/Universal and Renaissance Pictures. No copyright infringement was intended through the writing of this piece.
Subtext Warning: Not really.
Author's Notes: This is a task I set myself after having spoken to a literary critic friend of mine, Wayne, a while ago. We were basically discussing the way in which the correct words interact in order to create a specific mood or emotion. Even in prose, rhythm and meter are exceptionally important. So this is my attempt at playing with words. The other thing is that I rarely write in first person, so I thought I'd work on that too. Wayne is constantly telling me not to give up my day job. There is no real plot, just a stream of consciousness.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Kamouraskan for giving this the once over, she’s probably the reason why I haven’t posted this sooner <g>.
Feedback: If it sucks, tell me. If it works, tell me. I’m at
Dandelions
archaeobard
The dandelions that lay scattered throughout the clearing seemed to be staring accusingly at me with their unopened buds as they swayed in irritation at the breeze. I glared back, mentally willing them to make something of the challenge. The fallen log on which I sat was hard and bleak beneath me. I should have moved to the ground, yet the dandelions and their malicious gaze was more of a grievance than I could bear. I did not know where Xena was. She had left some time ago with little explanation. I took it as a given that she would return before nightfall, and she took it as a given that I would still be here. So here, I have what seems like an eternity to contemplate my soul.
Why I suddenly had this incredible desire was beyond my comprehension. It was more of a despairing notion of something completely ill-defined that crept into my heart and left a dull smudge of loneliness. Sometimes you need to cry for no reason and I could think of no reason why the hot, stinging tears spilled from me at that given moment. Yet there were too many possible reasons for the purging of emotion, for the cathartic ablution that washed against me with a fierce tide.
The dandelions waved idly at my seeming sorrow with vacillating obscurity. What mischance had caused them to go to seed here, where I would sit, to be appraised by their soulless pity? If silence had a name, it would be my heart.
Balance, so delicate in the extreme that a feather's breath would cause namelessness. That was the difference I had determined between she and me. Her rampant quiescence against my expression; my accord against her contention. Yet where was that balance now that I was alone? Where was the counterpoise to my reflection? Where was her action?
When at times I had watched her stalk cagily from uselessness or aggravation, I would calm her with a word; with a gesture; with my love. Though sometimes that was not enough to curb her volatile nature, a nature I could not touch or understand given millennia of wretchedness. How then could I survive being consumed by this inundation of intensity, a perspective so foreign to me that it was nameless in its vision.
I am not a weak tempered individual, yet on occasion, beneath her pain, I see nothing of myself, I am oblivious to my purpose; to my stature. Then her anguish becomes mine, unbridled in entanglement. Times when I weep solitary tears I know she will deny; times when I am self-judged for her misdeeds; times like this, when the very fabric of the earth sees me as something I am not.
What is my response but to cede my defeat, to abdicate part of my soul that belongs to her? So I stand, abandoned of light and embraced in dark, to solicit the angst that flows covertly through her veins.
This then is my lot with her, this exoneration of absolution, the efficacy of constancy and the malediction of prudence.
Well??