Page 107 of Of Sockets Of Stitches
“I hoped that I was doing right. The future becomes ever harder to guess at.”
I faced the sky again. “I am glad that you took the risk. My champions?”
“Returned. Not yet awake, but otherwise unharmed, though I had to extract a great deal of sand from Raise’s lungs.”
I dared to ask. “Life?”
“Life was given in the battle,” See said softly. “He is not merely lost like the others.”
A monster gone and never to return.
I looked inward to my heart to feel and remember all that Life had been. “The Brings were not strong enough alone. A mothers’ vigil tried to get them close enough.”
See said, “The resilience given to them was real, but delivered with a speed that was not. There is no replacement for living life in truth.”
His connections were well considered, and my mind whirled with the past. What if I had allowed the Brings to meet at the moment of the countess reaching fullness of power? They would have had more time to live in union.
What if I had released King Bring at the ball instead of upon the return from the Take’s seam?
I covered my eyes.
“Do you know why I only consider the past when changing the future, Perantiqua?” See asked in the shakings of my exhales.
I knew the answer.
He said it anyway. “Because nobody, not even I, can change the past. I tried once, you know, when feeling myself forever enamored by Princess Take. It’s impossible. Carved in stone, all of life’s lessons etched to lead us to better choices if we shouldopen ourselves to such wisdom. But what-ifs do not serve us, for they offer no wisdom, just a delay before you accept at last that what transpired was inevitable. Because you are who you are at this second and instant. Your choices could not have been otherwise. Just as champions’ choices could not have been, nor Madison’s or Life’s or Earl Bring’s choices. Heed the wisdom of a seeing monster’s, my darkness, and skip the what-ifs to find acceptance and then seek the reason for this lesson.”
I could see the sense in his wisdom. I tuned out the parts of my mind offering up alternatives of the past. My mastery over the various aspects of myself, mind, body, and soul had become great indeed. For me to merely tune out a small part of one aspect was a useful skill. For I had need of my mind to learn this lesson, as See had told.
“What have you learned, my darkness?” And his voice was dark too.
I stared at the sky. “I have learned that the healing of a fraying seam can be reinforced by the sacrifice of a simple monster. Healing is not limited to a mother and the couple in question.”
I had learned that a fate painful beyond reason awaited me if the black should ever truly claim me. The chunks of flesh eaten away by its attack were tender. So many of them. And the black grains of sand had been so few in number. Its attack had been tiny indeed.
What else remained to learn?
There was another lesson in there.
See interrupted before the wisp could rise in my mind. “You are wise to consider such lessons that will keep all remaining monsters safe.”
I sat up. “I have considered the lessons. I feel the loss of Life in my very soul. I will do everything possible to escape that feeling again.”
The child and woman in my soul had not stopped crying, and their mourning permeated every part of me.
“We must keep all monsters safe,” See murmured, then kissed the back of my hand. He kissed a newly healed bit of flesh and I winced, pulling back.
But I nodded. “That is my reason for being. See, what has befallen the world now that Earl Bring is departed for a time?”
“The night is gone. We are pitched in eternal daylight.”
I worked to keep my breaths even through the horror of that. “But no shadows nor dusk? No midnights nor moonlight?”
“None, my darkness. The oasis of monsters disappeared with a bringing earl, and humans will surely suffer from this loss too.”
They surely would, but I could only think of my monsters right now. “I must go to check my champions.”
I used the olden rock to stand, noting the agitated swirling of the sparser black within. That was a mystery that continued to elude.
