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[Arahim]

---

Arahim sat silhouetted on the steps of his vardo. The open door at his back spilling an inviting light over his shoulders to cover the grass at his bare feet in a wavering liquid of white and gold. The soft glow promising warmth and sleep should he turn and accept it. A brief, yet welcomed respite from the cobwebs of memory, still fresh after passing years, that clung to the corners of this place, and drifted on a careless breeze ever at his heels.

As was his wont, he chose his place of rest as far removed from the camp's center as possible. Set apart from the nightly festivities that celebrated nothing more than the ending of yet another day. Where when the songs of his people found, and swept over him, it was much diminished. Lacking in minute increments in its initial intensity.

It was an energy he felt no right to, and yet could not turn away from.

The fire raged within the gypsies' circle.

Danced in time with their music, or sparked petals of flame to punctuate some part of a story. A writhing, living part of their shared ceremony.

It gave light, and heat, and etched every joyous feature, every bright adornment, and color with an otherworldly patina. Painting the ordinary into visions of dream that no onlooker, or eager participant ever experienced quite the same as his fellow.

For most, the lure was inescapable.

[Arahim]

---

Trailing the play of light and smoke and shadow through her splayed fingers and outstretched arms, Nalseen half ran, half danced over to the lonely vardo. Leaving the rhythms of the fire behind, the young girl, so near to a woman, was no less buoyant with the life and laughter she carried with her for the removed distance. And eager in her need to share of it.

Her long, dark hair was threaded through with thin, silver wire. Wound serpentine, and coiled through her many braids, each strand was adorned with small, colorful stones polished smooth, and pearlescent.

Tonight it gathered the stars to her in a sparkling nimbus.

Without breaking connection to the flame wreathed illuminations before him, Arahim held up a thumbnail sized seashell of pastel blue. A tiny hole drilled through its center.

Taking the gift gingerly between two fingers, Nalseen held her breath, exhaling slowly.

"Serpent's Hold." she stated with certainty and a smile before nudging him over, and finding a seat.

"Thank you."

Mirroring her smile, Arahim nodded wordlessly.

"They miss you in the circle, cousin."

"And yet the Song goes on." he replied.

"They are not lessened by your absence..."

"...but I am by not joining," he finished for her.

Shrugging, Nalseen tapped her sandaled feet in quick succession on the wooden steps. A familiar silence hung between them.

"Maman says you will never find a wife if no one hears your voice."

"The old girl has outlived three husbands, Nal," he laughed, "Ask her next time, if her meddling is an offer."

"Still..."

"Still." he agreed quietly.

"Can I?" the smiling girl asked after a polite pause, "It is good practice. Honestly."

With a sharp nod of surrender, Arahim tugged off his gloves and rolled up his shirt sleeves. His arms and hands a latticework of raised, white scars of various size. Some angrier than others. Some so benign as to seem the result of everyday accident.

Closing her eyes and settling herself, Nalseen gently ran her fingers slowly across the marred landscape of skin. Beginning at the hollow belows his biceps, and ending at the tips of his hands. Careful to miss nothing, and paying as much attention to the healed over wounds, as the undamaged flesh between.

She felt warm all over, though her cousin was ever cool to the touch.

Opening her eyes again, to catch his, she found her voice.

"Broken glass. The tinkling of small bells. A fanfare."

Withdrawing his hand from her, Arahim turned back to the fire in the distance.

"Will you ever vary your reading, cousin?" he asked simply.

"I will. When you heed this one that I have given several times over."

Laughing, Nalseen stood to return to the beckoning embrace of her people. The desire to express herself overpowering.

[Arahim]

---

A single drawn out hiss pulled the chilled evening air through clenched teeth. The sound a byproduct more of annoyance and surprise than actual pain, Arahim's fingertips, nonetheless, bore the red, viscous marks of his lack of care. Dabbing the bloody spots on the tip his tongue, tasting the tang of coppery salt, he cursed wordlessly at his cousin's parting gift which still clung pugnaciously at a clump of snarled hair just below his ears.

His mouth a tight line, he again set to removing the small fetish that held his ponytail in place. This time using both hands in careful unison, approaching from both sides.

