A tired young Paige entered the hotel and carefully handed over a wax sealed letter to the desk clerk. "This is urgent." he said politely, "Please make sure Mr. Grimmel gets this as soon as possible. Thank you."
Lawrence Grimmel,
Suite 3,
7th Floor
Island Oasis Hotel,
Anarab.
Mr. Grimmel.
Though I fear this may be too late to set things right, enclosed you will find a letter written to you by my adopted daughter, Chance. It was written in March of this year, but was never delivered by curtousy of my ever vigilant husband Michael. He felt at the time that it was for the best that you and she never crossed paths again, but has since realized his dangerous mistake. I pray that this reaches you intact and in time. We pray that you can find it in your heart to forgive us this terrible mistake and we pray that you can make it back to Genil.
We have recently learned that Chance has been sinking into a deep and terrible depression. We believed it had started in July with your departure, but discovered that it went back as far as May and perhaps even sooner than that. She had slowly began to distance herself from everyone, including us and in May, stopped speaking. By June, it was clear something was wrong with her, but she wouldn't talk to anyone, not even us, about it. Then, in July, it became much, much worse. For days on end, she would do nothing but sleep and cry. She stopped eating regular and became dangerously underweight. In the past few weeks, we have had all manner of healers come, but none have been able to help. Then, this morning, she went into a slow labor and the baby is nearly just over a month premature. Chance is slowly dying Mr. Grimmel and she will take the child with her.
We both understand this is completely the wrong way to have approached you and we should have done so much sooner than this, but as you can imagine, Chance isn't exactly the easiest person to extract such information from. Please come as soon as you can.
Deepest apologies,
Andrew Harrison
****
Letter enclosed
~My dearest Lawrence,
I don't expect you would wish to read this, but I must write these words to you before anymore damage could be done.
The night that we spent together meant far more to me than perhaps it should have done. I know now it was wrong of me to allow it to happen and with all my heart and soul, I beg your forgiveness.
The morning afterward, when you caught me cleaning myself, it was something you were never supposed to see. I tried to explain it to you in your studio, but clearly, my explanation was not enough, so I hope this time, I can explain it better for you my love.
You see, Serian women are quite different to what you would have known before. We are much smaller and as such, everything else is much smaller. It was not your fault what happened my love, not one bit. Had I the presence of mind, I would have warned you, stopped you even if it would have worried you, but I didn't. I allowed it to happen and you are not to blame my love, I swear to you. Your conscience is clear on all counts. And in my cowardice, I ran away. I know I should have stayed and tried to explain it again to you, but your words had hurt me so deeply that I could not stay and see that regret in your eyes again. At the time, I felt that you would be better off without me, that I had done nothing but hurt you. I know now I was wrong.
It has taken me far too long to tell you this, I know, but if you know nothing about me Lawrence, it is that I am stubborn and emotional.
As you can tell, I am not very adept at writing letters, so please bear with me.
What I am trying to say my love, is that I made a terrible mistake, a truly terrible mistake, but it wasn't falling asleep on your bed and it wasn't making love with you. It was leaving you. I have never regretted my love for you and I do love you, very, very much. I cannot begin to describe the feeling when I think of you and so many times, so many, I have tried to see you again, but I admit now that I am truly a coward. I would make it to your street and and I would command myself to walk into your gallery and face you, but every time, I faltered. I heard those words that fell from your mouth that morning and it would kill me inside. I couldn't bear to see you angry or hurt anymore, so I would turn away again. But then I realized that something had been chosen the night we made love and it is to this end that I beg you to come and see me.
I fear leaving my new home would make me crazy with fright, so I ask that you come here, I beg that you come here. About a month after I left the gallery, I was found my a couple that run the Bella View Gardens complex on the outskirts of the city. They have taken me in and given me a job and somewhere to live. They have taken good care of us and will help me all I need until I can provide a decent wage again.
Please Lawrence, please come, I beg only this one thing of you.
The letter fell through the door slot, and he stared at it as it floated gently to the floor. The empty eyes on the unicorn watched it, as if it might float away at any minute, but it did not, "Did you come to taunt me, Little Bird?" He spoke softly, a whisper in the dark shadows of the room. The drawn curtains hadn't been opened for a while, not while he was inside. The sun seemed to hurt him, and he hid from it. Perhaps a little mad, his disintegration had happened inside his body and out.
