Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Oct 11, 2021 1:14:44 GMT -5
Orpheus knew he saw the world differently from how many did. He knew he saw wonders that many would say were mundane. He knew the world listened to his music in a way even he couldn’t describe, because it was alive in a way even he didn’t understand. If the rocks could feel enough to let him pass, then they could remember enough to hold the past within them. The world was so full of life and wonder and secrets, and Orpheus only knew a small fraction of it. He wanted to learn more. He wanted to tease the secrets from the ocean and listen to the trees as they conversed. He wanted to scour the mountains for the evidence of lifetimes past. The best he could do was know that they were there. The best he could do was reassure L that the world was so much vaster and more connected than he had any idea of. Perhaps that was the consequence of L being a shadow for so long. He had never come to appreciate just how much knowledge is hidden by things taken to be inanimate.
“It’s the same world,” Orpheus replied softly, gently pressing the shell into L’s palm as he took his hand back. He wasn’t sure L had been okay with him grabbing it, and he wanted to give L as much space as the other immortal wanted. “You just have to look a little bit closer. Whether you’re looking or not, those secrets are all still there. The trees still speak to each other. The waves still carry memories back and forth from the shore until someone picks them up or they ‘re ground into sand. In which case… the sand contains memories, too. Of everything it once was. It’s all… it’s all connected. And even if you aren’t looking at it, it’s there. You just have to want to find it.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Oct 11, 2021 1:31:53 GMT -5
L had been a shadow for longer than he had ever existed. Not that that mattered, though, when he’d been little else than a ghost before then. He hadn’t traveled, really. He’d drifted. He’d been known, but in the way a stray dog was known. You weren’t really surprised to see it around, but it didn’t occur to you to try and talk to it.
Maybe that was why he’d always been inclined to talk to stray dogs.
He didn’t look away, even when the shell was in his hand. He’d been okay with Orpheus grabbing his hand, though he wasn’t sure he’d have known he would be until after it had happened. Something about the moment felt incredibly right. Like no matter what they did, it would be okay.
“I don’t know,” he murmured, his fingers closing very gently over the shell. It felt warm, though whether that was from the water or Orpheus he didn’t know. “It’s as though I can believe it when you say it, but I think…I think it might be a secret because most people can’t see it. As if the world protects itself by being unknowable.”
He wasn’t sure he was making sense. He wished for Orpheus’ ability to speak his mind. “I want to see it, though. I want to find it.”
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Oct 11, 2021 20:26:17 GMT -5
Orpheus searched L’s gaze for a long moment, a soft smile coming across his features as he nodded. He understood that – the world was hard to see, sometimes.
“I used to see the world in terms of how it could be versus how it actually is,” Orpheus murmured, glancing down at the shell clutched in L’s hand. “That’s… not how I should have seen things, I think. I used to imagine a world that was always kind, but I think in doing that, I failed to acknowledge the kindness inherent in the world we live in now. And then… I couldn’t see the world at all. I could only see the dark parts of it. I didn’t want to look for the beautiful things, and I didn’t want to think of a future. That’s… how it was when you first saw me. But I’ve learned. And I think if I figured out how to see the world… then it’s not impossible for you to see it that way, too. I… I can’t deny that the terrible things exist. I can’t pretend that the world is only kindness. But there’s more kindness than I was ever willing to give the world credit for.” He hesitated for a moment, then decided to take a risk.
“Close your eyes,” Orpheus whispered, straightening up just a little bit. “What do you feel around you?”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Oct 17, 2021 19:11:48 GMT -5
L listened quietly, remembering the story Orpheus had told him. This seemed to be yet another layer, a part of it that had always been there, but hadn’t been needed before. Orpheus had told him what had happened, before. He hadn’t gone into as much detail about the consequences of what had happened.
It was less that he didn’t want to see the good, and more that he didn’t know if he was able to. He could glimpse enough of it to want it, to long for it, but not enough to be able to hold it as Orpheus did. Not enough to speak of it.
