solace in the stillness
On the morning the skies flushed deep purple and crimson with the blood of the air-nymphs, Riverbank June was seated high on the rooftop of her family's tower dreaming of ship sails and maps and the burn of rope against her palms. She was not actually holding rope, had never even seen rope except from afar, but could well imagine from the descriptions she'd heard of how its heat would burn through her skin with a single touch. Instead of rope, she held in both hands a true-compass and was watching the steady needle point towards the horizon past which were hills and then mountains and then oceans and then, of course, Riptide Ryan.
It had been Ryan who had given her the true-compass with the promise that its needle would always point to her heart’s desire. And June had clung to that promise, figuratively and quite literally, long after Ryan had left her behind to fight in the Great War. The compass and its ever-steady needle were a much needed comfort. June’s deepest fear was the day she felt inevitable: the day when the needle would become unmoored to spin furious and lost about its base, the day when June would no longer be able to dream of Riptide Ryan’s triumphant return from the battles that had claimed so many of their people already.
But on this morning, despite the omen of the sky, the needle was steady as ever. And June took great solace in its stillness.
She remembered a time, not so long ago in the grand scheme of the world, when dawn was the soft orange of armistice and Ryan had returned home for a fragile ten-day leave. She’d arrived as fierce and triumphant as ever, so loud and boisterous that June could almost forget her lover had been gone at all--until the mask inevitably slipped to reveal the spiralling emptiness behind Ryan’s eyes.
They hadn’t slept, that first night. June had brought Ryan to the old wiggle-tree at the river’s bend, where they had spent so many years of their childhood whispering secret desires to the flowing waters. They’d sat as before beneath the tree’s sweeping branches. June had held Ryan’s hand and learned each new callus and scar as the woman spoke--first slow and halting, then with increased pace and desperation, and then slow and halting again. When she finally lapsed into silence, the moon was nearing the end of its descent.
June hadn’t known what to say, so she didn’t say anything. Neither did Ryan, after that long confession. They’d simply leaned into each other, Ryan’s head resting on June’s shoulder.
The wiggle-tree was only just visible from the tower’s roof. June lifted her eyes from the compass to watch the bend and sway of its branches. She could almost imagine Ryan there now, waiting. “We could conquer the world together, you and I,” Riptide had always promised, and June yearned with all her heart for the day when they could try.