Lawrence wasn't home--not yet, though he would be soon, Aries thought, as he watched the hand tick by, but it might have been his imagination that set a certain time with the sound of him walking in the door. He stood from his spot on the couch and began to walk to the door before he tumbled to the floor, his curls and white dress seeming to be too heavy.. perhaps.. he should cut them... "Little Bird, why won't you just come to me? I see... you don't like me anymore." Tears welled at the sides of his eyes, but he pushed himself to a sitting position despite. He slowly moved toward the envelope, crawling, before grasping it up from the floor and rolling onto his back to read it.
He was set for disaster, with his head resting not inches from where the door would swing in should Lawrence come back to the room. He wasn't aware of the name on it as he opened it, too caught up in wanting to read the news--sure it was something that pertained to himself. That was how he was nowadays. His eyes scanned it, and a smile slowly spread across his face--the smile of the cruel child, "So that's your excuse? Little Bird, you tried to contact him? So you aren't cold-hearted and stupid... just unfortunate. No, still stupid, Little Bird."
He read the words aloud, like a song, every few moments repeating the message, "What I am trying to say my love, is that I made a terrible mistake, a truly terrible mistake, but it wasn't falling asleep on your bed and it wasn't making love with you. But, oh, did you fix it? No, no, Little Bird. Love is honest. Love is true. Little Bird, you flew away and left him in the dust. Love is selfless, but Lawrence.. he doesn't love you. He cares--oh, he cares about you, but you are... so ignorant. He loves you right now the way he loves me--and we are one and the same, Little Bird."
Aries bounded from the door, bouncing energetically into the bathroom, as if he had a new life. He set the letter upon the mirror, his little star glowing as he pressed it to the glass, putting it behind it, so it would be perfectly visible in two pieces. Lawrence hated the mirror, but it didn't stop him from seeing it every day. He'd complained about it before--always there... now she was there. "You had the chance to fix it--to make him love you, and you were so caught up being the victim, you failed. You are... such a child. I hate that you failed, but I'd hate it even more if you succeeded...." He pulled the knife from the curve of the sink, taking the shaving tool and lifting it to his curls.... "One fell... two fell.. and then we all went to hell.. three, and four, but you closed your mind's door... six and five, thank the gods that you're still alive.... eight and seven, perhaps you'll find heaven... nine and ten.... I... hate that he'll go see you again... but he will eventually, won't he, Little Bird... even if you didn't listen to me... you were so busy being a child, you couldn't hear the words... I TOLD YOU TO GO TO HIM THEN! I TOLD.... you....." Aries collapsed, his head hitting the sink's rim as he fell into a bed of silver curls.
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
“The healer you speak of, this Aundresca, does she have any knowledge of mystical creatures?”
Lawrence leaned against a silk strewn doorway, the sound of jangling coins echoing in his ears like maniacal laughter. Bronzed arms touched his shirt sleeves delicately as they passed by, nothing more than a flash of sheer fabric, smooth toned abdomens, and heavy breasts. Their eyes rimmed in kohl did nothing to sway his mind from the task at hand, no, he desired no woman now. The idea of falling into the arms of one of these painted dolls made his mouth dry, with hatred of their delicious bodies and the same amount of interest in him. He was a man at his prime, wanting nothing more than freedom in way that he couldn’t understand. He wanted someone to help him forget everything that was happening around him. The slow, sultry voice of the older woman seated at a crystal ball answered him, telling him nothing and drowning his hope a little more.
“Aundresca can heal only what men think is broken. She can… Raise the dead, if you can see the pun.”
The old woman tossed back her head in a short cackle, her white-streaked gray tresses flying out behind her in coarse waves. Lawrence felt ill and clawed his way out of the harem, dark obsidian eyes following behind him, red lips wetted by red tongues as he passed. A layer of sweat dripped down Lawrence’s chest as he burst into the crowded street, feeling lost and tired. He’d spent nights in the suite, holding Aries head up and spoon feeding him like a tiny child when the artist knew he couldn’t eat. The white creature was fading fast, his mind deteriorating into a deliciously macabre state. It hurt Lawrence to see him like this, perhaps more than knowing he’d run from the woman carrying his child because it was the easy way out.