He hesitated, eyes on Orpheus at the request. He didn’t look away for a moment, just looked at him, dark eyes holding hazel.
And then he closed his eyes, and waited.
“I feel the water,” he said after a moment, his own voice softer than he’d expected it to be. “And the wind. And the sand. And the sun.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Oct 20, 2021 21:06:42 GMT -5
It was hard to know how to begin. It was hard to tell how he could see a world where there were memories and songs written into every blade of grass or piece of sand. It was more of a feeling than a belief…he didn’t know if it made sense, but when Orpheus said it, he couldn’t help thinking it could be the world he’d been living in all this time. As though it was all there whether he saw it or not. He didn’t even have to be singing to be memorizing, it seemed.
“I don’t know,” he admitted after a moment, his voice quiet. He kept his eyes closed, a tiny crease appearing on his forehead concentrated. “The water is cool…and the sun is warm. I can’t tell what temperature the sand is.”
He had a feeling that wasn’t what Orpheus had meant, but he didn’t quite know how to explain how he felt. Maybe he wasn’t sure he knew himself.
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Oct 21, 2021 1:00:08 GMT -5
Orpheus could tell that L wasn’t used to expressing his feelings in that way. Perhaps he hadn’t ever learned to identify them, even. That was alright. It was complicated, dealing with feelings that you didn’t always have a name for. If you weren’t’ able to identify how something made you feel, if you weren’t able to share that experience with someone else… it just meant that you had to sit with it a little bit longer. He gave L a small smile, despite the fact that the other immortal couldn’t see it. Hopefully he would know he was doing his best to support him anyway. To help him see the world how Orpheus saw it, if only for a moment.
“Good,” Orpheus whispered, letting his own eyes close for just a moment as he tried to identify the temperature of the sand. L was right, it was hard to specify.
“What… comes to mind when you think about the feeling all of this inspires in you?” he asked after a moment, eyes opening and head tilting. “Just… the first words to come to mind. You don’t have to overthink it.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Oct 22, 2021 21:44:22 GMT -5
L breathed out, trying to let himself relax. It wasn’t easy to know how to do this…he had never been that expressive, even when he’d had no reason not to be. Explaining how he felt was like trying to tell someone what a color looked like. He knew it was something he experienced. But he didn’t know if he had the words to tell someone about it.
What came to his mind, though…that, he thought he could do. That was something concrete. He could follow that thought.
“Days that don’t feel like they’re going to end,” he said after a moment, trying to speak without overthinking it. “Warm drinks. Mm…trust.”
He breathed out. The breeze pushed his hair in his face, then out again. He could feel it, tickling his closed eyelids. It never really did what hair was supposed to do, but now, somehow it felt even more rebellious, as though it could tell he was stepping out of his comfort zone, and was excited for him. Though, probably it was just because he was more aware of his body than he usually was. He had a tendency to forget about it for long periods of time.
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Oct 25, 2021 1:35:34 GMT -5
Orpheus gave a small smile as L went on, hitting the crux of the feeling. Feelings were nebulous, difficult-to-describe things. Orpheus couldn’t blame L for not having the right words right off the bat. It was about fishing for the words that fit the best and finding a way to make them into some sort of melody. Language itself was a song, in Orpheus’ eyes. That was why it was so easy to put so much of it to music. He knew that other people didn’t see it that way, even when they were creating music all the time. L had been a silent entity for so long that Orpheus wasn’t terribly surprised to find him struggling to describe it. Nonetheless… he was doing a good job.
“There you go,” Orpheus whispered, his smile growing and becoming somehow more genuine. “That’s what it means to you. It’s the same feeling, then. And the ocean will remember how you feel in this moment. It might be difficult to find again, but it will be there with the water and the sand. And you’ll remember how the ocean felt. How the sun felt on your shoulders. We are all… we’re all just walking memories of everything we’ve encountered. You and I have more stories hidden in us than most.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Oct 26, 2021 2:12:47 GMT -5
L had never seen speaking as a song. He had never given music much thought at all, actually…it had been nice, and he’d enjoyed it now and then, but never with much passion. It usually left his mind as soon as it stopped playing.
