The Beauty and Fear in Everyday Moments · 10:48pm May 31st, 2021
"I sometimes wonder whether I need absolutes in my life." Ocellus fixed her everything on the horizon beyond the window, her chest a mere flutter of existence in the otherwise stillness of the room. "You know, like the—"
"Like the sky," Smolder said, the scratch of her voice denying Ocellus ownership of the moment. The dragon stirred momentarily, her head lifting from her girlfriend's lap. "Like the sky and ground and the sea, but especially the sky, right? We've swam in this magma pool before, you know."
"I just want to break it." Ocellus swallowed, the motion of her throat bringing fragility to Smolder's world. "Or fix it. It's pink and it's yellow and it's red and blue. It's everything and it's nothing and I just want it to be something. I just want it to be."
With a sigh, Smolder sat up. Her eyes focused and unfocused in staccato movements as she gazed at the window in Ocellus' room. The world beyond stared back—an undulating mess of dawn and dusk, of promise and defeat. A half breath of life, both permitted and denied an existence in the echoes of the day. The shattered light nurtured every dream Smolder had ever held dear, but at the same time judged her for every second of fiction she had allowed to slip by.
It was one of those days.
"Absolutes, huh?"
Ocellus grimaced at the statement. "There's nothing wrong with wanting that," she replied, her body tensing.
"I know," Smolder said, and wrapped her arms around her. The world beyond shattered and crumbled and faded, the sun yielding first to the moon, and then to hopes and dreams. There was everything outside, the broken chaos and beauty, and then there was everything inside. Ocellus, and Smolder, and the trembling ruin of their heartbeats.
"You broke it," Ocellus said, her voice a rattle in her throat. "You break everything."
Smolder pressed her snout against her girlfriend's neck. "Not everything."
Ocellus' head turned, her eyes wide and filled with yearning and fear and wonder.
"Not yet," she whispered.
"A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts."
- Vision
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Indeed. There's a somewhat pessimistic-sounding sentiment that something can only truly be described as beautiful when it has ceased to be. That beauty can only be recognised from an absence. It's a sentiment that rings true to me more often than not.