The air in the Oasis was cold, crisp as he entered the door, sweat making his shirt stick to his body. His dark locks moved against his shoulders, prickling him through the thin cotton shirt as he shook his head at the fully elevator and bounded up the stairs toward the floor he lived on, right below the penthouse. There were so many things he’d done that he couldn’t understand, mistakes he’d been making day after day to fill up the hole inside him. A guilty look passed through his eyes as he glanced at the door that lead to the penthouse and he exhaled sharply, the blood pounding in his throat, the feeling of his heart beat racking his ribs. Though things were bad, he finally felt as if he was in control of his emotions, though it had taken weeks of tearing through his memories and creating a understandable platform of his actions and the actions of others. Misunderstandings and misconstructions on everyone’s parts had been true, but an obvious line had been drawn in where he was willing to place his heart. Lawrence Grimmel would no longer place his sanity on the chopping block, no matter what the reward.
A key in hand, Lawrence felt the scrape as he slid it into the keyhole, the strong click as the door itself was laid open. He noticed a thick cream colored envelope on the ground and bent to pick it up, reading his name on the front and the words of Andrew Harrison. A panic ripped through him as he searched the apartment for the letter, knowing that it was possible he would soon be reading the words of a dead woman. Guilt wasn’t in the picture anymore, just responsibility for what had happened. He hadn’t expected it in this form, though, he hadn’t expected Andrew to ask him to come back. Lawrence had actually expected a tongue lashing and a forbidding message telling him to never approach Chance again, nor his child. His child, the thought made the artist’s stomach hurt fiercely. A child of his own flesh and blood. Hadn’t he expected it to be different from this situation?
As he ripped apart the apartment, the man noticed that the bathroom was glowing from across the area. He’d almost forgotten that Aries would be here, half expecting to find him curled up asleep somewhere as he’d searched for the lost letter. As Lawrence approached the bath, a sense of dread went through him as a long dead Italian prayer escaped his lips. Death seemed to be riding on the currents of the air today.
“Ave, o Maria, piena di grazia, il Signore è con te…” *
Lawrence’s voice was shaking and all seemed to move slowly around him as he walked toward the door. He could feel the ribs of the texture of his jeans rubbing together as he moved, the sweat cooling on his body and his face tightening in a look of anguish before even realizing what was going on. The man was jumping to conclusions, assuming that he would roll over the still warm dead body of his only friend.
“Tu sei benedetta fra le donne e benedetto è il frutto del tuo seno, Gesù.” **
Seconds ticked by as he touched the door, feeling it swing open to reveal the prone body of Aries, surrounded in clouds of silvery white hair. Tears began to burn in the back of his eyes and his breath seemed to be ripped from him, physically extracted from his lungs by the air around him. He knelt, his knees hitting the floor painfully.
“Santa Maria, Madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori, adesso e nell'ora della nostra morte.” ***
Lawrence hefted the body to him, moving Aries’ limp head to look up at him, searching for the tell tale blood smear on his delicate lips. There was none. The artist moved two fingers to the side of the unicorn’s neck as he repositioned him across his bent knees, supporting his head with his hands, clutching the small man to his body. A pulse, soft, thready, and nothing healthy pulsed against his fingers and the tears escaped dryly from beneath his lashes. They had escaped the duel with death for the time being. Lawrence felt fresh oxygen suck back into his lungs as he lifted the unconscious unicorn up easily and rose to his full height. Moving him toward one of the white futon couches in the apartment, the artist positioned Aries there quietly and moved out of the apartment, leaving the door open. Quickly, he mounted the stairs and rushed toward the penthouse floor, ringing the bell that he knew would echo through the room. A dark haired woman opened it and Lawrence’s hazel eyes beckoned her.
“Sydney, I need your help.”
*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
**Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
***Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
Sydney hummed along with the chords violins sent shooting across the glass windowed penthouse, perhaps not hitting the notes precisely right each time, but her voice was close enough. The day off from working the front desk of her hotel pleased her and she was in full relaxation mode, the music from an Anarabian musician coursing through her home and her veins, a flute of crisp white wine in her hand. Short hair brushed against her jaw bone as she moved around the room, her long legs covered only slightly, a pair of dark navy shorts coming down mere inches from where they began. A loose kimono-style shirt billowed around her slim curves and revealed only a small slice of the fabric of the shorts. Bare footed, toenails perfectly manicured, she padded around her apartment as she prepared a light lunch for herself.