Not like this, though. For Orpheus, music seemed to be written into him, somehow, folded into every edge, softening the corners. It was easy to tell it was often on his mind. No one else spoke the way a poet did.
“I…see. I think I see,” he murmured, concentrating. His thoughts had wandered; he brought them back. “It’s like an exchange. Something we’ll both carry. And if I ever come back, we’ll put the halves together again.”
He opened his eyes slowly, to find Orpheus still in front of him, a smile on his face.
He breathed out, very carefully. When he spoke, his voice was softer.
“Do you think we can carry them all? That many stories?”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Nov 23, 2021 11:12:19 GMT -5
There were too many thoughts, L mused, that were never known.
He had always felt he could understand more than he could be understood, he had always felt as though he knew while quietly never being known, but here he stood, now, and here was Orpheus, and what were they?
Orpheus; the musician. Orpheus; the wanderer. Orpheus; the secret.
And L, the boy who desperately wanted to be known and at the same time loathed the thought of allowing it to happen.
He still knew more about Orpheus than Orpheus knew about him. But that gap was closing faster than he could have anticipated, and he felt himself being pulled in.
He was not helpless against it, but he was helpless against himself. He wasn’t fighting it like he should have been.
He searched Orpheus’ soft hazel gaze, his darker one shadowed, but not quite unreadable. A poet could have put words to this feeling, but the poet wasn’t the one feeling it, and the closest L could come was a backwards sort of grief. Like missing the future, though he knew that was a foolish concept.
He did not call it longing, though he could have.
“I know this was meant to be a curse,” he whispered, and he, too, looked to the horizon. “But for the first time…I wonder if it is, fully.”
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Nov 26, 2021 1:17:37 GMT -5
Orpheus had no way of knowing exactly what was running through L’s head. He was starting to know the other immortal, but he didn’t know him well enough to read him yet. There were things he could guess, of course, but there was much more that remained a mystery. One day, he thought, he would like to know L for real. He would like to know the shape of his thoughts. He wanted to be able to see the crease in his forehead and be able to accurately guess what it might mean. For now, all Orpheus could do was note that it was there and wonder a little bit distantly what it might mean. What he might be missing about the man who stood in front of him. The man who seemed to contain so much more than he let on.
Orpheus had always appreciated the beauty in other people’s thoughts. He had only ever been close enough to one person to know their thoughts intimately, but Eurydice’s thoughts had been full of indescribably beauty. There were things Orpheus remembered her saying that he would never be able to get out of his head. He had changed how she saw the world, but she had done the same for him. A poet, it seemed, couldn’t touch the world without it reaching back to touch them as well. Orpheus wouldn’t change it for anything. He didn’t want to go through life unchanged by everything he was seeing around him. He was never going to change outwardly, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t continue to learn and grow. He had a feeling L had a lot to teach him, if only he remained patient.
“There are a lot of people who would wish for this,” Orpheus admitted, his gaze not straying from L’s eyes. “There are a lot of people who would give up everything they owned for the chance that we have. I… can see why some people would want to. In a way… I almost think we’re more able to appreciate it than they would be.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Dec 31, 2021 20:21:12 GMT -5
L didn’t know if he believed there was much beauty to his thoughts. He thought there was quite a lot to Orpheus’, though…the other immortal seemed to contain a lot of beauty, in general. He understood the world, and he seemed to understand that he likely couldn’t understand it completely. Which L found even more impressive.
Everything seemed both larger and smaller than it had before. There was more of it. But he wasn’t as afraid of it as he had been. Maybe he would be again, tomorrow, or the next day, but in this moment, he thought he’d have chosen to be cursed, if he could have known it would lead here. To life, instead of madness.
“Maybe so,” he whispered, his voice barely audible above the waves, and the wind, and the cries of birds as they dipped and soared through both. “If it’s going to be like this…if I’m going to feel this way, even if I don’t know what it’s called…then I am happy to be cursed with you, I think. If this is life, then don’t apologize for making it possible. If this is life, then I think I would like to live forever.”
