05
{ the girl, heartless. }
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' s h e
w h o
r e m e m b e r s '
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"This town is busier than the last one, isn't it?" Esen asks Zeref (that is her lover's name, Ze-ref, glides across the tongue smoothly like a music tone, spoken in murmurs and prayers against dark mages that will lead the world to ruin, Zeref).
"This one is closer to the capital, that's why," he replies. They're standing side by side and as usual, Zeref is careful to avoid crowded places. His head is bent down in fear of meeting other people and potentially making them the next victims of his curse.
"It stinks of fish," Esen comments again and she's responded with a nod. "I miss the forests."
Another nod. They pass by walls vandalized with confessions and names and wishes. And so many hearts and cracks in the wooden establishments. There are even those that degrade others, calling them foolish and pitiful and heartless.
"Esen..." Zeref calls and his voice is as soft as always. "So many people call others, heartless, but how do you think one loses ones heart?"
Esen blinks at the question, clearly surprised. "I... have no idea."
How do you make someone heartless?
Esen knows because she has experienced it firsthand, after strolls in woodlands adorned with wildflowers, after the blood spilled in her hands and life escaped different eyes all in front of her, the fleeting feeling of having everything in your grasp only for it to be taken the next, to cherish and love and give everything, but fear every night, before you close your eyes to sleep and fear and think and be anxious— will tomorrow still be the same?
It n e v e r is.
How do you lose a heart?
Hearts are embedded into your core, connected to the vessels and protected by your ribcage, it's guarded heavily by your skin and your strength, fierce eyes and sharp glares and it's almost impossible to reach. You protect it with cold stares and cruel words and murmurs of I hate you, I don't need you, stay away! You never let anyone close. Pity those fools that leave the heart unguarded.
Esen is a fool.
She offered up her heart to past lovers with their smiles reflecting sunshine and their whispers of an eternity spent with undying affection. She let them get close, offer up the organ still bloody and beating and they snatched it with force and they are gone gone gone gone gone the next moment.
How do you make someone heartless?
You love and cherish and adore and shower them with everything they could wish for, you stay, you promise to forever and you blind them with promises and hopes and dreams and wishes and aspirations for the uncertain future and you speak those vows with flowery words and determined eyes and once you break their ribcage open, you let them offer up their glass hearts and you marvel at the organ, touch it tenderly with warm hands and the frost that surrounds it melts and when they turn their backs or even blink for a single second, you take the organ with you and you disappear. You break your promises of forever and fin.
But according to the elders of a village with stars, the one where the cycle started its overture, a heart is not something so whole, it is in splinters and you can never truly get everything in one go, but Esen has a myriad of past lovers and bit by bit, they have carried the shards and they themselves carried away by the invisible strings of the cruel (cruel Ankhseram, I curse you) god.
"You look distraught," Zeref tells her. Gradually, the familiarity of his name is sinking unto her thoughts. Fireflies light the way in front of them and Esen almost forgot that the sun has set and spun salmon skies.
"The workings of my mind have been convoluted recently," she replies, and fixes her skirt as she takes a seat in a giant boulder in their way to the desert.
"There is another village behind these mountains, they say that it is where a magical deer resides."
Esen looks up and meets his eyes. "A deer? Why do you mention that now?"
In his hands are dry wood and she notices how he casts simple magic and sets it alit.
"You mentioned that your mind was troubled, chaotic," he says and the fire spreads in the small pile he created and he sits next to it, feeling the warmth. Esen is tempted to sit next to him, but she exercises self-control. "The deer grants clarity."
"Wouldn't it be a waste of time?" Esen asks, looks up at the sky with stars. Even in the mountains they shine so splendidly. "We're destined for Alakitasia, aren't we?"
A glint crosses his eyes. "You noticed."
"We've been constantly heading West, it is the Western Continent, the dots are not difficult to connect."
A hum escapes his lips. There is a smirk forming there and Esen marvels at the different side he is displaying, barely a scratch in the surface but Esen is curious as to what it leads to.
"No matter," Zeref says. "I have always been curious of that deer, maybe I can spare time to gaze upon it."
"You're not doing it for me...?" Esen taunts.
Her lover (or is he really, because as far as she is concerned, Zeref has barely shown any indication that he is ready to fall in love, she pushes the hope bubbling in her chest again) is quick to cut the taunt off. "I'm doing it for me." A pause. "For my curiosity. They say that the deer was crafted by Ankhseram for his wife. Before she perished. A reminder of the clarity she gave him. It was supposed to stay in the heavens with him, but it reminded him so much of his wife that he cast it unto the Earth for eternity."
Esen does not say anything, but she feels immense sorrow for the gods.
"The deer is a pitiful creature," Zeref explains once more. "It is the only one of its kind and it is meant to live eternity by itself."
"But at the end of the day, it is just an animal, isn't it? No matter how beautiful and magical it can be."
Zeref smiles. It is another one of his melancholic smiles. "You can say the same for humans. Beautiful and magical, yet specks of dust under the eyes of the cruel gods."
Esen smiles. "Sometimes I wonder about the curses," she says, her eyes distant and from the corner of her eyes, she sees Zeref look at her with curiosity. "The gods themselves crafted them and place them upon those they see as something like specks of dust. To be noticed by the gods themselves, I wonder if it is a blessing or a curse."
A bitter smile crosses her lover's lips as he leans against one of the boulders for sleep. "It is a curse, it always has been."
Esen reminds herself of broken hearts and shattered promises, of wasteful deaths and happy memories all in the past and tainted with the stench of death.
Of course, how could she forget?
It has always been a curse.
( But it is not only just that. )
The next day, it rains.
The difficulty of climbing over the mountain increases and twice, she has slipped on a rock and cut herself, but Zeref pulled her up and her body healed the wound as per usual. It hurt though so Zeref insisted on giving her rest. They stay in the borders of the village for a while, sat on dewy grass and the clouds churning above them.
"I will be okay now," Esen says after minutes, "we should get going."
"Hey, you two there!" A voice from the nearby forest and she turns to see a boy no younger than the age of ten heading toward them. "Did you see the deer?!"
Esen shakes her head and Zeref tenses next to her.
"Stay away!" he yells and the boy draws closer and Zeref bumps into boy on his way to escape and she expected her kind lover to help the child up, but he only stares at the boy with apathy and leaves, vanishing in the trees and the pattering of the rain never ceasing.
Esen shakes her head, helps the boy stand up and then thanks her with those cheery eyes (unknowing of how death hovered over him for an instant) and she goes after Zeref, puzzled as to why he's so apathetic (when she knows him as kind and gentle and dandelion fluffs drifting in the dusky air), then she notices that he's clenching his fist so tightly and the darkness is swirling in his palm.
"The curse..."
Like cogs in a machinery, it starts slow, but one after another, the order is processed and the machine understands and Esen does too.
And then the darkness disappears in a blink of an eye. She holds his hand. She hopes it's warm even though the rain is freezing.
You promise to stay.
"You are not alone."
It was only meant to be spoken as a fact, something to calm his erratic heart, but underneath the summer sun, she sees the droplets of tears cascading down his cheeks in rivulets (or maybe it is the rain?).
"Zeref..."
You break open the ribcage.
"I wonder why... I find myself believing you."
You find the heart.
-
e n d.
[ thank you for reading chained flowers. ]
c o m i n g:
06 | "the monster."