The sound of her doorbell ringing surprised her, her emerald eyes suspicious as she moved toward the door. She wasn’t much of a security freak, almost too sure of herself in situations, so naturally, she flung the door open to reveal the somewhat scruffy artist she’d shared a brief romp with when he’d first arrived in her hotel. When he’d moved to Anarab, he’d paid the rent for the apartment in advance and in full, impressing her that someone who wasn’t from the city had that kind of clout sitting around. He’d been hurt, lonely, and she’d been feeling alone as well and over a bottle or three of wine, things had gotten ridiculous. A slight blush reached her cheeks but her eyes remained hard as one hand rested on the door, the other long nailed hand holding the flute delicately. She didn’t smile, no, but merely took him in and realized that they hadn’t talked since they’d mutually apologized for the happenings that had taken place. Virginity vanished in a brief lustful moment, as Sydney had too suddenly figured out, but she didn’t regret because it had happened in the moment and she was one that lived for the moment. As he spoke, she listened, for the first time that day, not impatient with someone that had something to say to her. Sydney, I need your help. The hotel owner frowned slightly, dark eyebrows moving gracefully across her forehead. “You need my help? With what, exactly?”
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
“It’s better if I show you.”
Lawrence turned, his heart still beating fiercely against his chest, like a caged animal primed for release. A month before this, the events would have been too much, but he’d found comfort in knowing that things had to have an end point and that life moved on if the memories were given time to fade. He didn’t feel anger anymore, just a strong urge to make things right while removing his emotions from the situation. As he led Sydney back to the apartment, he tried not to think of the future, only the present, as Sydney had told him once that she did. The woman was secretive, never telling him exactly how someone who appeared to be so young was able to own a organize a business this large, only letting him in on the knowledge that he was better off not knowing. He supposed that was good enough for him. As he approached the futon with the sleeping man draped over it, he sighed softly and stretched his hands out before him.
“This is my best friend and he’s gotten really ill. His name is Aries and he.. If he says anything that offends you, he really doesn’t mean it. He’s just.. He’s been sick.”
Lawrence fumbled for words as he explained the situation around the sickened unicorn, leaving out the fact that he was a mystical creature, even though anyone could have figured out he wasn’t your average beautiful, effeminate, white haired man with a glowing star on his forehead. He tried to let Sydney in on as much as he could about Aries without telling her the entire story, he didn’t feel comfortable enough with this woman to let everything out into the open. The artist bent beside the sleeping figure and brushed a wave of now shortened curls away from his face and frowned, wondering when the sleep would wear off and not knowing that he had bumped his head.
“I’ll only need you to watch over him for a few days, just make sure that he stays in this apartment and doesn’t get hurt. Make sure that he eats and ..”
How was he supposed to say, “Don’t let him die while I’m not by his side?” the thoughts were pounding in his head, trapped in by pride and fear. It was almost as if the he said the words there was a possibility that they could come true, almost as if he spoke them they became more real. It was easier to keep it bunched up inside than admit the truth of the situation, but he was determined to make things right all around. He would return to Genil and make sure that Chance made it through the birth of his child. Then, he would return to Anarab long enough to make sure that he found a cure for the mysterious illness that was stealing the life force from his long time friend. Determination kept him from admitting defeat and fear of what seemed like the inevitable future.
The artist yanked a hand through his hair roughly, pushing the strands away from his face in a quick movement of frustration. The letter from Harrison had sounded serious, and from the date on the paper, the carrier him or herself must have had to have traveled like the wind to get it there. Hours were dragging by, moments that he needed to be there to see this thing through to the end. He felt guilty for leaving so suddenly, without waiting for Aries to awaken and try to explain his state and why there were long white curls dancing along his bathroom floor. Lawrence finished explaining Aries’ habits to Sydney before excusing himself quietly to clean up the soft strands of hair lying tarnished on the bathroom floor. As he gathered them, in his arms, unsure of what to do with them, for a moment, he stopped to wonder what had become of the letter that Andrew had mentioned was enclosed in the package. Hadn't he said that there'd been a letter from Chance? There wasn't enough time for him to think about it, instead, he spoke to himself lowly.