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Jan 14, 2022 1:30:41 GMT -5
Orpheus wasn’t sure he understood the world. There was a great deal to understand; more than he could ever hope to on his own. He had barely started to understand the curse that had been placed on them both. He could still barely process a world without Eurydice, and it had been centuries since she had left his side.
He hadn’t thought he would ever be able to move on, but he had learned that moving on didn’t necessarily mean forgetting her. It just meant finding happiness elsewhere. It meant appreciating the things that would have brought her joy and knowing that she lived on in his memory. Knowing that somewhere, she was having an afterlife that was hopefully more peaceful than the one he had intruded on all those years ago.
“I don’t know if it will always be like this,” Orpheus admitted, staring out at the waves. “There are a great many things that could change, and a great many tragedies that may befall us. The trees that are living just beyond the beach aren’t going to live forever. Their stories will live on, told by the ocean and the sky, but the trees themselves will fall. But even if this isn’t life in its entirety, it will always be part of life.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Feb 4, 2022 1:56:12 GMT -5
L glanced to the side, taking in those words without responding. While Orpheus watched the waves, L watched Orpheus, taking in the shape of his eyes, the curve of his lips as he forgot them. He would never get used to watching someone else when there was no one to remind them they existed anywhere but their own head.
He wanted to answer. He wanted to ask how Orpheus could hope, trust, even, knowing what he knew. He phrased the question in his mind; Isn’t it safer not to believe in it? Isn’t it safer never to feel the sand under your feet if you know it might not be the same in a day, a year?
But he didn’t ask.
Instead, he turned and looked at the waves.
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Feb 5, 2022 4:22:11 GMT -5
Orpheus didn’t know what L was thinking. He didn’t know if he ever would know. He just knew he was curious. He knew he wanted to know L’s mind the way he knew his own, if only so he wouldn’t feel so alone inside his own head. Inside the endless future he couldn’t escape. This had been a curse, originally. Was that what it was, still?
“This will all still be here, years from now,” Orpheus murmured, letting his gaze move back towards L. He could see so many possibilities in the waves. He could see a future he didn’t have to spend completely alone. So why did it hurt so much?
“Maybe… maybe if we’re still traveling together, we can come see it. And no matter what else has changed, this beach will still be here. The ocean doesn’t just… go away.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Feb 16, 2022 6:01:38 GMT -5
L turned a little, searching Orpheus’ expression as he spoke. Imagining how long it might be, before they came back. If they came back at all.
It was odd, to imagine the endless years stretching in front of them both. Most people only had their lifetime to worry about how things could change, but for them time felt endless, and full of things he probably couldn’t even imagine now. Would he remember this moment, a thousand years from now? What would he think, if he did?
Would Orpheus still be there? They were immortal, but not immune to death, and L had never really expected his own to come from natural causes, anyway.
He looked back at the ocean, letting the thought trail off into the sound of the waves, and the feel of the water against his skin, the sand shifting gently under his feet.
“Not yet,” he noted, his own voice soft and almost hesitant. “The ocean…it seems so permanent, now. As though nothing could ever change it. But how do we know it won’t disappear a little, day by day, until no one realizes it was ever there to begin with? I suppose…we’ll know, if that happens. But we’ll be the only ones to know what it feels like to stand here.”
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Feb 16, 2022 23:52:39 GMT -5
Orpheus didn’t know if they would ever come back to this same spot again. He didn’t know if they would ever be able to find it. The world was so big and Orpheus didn’t have enough room in his head for the directions to everywhere they had been. Maybe he could keep these directions in his head. Maybe they would be able to come back and see the ocean, unchanged. Or else… not as quickly changed as the rest of the world.
“Not yet,” Orpheus echoed, brow furrowing. It hadn’t occurred to him that even the ocean might change, eventually. He knew it could. He knew the world could shift in ways that people didn’t yet understand, but he didn’t like thinking about it. He wanted to believe that no matter how long they lived, there would still be something left in the world that was older than they were. How long were they going to live, anyway?