The thought poured over him to simply sleep without freeing his hair, but did not take hold. The idea pooled at his bare feet, and seeped into nothing. In its place, the pictures of what his neck would look like should he share a pillow with the bedevilled item.

Gingerly touching either side of the clasp, Arahim's questing fingers were quickly beset by sharp pinpricks. The fetish wore an armor of tiny barbs, and rows of scratchy, tactile bristles too fine to see unaided.

Pausing to find a steadying breath, knowing full well that no trick would preclude the inevitable, he accepted the stings, and slight cuts, and pulled the comb from its nest.

Snickering, he quickly set the thing upon his bedside table, and kept a wary eye on it as though it would spring to some terrible semblence of life. Its single-mindedness wild to clamber up his naked arm and reclaim its place behind his head.

The token was in the shape of a white spider smaller than his palm. The chitinous body carved of a single piece of frostwood, its thorax raised slightly in mock up aggression. The mandibles were sharp, and clear if not smoky. And though he could never explain how, the dull opacity of the fangs held a crimson hue, as if once hollow, and now full, everytime he received a 'bite.'

The arachnid's legs were segmented, and bound together by spring loaded wire threaded through each individual piece. Taut unless pulled apart. Making the natural pose that of a spider corpse, its appendages curled in on itself like some grotesque bloom.

Every joint was needled, as was every claw. Grooves were ground along each of the legs with such subtlety as to coerce light and shadow to give the illusion of a deliberate, skittering movement.

A life in step with his own.

Arahim had been told it was actually disconcerting to see. Especially the first time.

Four and four onyx gemstones, infinitesimal holes of Night itself, glittered wetly in the thing's head, and ate more light than they reflected.

Al'lyria was know for the cunning of her craft...within the right circles. The magic in the alabaster creature was palpable.

The air around it grew less resistant, and touched by a cool draught. Slight, but constant. A sensation Arahim found he felt only when he was still, and focused on the feeling.

It took him to a place only glimpsed. Spare in its detail, and focus, but calming. Heavy with the aromatic scents of better tomorrows.

The dying wisps of dream as the morning sun rose.

His cousin's art came at a cost. And so her every gift, everything she gave herself to, likewise exacted a price. It was solely up to the recipient to judge whether they could, or would pay. A 'no' was simply a 'no' to her, there was never any barter.

Diminished for his deal gone down, Arahim knew this better than most. A fact Al'lyria took perverse pleasure in skewering him with whenever she could.

Her reminder came, this time, with the gift of the fetish, and a simple folded note explaining, in the vaguest terms, the use of the many legged effigy, and a warning veiled as advice gone unheeded some two Winters past:

Let the many cuts serve as everyday lesson. Patience and care, cousin.

[Arahim]

---

Dawn was well away, and the World lay down its hours in perfect quiet.

Embraced on all sides by Spring forest, boughs thick and new with shaking leaf, and draped heavily in antique shadow, Arahim claimed the Night as solely his own.

Where the trees gave way, a small pond lay hidden from all things but the open sky above. Here he floated, toes barely scraping the cool mud below, submerged but for his face turned towards the heavens. His hair spread out in waves, a crown of dark tendrils swaying, and arms wide just below the surface for balance.

Strong scents filled him. Reminders of the season, and time. Heady, as it was without dilution, and unshared. His portion came to him large, and wild.

Without a moment for preamble.

Broken bark bled viscid sap.

Bent, and bruised blades of new grass lay laden with dew. Cold sparkles placed upon earth.

Peony.

Fresh juniper.

The strangling, beautiful patterns of ivy run unchecked.

The water was silvered with fallen starshine. Strewn with the petals of celestial flower set afloat.

Caught in the corner of a God's eye.

Briefly loved.

Quickly forgotten.

Here was Life without memory. Without judgment. Without mercy.

Here was one within the waters few gave thought to. Scrubbed clean, without care. Lost to the things before him, and recently past.

But accountable.

A hollow sound filled his ears, like the song of a seashell. The pulse answered his own life's rhythm as though an echo, drowning away all thought connected to complexity, and allowing for the natural beauty of error, and wrong thinking.

Foibles of being.

Reminders and remonstrations that flawed, and alone, we are what we are.

And opening his eyes to the hard truth that no matter his struggle, without witness, this was as near to Arahim as he was like to get. And steps and steps away as he was like to allow others.