“Perhaps I can’t love you Chance. But I will be there to take responsibility for our actions and hopefully, to see our child be born."
Leaving the bag there, and the letter hidden in the mirror, he dressed for the ride quickly and nodded to Sydney quickly before exiting the apartment in a flash of dark hair and worried eyes. He had faith that the little time he’d had to speak with her that she would understand his plight and the plight of Aries and care for him to the best of her ability. She seemed to be a kind woman so he hoped that he had made the right choice given the amount of time he had on his hands. The hands on some invisible clock ticked away the moments of Lawrence’s life and he knew far to well that the hands were speeding along faster than he could count. A quick jog brought him to the stable where he kept the team of horses he had bought to Anarab only weeks ago. He mounted the strongest of the black horses, leaving him unsaddled as the pair shot out of the stables, the sandstone streets becoming a blur and a long gone memory. Destined for Genil, Lawrence hoped that Father Time would take pity and slow the pace of time for just these few crucial days.
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
Sydney was startled at first as the man who she barely knew led her to his apartment and showed her a prone body on one of the futons the hotel had purchased earlier that year. Green eyes narrowing at first, she grew more comfortable as he described the situation, and yet, she still felt awkward as the man shot away, leaving her alone in one of her own rooms. Puzzled, Sydney shrugged and took a long sip of her wine before moving around the silent apartment. The need to use the restroom passed through her body and she moved for the expansive bathroom that the Oasis was prideful for, she’d shown many potential tenants these bathrooms and had won them over. When she was finished, the sensation of hair against her bare feet sent a creepy sensation along her spine. It was almost forboding and she felt strange in the household of a man who she'd slept with but barely known, even if the entire establishment was hers. What would happen if what had happened was made public, would she be reduced in the minds of the men she worked with to the lowly state that other women put themselves in in this city?
Biting her lip, she thought of the repercussions of her actions but pushed them away, straightening her shoulders as she moved back to the long futon and picked up her almost empty glass. Swishing the wine around in her mouth, she swallowed and placed the empty glass in the kitchen sink. Searching the cabinets for a regular glass, she filled one with water and walked back to the futon, feeling even more awkward watching someone she didn’t know sleep. Sitting down on the end of the futon, she curled her long legs up in a cross legged position and picked up a faded booklet of paintings. Settling herself back against the cushion, Sydney began the wait and wondered if this man would explain why Mr. Grimmel had disappeared so suddenly.
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
Hours passed before he woke, those thick lashes raising up before he stared at the door as if he realized something dear to him was missing. He sat up quickly, and tears ran down his cheeks moments later. His hands came up to cover his ears, as if to protect himself from hearing something, finding instead a lack of hair. He slowly pulled a curl out where he could see it, the tears continuing like silver down his cheeks. "So he left... See, Little Bird.. I told you...." He suddenly seemed to notice Sydney, staring at her underneath lashes, "Come to haunt me, Kitten? You all are so lucky.. born beautiful to a man who sees beauty only in animals and not in flowers." Aries slipped from the bed, a ghost of a being as he moved toward the bathroom... "Did he see it--the letter from the Bird...? She chirps so loud, such a selfish chick she is..." He stumbled forward, his fingers reaching out to touch the glass as he dragged a soft, purple fingernail down its surface.
Weak, he grasped the sides of the sink, his whole body shaking, "You're the image of the kitten he held close when we got here, right?" He suddenly twisted to face Sydney, a broken smile on his face as the tears flowed nonstop down his face, "I don't blame you. You aren't like the Bird--didn't break his heart, while chirping loud enough to drown his own thoughts away about how much you were hurt..." Silence found him, and his smile drifted away from his lips so slowly. A hiccup happened in his breath as he drew it in.
"What's it like? Being an animal and not a plant....?" He slipped to the tiles of the bathroom floor, sobbing softly into the palm of his hands.