“It might,” Orpheus managed, watching as the tide began to recede. Was it possible it would recede one day and never return to this spot? Was it possible the oceans would dry up one day, leaving them all behind? The thought stuck in his throat, rocking him to his core.
“We’ll remember,” he whispered. “Even if it’s gone forever, we’ll remember what it was like to stand here, what it felt like to have the waves lap at our feet. We’ll… we’ll know. And it will remember us, as long as it can. As long as there’s sand here that once shifted beneath our feet.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Mar 14, 2022 18:23:29 GMT -5
L glanced to the side, expression shifting just a little as he caught the look in the other immortal’s eyes. He hadn’t meant to make him uncomfortable with the thought…it was one he thought about almost constantly. Maybe he’d forgotten how much of an impact it would make if you had never considered it before.
He knew he was cynical. He had been even before the curse, and after…he didn’t think he’d lost all hope in the world, exactly, but he’d come close. When you knew you were going to live forever as long as nothing managed to catch you off guard, even the happiest moments had a tendency to feel bittersweet.
This felt bittersweet, if he was honest. He didn’t want to outlive the ocean, the grass, the dolphin that might remember him for the rest of its life and might not. He didn’t want to outlive the sand and the sky, the wind and the stars.
But, underneath all that, the worry that wouldn’t leave his thoughts, the suspicion that had made a home in his heart…it hadn’t been bittersweet a moment ago. When Orpheus spoke, when he explained the universe as though he understood it, when he’d taken L’s hand because passion had overridden uncertainty for just a moment…
“We’ll remember,” he repeated, eyes fixed on Orpheus’ face. “And…maybe we won’t be the only ones. Even if the ocean fades…other things remember, don’t they? Even if they never saw it themselves, maybe they heard it somewhere, from someone who did. Maybe, if they hear the story, they’ll tell it to someone else. Maybe gone isn’t the same as lost.”
His words felt clunky and insufficient next to Orpheus’ near musical ones. But he couldn’t stand to see Orpheus upset.
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Mar 19, 2022 19:51:45 GMT -5
Even after all this time, Orpheus wasn’t used to thinking in terms of endings. He thought a lot about how things began, and he paid attention to how they changed, but even with all of the death that lay behind him, even with the loss of everything he had known in his youth, he often forgot to even consider that things might end at some point. Endings were sad. Endings implied that things were lost, that there was no point in going on because the story was over. Orpheus’ story wasn’t over, and it was always difficult to remember that others stories were much shorter than his. Was that the fallacy of the gods? Did they merely forget that the mortals they watched over had such short lives? Or did they remember, giving them quests that might kill them because their lives were so short and thus expendable? The thought sent a chill down Orpheus’ spine. His gods weren’t cruel, but it was hard to remember sometimes how foreign they were, even now. Time had given Orpheus new perspective, but he still didn’t think his life was worth any more than the hundreds of mortals he passed by each day.
“We’ll remember,” Orpheus echoed, putting more strength in his tone than he felt. No matter what else happened to them, this moment was theirs. This beach would live in them forever, even if they didn’t remember exactly what year they had visited. Even if it blurred together with the hundreds of other beaches they would surely end up at if their lives continued the way they had thus far. Somehow, Orpheus didn’t think this one would blur. He had a feeling this was a memory that was going to stay with him for a very long time.
“You know… there’s truth behind myth,” he whispered, thinking of Hercules. “And… myth might change things, it might get details wrong, but… even if the ocean disappears here, there will still be people who tell stories of the sea. Who tell their children of their ancestors who used to be great fishermen. The stories will continue even after the thing itself is lost.” Orpheus glanced at L, a small, genuine smile tugging at his lips. “Have you noticed that people far from Greece have the same names for their planets as we do? Even though they do celebrate our gods? Isn’t that another form of memory?”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Apr 8, 2022 22:39:54 GMT -5
Could they become cruel, if they were left alone too long? Was that the curse Hades had meant to give, so long ago? It was one L knew Orpheus would have loathed especially…to be cruel. To harm the people around him, even unintentionally, or perhaps especially unintentionally. It went against everything L knew about him, all he could see in his eyes, every lyric that had ever escaped him.
