Let Go

“Let go,” the voice echoed, the hauntingly beautiful melody flowing from my mind and onto the wind and rain that whips me at the edge of the pier. I gaze down into the raging sea below me thoughtfully. I watch every incoming wave crash against the wooden pillars below my boots and follow each one back out into the horizon. ‘There’s no cure,’ my thoughts reassure me. And I didn’t want there to be. That would mean that the item in my trembling hand was a free ticket to restoration. Why should everyone else get a free ticket when I put my ass on the line to cure myself of the plague? Why should I have to embark on a delusional voyage and collapse into the wet earth of the eastern fields to earn a remedy whilst the citizens get theirs served on a fuckin’ silver platter?

I’ve pitted myself against the Six; there is no turning back now. And I hold no regrets. The plague would have taken my old bones before any action to find this miracle panacea would have surfaced. And I was not going to let the few years I have left be swiped away from me because of some fuckin’ disease. It’s simple. I heard the warnings, and I acted upon them. And just liked the scarlet-cloaked figure said, my life was handed back to me. By Her.

And as my hand grew heavy, my grip began to loosen finger by finger. And with each calloused digit’s slow release came a surge of wisdom that a man of my years ‘should’ have. A comforting voice that coaxed, “You’ve done the right thing.” And it was not long before the small platinum key that was once in my hand had now joined the depths of the ocean.

Meet Sasha...

“Meet Sasha,” the well-dressed man announces proudly, the arm slipped around her waist holding a steady, yet gentle grip upon the buxom woman beside him. I was in shock. Awe. A restrained astonishment was written all over my features, yet an overwhelming hatred for my brother was clearly visible in every line on my face (and their numbers had grown over the last ten years quite considerably). “Nice to meet ya,” I force out with a smile. False, but nevertheless a smile. A beautiful summer day is underway. The twin suns force the shadows at my feet to lengthen across the recently swept cobblestones below them to create a beautiful mirage of dancing figures. The birds in the nearby gardens were chirping for what seemed to be the first time since the Cataclysm. And my brother stands before me for the first time in a good 7 years. I should be happy for him. I should throw my weary arms around him and let him smell the whisky on my breath from only this morning. But I won’t. I fuckin’ refuse, actually.

She reminded me of her. The one I loved before I retreated into this bitter shell of a man I am now. The one I loved before she was taken from me by the Darkness that has befallen us. The one I loved before the Watch decided an extra fuckin’ steel-wielding hand was not needed on that western gate. As I stand in sheer and utter silence before the pair, I can’t help but trace every fibre of her elegant bodice, and how it clings almost perfectly to her curved figure. “Are you still providing for the Watch, brother?” His words force a quiver down my spine that only results in a disgruntled rumble of my cracked voice. ‘You know full fuckin’ well that I quit armouring for those bastards’ retorts the voice in my head instinctively. My yellowed teeth bite down upon the bottom lip that only barely covers the snarl it once wore. I can still taste the alcohol. I’m lucky. If I’d had five instead of four, I would have surely not been able to stop myself. ‘Do you flaunt your fuckin’ tramp and wealth to Damion, or am I just fuckin’ lucky on this Morday?’ my thoughts persist, the internal struggle continuing to emerge as my piercing gaze never seems to leave that fuckin’ pendant my brother wears so conceitedly on his open-chested shirt.

‘How is Damion, I wonder?’ I think, the lack of hostility surprising even myself. ‘Is he a successful merchant like Helius with a wife, son and fuckin’ two storey house on Market Street?’ My thoughts appear to take me away from the situation if only for a moment. My grey eyes drift from the pair only to rest vacantly upon where the two bodies connect at the waist, the arm that slinks around her back and the ornate wedding ring that rests on the weak little hand that pokes out from behind her figure. ‘I could have had at. I could have fuckin’ had that.’ The rage pours out of my head like water from the elegant fountain to my left. “Brother?” the voice inquires in that smooth fuckin’ tone that got him to where he is today. My gaze is forced to lock back upon his. There is a pity resting behind his eyes; the kind a noble has for a pauper. And it fuckin’ disgusts me. “Nice to fuckin’ meet ya.” The fury had taken my tongue once more as I choose to reiterate my previous response, yet this time I choose not to restrain it. I shouldn’t fuckin’ have to. I tear my gaze away from the pair and place it in the opposing direction and my steps take me backwards from my previous destination. But these were not steps backwards, but progressive steps towards a new goal. Fuelled by anger and jealousy, yes, but nevertheless a goal. And amidst the contempt and hatred, I felt satisfaction for the very first time since Leonne died.