The Twelfth Sun

ii ♦The Third Sun♦

The ceilings rose like dust clouds curving into dome shaped roofs. Brown tanned marble floors, cool against ones naked feet as their garments slid across it. And everywhere, dividing the colosall space, pillars with screen holed shapes of tiny sun's and moons casting apprroproate cut out shadows on them. Vines snaked upward the pillars, leafy plants titanous like three men stacked ontop of one another hovered over them to grant the illusion of shade though they were inside. And around them, gaping like mouths, rainbow shaped door lead to hallways which lead to hallways which lead to hallways. The palace, able to fit an entire city, built ten stories high, criss crossed like a labyrinth unable to find ones way out. She had entered what looked like one of the entrance rooms and it stopped her in her tracks.

Yarrow didnt notice she had stopped walking, gawking at her surrounding until he'd reached the threshold of one of the hallways they were heading down at to meet Ilya. The oldest brother. The one who had assigned him specifically with the task to pick up the tail end of the mission he knew Keyon would abandon mid way. It had been pointed look, his blue icy stare which demanded perfection which made the youngest brother cower and nod. Why him? He couldnt say, if he had his pick, he'd choose Talib. Talib was kind and charming and he could speak to strangers as if they were old friends.

All Yarrow had was his insecurity and his nervousness in his throat like a dagger unable to find the right words because of the stuffed cotton in his brain, bluring the focus of his mind. Perhaps that is why he didn't say anything as the girl continued standing, lookking around, small like an ant amidst the titan room.

"Is this the palace?"

And he smiled for he understood, "No, this is actually the foyer. Do you see the doors over there and the stables and the grass and the palm trees by the couches? This is the second main entrance, we used to usually spend time here long ago."

"Where is everyone now?"

Yarrow shrugged, "Sleeping."

"But its daytime."

"Exactly."

The girl finally unhinged her feet and walked towards him. She was beautiful, a blind man would know it by the sheer serenity of her voice, lilting like a soft pitched lullaby, the kind mothers sing to their young to sleep. It cradled him, wrapped him around the covers of his bed. Perhaps he was only drowsy for staying up so long, but it was true. She was beautiful by the soft feathery way she spoke. Not harshly, not boarishly, not the way his brothers laughed and roared. He had once realized he could not remember the last time he was in the presence of a woman. He remembered that they liked cleanliness, he liked that too. And they were often adventurous, his brother, Yunus was like that too. And they had long, long hair. He looked at her head covered by her headscarf, red wine wrapped around her neckline and hairline like the women in the mosque. And he repeated, she was beautiful. He remembered her hair, raven black, silk smooth, falling like curtains down her back like a waterfall from what Keyon had told of her, just yesterday when he'd returned from the market, limb shaking and nostrils flared. And Yarrow repeated, she was beautiful. For she had made Keyon feel something other than the nothingness the shell of his chest had become.

Everywhere her beaked, crooked nose turned, she sent a wave of musk his way, she smelled like saltwater, the sea. And she was beautiful.

Her wide, large forehead, her greyish, faded mustache, small and unplucked, her eyebrows bushy and dark, her lips thin, her dress wide and modest and she smiled and she was beautiful. And he spoke, and she was everything good, personified into one vessel.

"Where are you taking me?" Her confused eyes, her questions. "And come to think of it, how did you know my memory was gone? Has Surrayah been here?"

Yarrow shook his head, "Who's Surrayah?" And they began walking, shoulder to shoulder, and he had a hard time breathing, he blushed, boyishly shy as he looked down at him, waiting.

He began explaining what he was allowed to tell, with his hand behind his back he said, "We are twelve brothers. I'm the youngest, Ilya is the oldest. We dont see each other often, during the nights we can usually come together and eat but Ilya never does. He's the oldest so he has the most responsibility."

"And what does he do?" She asked.

Figuring out a way to write our father's wrong.

"Kingly duties." Yarrow answered. "I'm not really sure myself. My job is taking care of the birds."

"The birds?"

And his eyes suddenly shone with jolting happiness. The kind of expression one only gets when one talks about something one loves.

He nodded frantically, "We have all sorts of birds near my room. I didn't always sleep in that room, it belonged to my father's late apprentice but it is mine now for I have view of the off sectioned indoor garden, that's where the birds live, by the palace river and the small forest and the library and the bathouses. It's really fun. I have a lot of fun with them, actually if you'd like to meet them, I can show you. I think they'll be happy to meet you! My brothers arent allowed to take care of them becasuse they're adults-"

She interrupted him suddenly, they had just passed a hallway with the biggest door out of all the rooms, and more mysterious than that, it was closed, embroided with two half moons facing one another. "What's in there?"

Yarrrow flicked his eyes to it, shrugging, trying to play it cool. "That's... We're not allowed in there. Come on, Ilya is this way. But do you want to see the birds? Do you?" And albeit eternity stretches flesh into skeleton, memory into forgetfullness and a child into an old man, something of the old freshness of life remains, it is what we fin precious in this life, it is what we should hold on to. So the child is ecstatic for he likes the nameless girls, he trusts her for unlike his brothers, he is constantly surrounded by them and he wants her to meet them but as he hurries, he does not notice the screws turning inside the girls mind, questioning, curious, fickle as his gut instinct had firt told him.

"Girl?" Yarrow's bright smile falls as he whips his head around down the hallway to find the hall empty. His joy is replaced with panic.

Why is she so curious?