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
“I’m not so sure about all of these puppies and kittens. Shall we try to use names?” Sydney was chilled by the accuracy of the strange creature’s words, wobbly and frail like a new born colt. Lawrence had told her that he was sick, but just now she wasn’t quite sure how sick and what type of sickness the white haired man before her had. Just the sound of his voice made her want to stroke the tip of his nose and she couldn’t quite place the reasoning behind it. As he sank to the floor, so did she, easing down onto the tiles on both knees. The kimono-esque shirt billowed around her, navy blue silk with golden embroidery that picked up the slightly goldish tones in her hair. A hand reached out, unsteady as if to touch the tip of his nose but she jerked it back realizing the strangeness of such an action. Sydney chewed on her lip slightly before responding in the only way she knew how.
“Perhaps the love of a flower is something that can only be pure with only the purest of elements. A lily could never break his heart and always holds a place in it, while claws and teeth and broken wings can tear without even knowing why.”
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
Aries stared up at her in wonderment, sure now that she was truly in his dreams, but the confusion--he wished for her to understand.. to understand what he was saying, even if she was not one with him, "You are a female..." He said, slowly, staring at her hand as it drew away, as if sad to see it go. He wished nothing more than to have someone to touch him, to place a hand on his forehead and tell him love was a joke and not something that had to be fulfilled to grant a life wholeness--and to say it in a way that didn't break his heart and make him die of it.
"Is it... the claws that make you attractive, Kitten?" His tears still fell, but with great clarity. "I would do anything to have claws for a day, then, hidden beneath the pads of my feet... The curve of your body, the chance to hurt, even if you don't... I want.. that chance... Just once, I'd pay with it... I'd wilt, and die, and be happy and lonely forever for just one chance to know what it's like to be an animal..."
He swayed forward, his arms reaching out and grasping around her, hugging her as if he had known her forever.. and, in his mind, somehow, Aries did. A child that struggled with loyalty to a parent or loyalty to a principle--the same, "Is it possible, Kitten, to be okay just giving one up? Loyalties... to a principle or a person... which one do you give...? If you were to give one up... the loyalty to the person, to let your heart break in front of him, to burden him and kill your relationship with your principle... or the loyalty to the principle, to break beneath the falling stars... to allow it to just happen, despite the pain it brings you and others... for me, it's entirely selfish... it hurts so much, but I can't say it... A flower can't love a beast who seeks his own kind... how would they live?"
Aries lifted his head, tucked between her breasts like a child, so weak, "I'm dying... but not of illness, but love. It kills me--so much hurt, but she claims it was my fault... She screams and chirps and tells Lawrence that I poisoned his mind--tells him that she'd have been more loyal had I not been there.. I never lie... I hide the truth, but never lie... but now, I can't tell... did I lie? Did I put poison in him...? Am I a friend...? No... not if I could do such a thing... but how can I know...? I don't remember... don't remember it..." He pulled away, pressing his hands to his ears again, "He will care about her... and there's a chance that he will love her... where am I, then, Kitten, but stuck, left behind and wilting. Warmth, warmth, and more warmth. We seek the sun, for we are dying of the cold, and not the night..."
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
“Have you considered that the one you love isn’t worthy of such a dedication?” Sydney stroked the white curls softly, uncertain of how exactly she’d gotten into this position on the bathroom floor. Her back was pushed against the wall, making her relatively comfortable as she held the weeping creature as if she knew his every woe and could possibly make it better. “It seems that one who cannot understand love shouldn’t be graced with something so beautiful.” She spoke softly, the knowledge that love had escaped her for her entire lifetime, replaced constantly by something she held more valuable. Falling in love took too much work, too much time, too many emotions thrown out on the floor for someone else to tread on and she feared it. How could they all seem to give it away so easily?
“Love shouldn’t hurt you at any time, it should always be painful bliss, but never torment.” Sydney didn’t quite grasp what the white haired being was trying to tell her, speaking in riddles and weaving the strangest spell around the business minded woman. Sometimes, she felt herself caving in to the thought process but she tried to resist it, knowing that only madness can bloom from seeds rooted in insanity. “Have you ever loved another?”
