Exiled.
One
word echoing with all the force of the ocean’s waves hammered his mind and
spirit until he hadn’t the strength left to lift his head. Sand clung to
the long strands of his tangled green hair, but CaerLlion
didn’t flinch when the jagged points of a boulder cut into him. Nor did he
react when the guards dragged him over beds of broken shells. His mind was too busy echoing the King’s words and
screaming in rebellion at their unfairness of them. Heartsick with
failure and grief, the bitter taste of salt air too difficult to swallow, he
accepted the pain in his body as an extension of the pain inside. The ache he
already felt from being cut off from the sea. He reached for it, felt the foamy
surf brush his hand for just a moment, then it was gone
again.
Gone forever.
Exiled.
Dragged over the sand, the water
well out of reach now, a heaviness he’d never experienced pressed him to the
tangle of seaweed where he’d been dropped. Crabs scuttled around him, over him,
biting and pinching, adding to his desolate humiliation. He jerked, startled,
at a high-pitched wail like a wounded dolphin. CaerLlion
covered his ears tightly as he shook his head from side to side. The wind
whipped salt and sand into his eyes, stinging them. He lunged for the water,
fingers outstretched, only to fall on his face in the sand, too far from the
surf for even the foam to reach.
Groaning, he turned his head,
looking back over the length of his body at the legs that lay twisted and
molded into the sand. Legs instead of a tail. Exiled. Now he truly knew what it
felt like to be cut off, cast adrift, never to be allowed to return.
Legs.
Along with his home, even his very
identity had been stripped away.
“Poseidon please,” he croaked, the
tips of his fingers still straining desperately for the touch of the sea.
Several feet separated them, but he might as well have been a world away.
“You stay here,” a harsh voice
commended, and he looked up to see the guards in the moonlight, stern faces
glaring at him. Into the sea they went with
a flick of their tails, like they were waving goodbye as they abandoned him to
his fate.
“Human now, but not human, never
truly human,” Caerlion whispered. His head hung low as he felt the first prickle of tears sting his eyes before they
spilled over to run down his cheeks. The shame of it all made him long for a
place to hide. Looking around, he could see no place to tuck himself into. Just
endless tide pools and a long expanse of sandy beach.
He wiggled his legs, pain racing
up his back, stealing the breath from his
body. Poseidon no, he thought frantically, fighting against the haze of pain to
try again. Had they crippled him too?
Over and over he tried to move,
the pain bringing waves of nausea with it. He groaned, closed his eyes, and
prayed to Poseidon for death rather than the torment of an exiled existence.
The only answer he received was the scream of a gull and the slap of a wave
against rock and sand. He felt the sea spray hit him,
inhaled the ocean scent with desperation,
then hauled himself back to the sea under the strength of his arms, useless
legs dragging behind him, weighing him down.
He felt the water slide over his
hands, cooling his arms and taking away some of the itchy tightness that came
with being dry. He kicked his legs and pushed aside the pain until his head was
submerged. He found, to his delight, that he could still breathe as a merman.
Fighting more, thrashing more, he wiggled himself further into the sea. Water
lapped over his legs. He felt them tingle and change, a strange, desperate
happiness flooding him. They hadn’t taken his fins from him; they hadn’t left
him unable to change. They’d simply bound them
for a while as they’d drug him to the edge of the ocean.
Giddy, he dug his fingers into the
sand, pulling more, then he felt it, the hand on his head, stern, heavy,
unwavering. He looked up and gasped.
“You are exiled, the sea is no
longer your home. You must understand that CaerLlion
son of Ragnar, if you don’t, you will be killed.”
CaerLlion
stared into the eyes of his lover, who’d long been his friend as well, elation ebbing away the longer he looked into the
somber expression in Kelios’ eyes.
“You can never let the humans see those fins or gills,” Kelios
told him sternly. “You must find a way to blend in
CaerLlion. It’s your only chance at survival.”
“I don’t want to survive,” CaerLlion cried brokenly. “Kelios please, just…”
“Don’t ask that of me Calen, not
that,” Kelios said, letting some of the edge slip from his voice as he
addressed CaerLlion by his childhood name.
“You have to accept this and survive, at least for now. Trust me, please. You
need to get out of the water and give up your fins again, permanently this
time. Make them go away.”
The surf knocked him against a
rock, his scales scraping against the jagged edge as he thrust himself at
Kelios, wrapping his arms around his neck. “I can’t do this. Not alone. It
isn’t fair. It wasn’t my fault. I did my best.
I don’t deserve to lose everything. I don’t deserve to lose you.”
“This isn’t about fairness or what
you deserve,” Kelios told him, hugging him for a moment, before beginning to
untangle him.
“No! Please. Kelios, I love you. I
don’t want to be without you!”
He felt it when Kelios weakened,
just slightly, and stopped trying to pry his fingers away. CaerLlion’s fingers slid into Kelios’ hair as he
slotted their mouths together. He tried to convey just how much Kelios, and all
of the plans they’d been making for the future, meant to him.
Clutching him close, Kelios kissed
back, hard, rough, before jerking away. Stunned, CaerLlion
let go enough to look at him. It was all the
distraction Kelios needed to shove him away.
“Get out of the water Calen. The
guards are still close. They are planning to patrol these shores until they are
sure you won’t reenter. Don’t make me watch them kill you.”
“I don’t care what they do! What’s
the point of staying alive if I can never swim in the sea again?"
“Find one!” Kelios snapped,
spinning him around and roughly pushing him.
“No! N….”
Struggling, CaerLlion fought to free himself from Kelios’ iron
grasp, protesting in unintelligible sounds muffled by Kelios’ hands. Over the
shells again. Back to the sand. Kelios dropped him in a heap and loomed over
him.
“I will not lose the ocean, not
even for you,” Kelios told him.
“What about the promises you made
to me? What about the vows we’ve been writing?"
No witnesses were present when we spoke them. Even if we had, our laws list exile as
an acceptable reason to break them. I will not serve your punishment with you,
Calen. Whatever your failure tonight, you will have to bear it alone.”
“Please! Don’t do this…don’t…”
He never saw the smack coming.
Never imagined that Kelios would strike him for any reason, but the resounding
sound of flesh meeting flesh was proof enough, as was the stinging in his
cheek.
“Pull yourself together!” Kelios hissed, backing away. “Don’t disgrace yourself more than you already have.”
No comments:
Post a Comment