Confession, Part 2

[winterdrake.livejournal.com]

More of the previous, for those that might be interested (if any :)

Warmth. Incredible, all-over, tingling warmth. The kind you get on a summer’s day when you step from shadow into full sunlight and the sheer life-giving force pours over you, caressing your whole body, filling you with light. And a series of quiet sounds that all melded together into something that said ‘Safe. You are safe here, and welcome.’ Birdsong, wind ruffling through trees, running water. Sensation of lying on long grass, bits of it tickling your arms and face and through your clothes like little, friendly fingers. Like being enclosed in soft fur or hair. Scent of clean air reaching into your body. Clear sky above you, of a blue so intense that it hurts to look at it. So clear that you can see the meaning of infinity. So blue it breaks the heart. Time passes, you have no idea how long. Nothing hurries here; even the breeze is lingering to play with the trees overhead. One moment you are alone; the next, without any sense of shock, you see two people standing beside you on the grass, a child and a man. It is right that they should be here and you are pleased. You smile at them. They smile back and settle themselves next to you, lying back to stare into the sky. The man plucks a stalk of grass and chews on it. The feathered end of the stalk shows very clear against his sun-tanned skin. You watch them for a while. They seem to fit with this place, they belong here as you do. The child is very young, not more than six years old, with light brown hair falling into his grey eyes; the man is older, in his early twenties. His blond hair is tied tightly back in a long ponytail and his eyes are a soft, rich brown. Both are dressed in loose blue trousers and white shirts belted at the waist. Their belts are dark brown and have a small sunburst design stamped repeatedly into the leather. Below the belts, their shirts hang loosely over their trousers. They wear boots of the same dark leather as the belts, with the same design stamped into the outside of each boot and they’ve bunched the bottoms of their trousers up and tucked them into the loose tops of their boots. The boy has a tiny leather sheath strapped to his belt, with a smooth brown handle sticking out. The man has a sword, also in a leather scabbard. You look up from examining them and find that they are watching you. You smile again and the man touches the child’s shoulder. The child stands and comes over to you, extending a hand to help you stand. You grip his hand and he pulls you to your feet. To your faint surprise, you are the same height. You turn with the boy, still holding his hand, to face the man, who is sitting back on his heels and watching you both. Beside you, the boy says
“This is the one? You are sure?”
The man nods. “I’m sure. Go on.”
The boy turns you around so that you are facing him and his eyes meet yours. Then, standing very close, he puts his hands on your shoulders and says “I am Arman. I am going to need your help. Will you tell me your name?”
You find that your hands have moved, almost of their own accord, to the boy’s shoulders. You answer him as clearly as you can; “I am Annabel. I will help you if I can.”
The boy lifts one hand from your shoulder and touches your face, tracing the line of your cheek. His eyes, which have never left your own, light from within and he smiles in such a rush of delighted joy that you smile with him and the two of you turn, laughing, arms around each other, to face the man still kneeling on the ground. His face breaks into a smile the equal of your own and, in a pulse of warmth, they are gone. The trees and grass begin to fade around you, the sky loses its brilliant clarity and for one moment you feel a wrench of devastating loss. Before the pain can truly begin, the warmth returns and you hear Arman’s voice in your ear.
“Annabel, beloved, love. I’ll be waiting for you. It won’t be long.”

I tell you, I woke with such a sense of peace. Even now, so many years later and with so much pain to intervene, the memory of the warmth in that small clearing lifts my heart and the smile on Arman’s face still brings a kindred smile to my own. Such amazing certainty. I never doubted him. Just waited until the next time we could be together. Have you ever met your soul-mate? The one person in the universe who is the complement to you, who makes you whole, whose presence will forever be the light and fire of your life? If you have, you’ll know what that first meeting with Arman was like, for both of us. If you haven’t it’s a little harder to explain. Imagine having spent your whole life standing on sand that shifted under your feet, never having a firm purchase, never feeling entirely secure. Then imagine someone coming along and replacing the sand with rock, so that you know you’ll never fall again. It was a heady experience. Not that I could put any of this into words at the time, of course. In fact, pretty much as soon as I woke up and realised that I wasn’t where I’d dreamed I was, or with Arman, and that I wanted to be there and with him, I started to bawl my eyes out. My poor parents couldn’t work out what was wrong and, of course, I couldn’t tell them. I could remember myself in the dream, saying and seeing and doing things that made perfect sense, but whenever I tried to explain them I came up against the limits of a child’s mind and body. Eventually my parents decided that it must just have been a bad dream – ironic, really – and got on with the business of living. Not long after that I discovered that incredible inner certainty I was talking about and I was so sure that I’d see Arman again very soon that I stopped crying and decided to wait for it to happen. I wasn’t wrong either; he was back the next night.