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Gimmel
"No." He whispered it to the first question, "No." He stated it a little louder as the statements rolled by, but still smothered in her shirt, it was not to be heard, "No!" He stated it, his body sitting up as he stared at her with a look that said he was horrified at the very idea, but then, he stopped crying. "I apologize, Kitten. I've just realized something..." he stood very slowly to his feet and looked at the letter behind the glass, "You're no ghost at all. Not a figment in my imagination--not a vision. And I've told you... everything. Oh, fool.." He stepped around her, and slipped to his futon, where he lay onto the couch. "Now that you are not a whisper, I feel very alone. It means he actually left for her--will he come back with her, or will he come back at all? Love ... love is not for me." He suddenly jerked his head up, "But .. You won't tell him I bled to you? So long I've been so quiet, I would not want him to hate me now. Not to see me different. I do not want that. I know the truth, the answer. It's not cowardice, but truth that stalls my lips. I love him too much to burden him with those black feelings."
He lay himself down, the blue star glowing softly as he reached out to the air and opened a window... "MY forest.. I stumbled from it so long ago, frightened and lonely, I just wanted someone who would speak to me... and there he was..." He pointed, drawing from the image of a boy wrapped only in his silver hair the pinpoint of a tall, gracious Italian man smiling stupidly, looking like he was awe-struck at the amusing sight of the naked, stumbling boy. He pulled him into the gallery, and as Aries stared at the beautiful paintings, Lawrence dropped a blanket around his shoulders. "The first time I looked at him, with that smile, I was in love. There was nothing else in the world for me. I just wanted to follow him, protect him, love him... and now I'm too weak."
The screen pulled in close to Lawrence's smiling face, and Aries smiled then, "He was happier then, I think. Smiling, and painting, and the paintings were the reflection of the light that seemed to follow him... even though he still was sad, there was something that shone from him..." Aries grasped the screen as it hardened into glass and he held it close, "I'm worrying him so badly right now... I wish I could just get healthy. Maybe I feel better. Yes. Definitely. Better." He began to close his eyes again, his head hanging off the side of the futon, his hair barely brushing the floor in its short curls as the blood that rushed to his head touched his cheeks.
Sydney felt a deepening sense of pity for the creature, something never meant to be diseased by humankind. She got a sense of the whipping air of the open forest, the feeling of the pleasurable scratches of nearby bushes and trees, and an overwhelming feeling of freedom from the man who spoke so easily of being tied down by fanciful emotions. The words she didn’t want to speak came pouring from her lips, “He will return, I’m certain of it. Someone like Mr. Grimmel could never leave his friend behind for long, I don’t doubt that the circumstances were dire for him to not have a plan ready.” As the lips parted again, more thoughts of love for the man who had run away so quickly, she realized that she too faced a similar situation. The need to love someone remained so deeply imbedded into her body that she could not remove her paternal love for her father, a deep shard of glass driven straight into the core of her. Though it hurt each time she moved, no matter how stiffly she held herself, no matter how high she held her head, she could not simply remove it. Taking away that shard would surely cut her open fatally. For this reason, she understood him and felt hopeless in the empty words she tried to speak, so she didn’t speak at all, jumping slightly as the window opened. It was then that she noticed the star on his forehead had begun to glow at the exact same instant.
Her eyes gazed at him curiously until he began flipping himself around and it almost made her smile, if only he hadn’t looked so frail as he declared that he felt better. Sydney bit her lip, remembered the fear and concern in Lawrence’s eyes and wondered if the sickness that had plagued the artist’s friend was terminal. It was then she stood, slightly steadying the unicorn-man into a seated position on the futon. “I doubt very seriously that you feel better after such little sleep, but if you rest up while Lawrence is away, perhaps you will be stronger than you are now. Wouldn’t that be enough to set some of his worries aside?”
Re: A Letter For Lawrence Grimmel
He slipped down and closed his eyes, settling himself into a ball with his lashes lowered, "You're the first animal that I've ever thought... was truly worth the time he gave you. It's too bad--" He slipped off, the words drifting into the air without much thought as he held a pillow close. The hair haloed his head, the soft futon wrapping about his body.
The lights were dim on him, giving a shadowed color to his pale skin, telling the signs of death that were on the way. His breath was soft and not strangled for once, though, just slipping through his slightly parted lips through a free windpipe. His dreams were terrible, but they didn't show on his face. The fear was for him alone, the loneliness. The tragedy of Aries was a box kept within his heart, a happy ribbon tying it closed to add luster to the brown paper wrapping.
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