This time was a bit different. There was a lot more conversation, for a start, and less of the almost mystical calm that drenched the first night. Don’t get me wrong, mind, I was never in that clearing without feeling entirely safe and secure. It’s just that the first visit was something special, even for that place. Looking back, that makes sense; that first meeting was the foundation stone of so much, the key to everything that followed. I found out from Arman a lot later that things could have gone very differently that night; I could have turned him down, could even have tried to hurt him in some way. I’m still not sure why I reacted the way I did. It just happened. I could no more have refused to help than I could have chosen to stop breathing. Which is, of course, supremely ironic, since in the end I didn’t help him at all. Rather the opposite. But now I really am getting ahead of myself. The second night, I met Arman and his companion in the same clearing. Everything was the same as before; I never did see the weather there be anything other than perfect. When I opened my eyes, the two of them were already sat on the grass, waiting for me. It went like this.

“Arman!”
“Annabel. You came.”
“How could I have stayed away? You know I’ll always be here, I’ll always come when you call.”
“That deep? Already?”
“That deep. And don’t tell me you thought otherwise. You know, Arman, the same way I do. It’s inside you.”
“True. But I needed….reassurance.”
“Then you have it.”
“Annabel…”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just the sound of your name.”
“Arman…”
“What?”
“The sound of your name.”
He bursts out laughing and you join him. You are holding hands, you haven’t let go since you opened your eyes in the clearing. You never want to let him go and, through his fingers, you can feel the same desperation, the same desire. He grabs your other hand and starts to spin, whirling you both around until the grass and sky form one swirled mass of colour. Still laughing, you collapse on the ground, pulling him down with you. You sit for a while, until your head clears, then you notice the man from yesterday. He is sat a little way from you on the ground, watching you both and smiling. You look at Arman, who has so far ignored the man.
“Arman, who is he?”
“Who? Oh, him. That’s Dain. He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on us.”
“Why?”
“In case we decide to run off somewhere. In case we need help.”
“Why would we need help?”
“Well…Not everything here is as friendly as this place. There are some places where we could run into trouble.”
“Oh. But we won’t. We can’t. We’re together, and that could stop anything.”
“True. And, actually, Dain isn’t just supposed to be watching. He’s supposed to be teaching us.”
“Teaching us what?”
“What we need to know.”
The man, Dain, has been watching your conversation with interest and as Arman finishes speaking, he comes over to you, sitting next to you and reaching out to take one of your hands and one of Arman’s. You both sit very still, watching him, waiting for him to speak.
“Arman, you’re as hard to get information from as a rock. You’re forgetting that Annabel doesn’t know nearly as much as you do about the situation here. Why don’t you give me a chance to explain?”
Arman looks momentarily embarrassed, then grins up at Dain.
“As you wish, oh lord and master.”
As he ducks under Dain’s lazy slap, Arman’s eyes meet yours and he winks. You grin back at him, then he flips over onto his stomach, one hand still holding yours, and pulls a grass stalk to chew. Dain begins to speak quietly and you both lean forward to listen.
“This began a long time ago, before either of you were born. We have people here who read the future, who can tell us when trouble’s coming, when to plan for a bad year, or when things will be good. For years now, every sign they’ve seen has pointed to trouble, to disaster. They couldn’t tell us what the problem was, or how to solve it, just that what was coming would see the end of everything we knew. If we survived at all, it would be as a remnant of ourselves, and most seers predicted that we wouldn’t survive. Well, we set them looking deeper and further, searching for anything that might give us a hope of survival. It took them years, but finally, just over six years ago, a seer came to us and said that he thought he might have found a solution. He wasn’t very hopeful; he said that there were far too many things that could go wrong, but since he was the first person to offer even a slim hope, we listened to him. He told us that there were two souls who could save us, if they were given the chance. One was here, already born, the other would be born elsewhere, some time during the next year. That was all. He said that he thought he might recognise the souls if he saw them, but that the search was up to us. So we began to look. We found Arman fairly fast, since he was already here, but it took us a lot longer, nearly six years, to find you. You were a long way from us and difficult to see. Also, once we’d found you, we had to work out how to meet. You couldn’t come here and we couldn’t travel to you. Eventually, the seer who had told us to find you suggested that we create this clearing and use it as a meeting place. We tried it for the first time last night. So, you see, we need you both, more than I can say. We don’t know what you have to do, or when, just that you need to be here and that it has to be both of you. One alone isn’t enough. Without you, both of you, we face disaster.”
Dain stops speaking, staring at you and Arman, his dark eyes very serious. You turn to Arman and his eyes meet yours. You watch each other for a long time, not speaking. Then Arman clears his throat.
“You said you would help. I won’t hold you to that, if you want to leave.”
You look at him, amazed. For some reason, the thought of leaving has not crossed your mind. You are sure that you have to stay, you have to help. You tell Arman this, surprised at the resolution in your own voice. He smiles. From the corner of your eye, you see Dain heave a sigh of relief, but then Arman is speaking and all your attention is focussed on him.
“I didn’t expect you to go. But I’m glad you’re staying.”
“I told you. How could I not?”
“I know”
“Together we can be anything…”
“…Do anything…”
“…live…”
“…die…”
“…Together, we are…”
“…everything…”
“…all things…”
Your voices chime together, one sound from two minds, as you say
“Together, we are enough.”