Besides…it was a curse Hades would have known all too well. Was that it an intentional irony, to the person who had defied a god, to give them the curse of one?
Or perhaps he was overthinking it. Orpheus was hardly cruel, after all, and it had been a long time already. Surely he would have changed by now, if he were going to.
He turned, watching Orpheus instead of the waves. Myths…yes, he knew of myths. He had left no stories of his own behind, of course, and he hadn’t expected to, but that didn’t mean other people - other things - hadn’t.
“Are stories memories?” He asked, his voice soft enough to nearly be lost in the sound of the waves, tugging insistently at him, as though begging him to walk out just a little bit further. “If the world remembers still, when humans forget…could it work the other way around? Could humans remember what the world can’t, when they tell each other stories, or paint stones, or learn songs, or make boats for an ocean that might not exist someday? Does that count as remembering?”
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Apr 16, 2022 22:02:41 GMT -5
“I think so,” Orpheus whispered, staring out over the horizon. It was a heavy thing to think about - the fact that there were people who would be remembered as myths long after they had died. The fact that Orpheus himself was likely among that number. He had travelled with heroes, after all. Heroes that the world had yet to forget, even if they had lived centuries before. Orpheus wondered if there were those who spoke his name over the fire when they passed on stories to their children. Did they remember the sea he sailed on as well as the person he was supposed to be?
“It’s complicated,” Orpheus said after a moment, turning his gaze to once again look at L. “I mean… they remember part of the truth when they pass on stories, but the longer and longer it goes, the more inaccurate the stories become. I remember the myths that I was told when I was young. There were stories completely divorced from place and time. I suppose people don’t really care where something happened so much as they care that it happened. It’s… odd. One day there may be people who remember me long after they remember that Thrace exists. Or at least long after nobody remembers what Thrace looked like when I lived there.” He was silent for a few heartbeats before he stepped forward into the waves.
“I never meant to become a myth,” he said, turning back to face L. “I just wanted to help people. Or… or get Eurydice back. But it’s too late to undo the stories people tell. I guess… part of me hopes that myths aren’t remembering. It’s not that I want to be forgotten, but I’m afraid what those stories might turn me into. I’d rather be known only by one person than have a world of people think they know a version of me I wouldn’t recognize.”
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Post by ®Hawkpath® on Jun 4, 2022 13:29:27 GMT -5
L watched the way Orpheus stepped further out, though he stayed where he was, facing him. It seemed natural, somehow, that Orpheus should be closer to the horizon, and he closer to the land. He was only out this far because he’d been following him, after all.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, if I were you,” he told him, shifting his weight just a little. He almost stepped further out to join him, but he didn’t.
“I think… a story could be like a memory, in that way. A memory is an impression, left by an event, the way a footprint is left in the sand. If you only walk there once, it’ll change into something unrecognizable within an hour. Or it’ll be washed away completely, and no one will ever know it was there to begin with.”
He shifted again, glancing back. Their own footprints were still visible, though not where the waves could reach. He looked back at Orpheus, pressing his lips into a thin line before he continued.
“A story is the same way, I think. At least…the ones I used to hear, following you. They changed over time, until I could barely recognize them, because they were told again and again, and there was nothing left to remind anyone of what they used to be. If you remember something enough times…it distorts. If you tell a story enough times, details shift. If you leave a place for too long, it won’t be the same when you return.”
He rubbed his neck a little, suddenly aware of how long he’d been talking. “The point I’m attempting to make is that…you’re not a memory. Your story is, and your history is, but not you. You’re even less of one than I am, because…I think…because of your music. Because there is an impression left by you, and it’s one you leave every day. I knew who you were long before I first stepped out of the shadows, because I heard your songs. And…you should know that I haven’t been surprised by who you are, yet.”
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Transgender
strider
No mourners, no funerals
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Post by strider on Jul 23, 2022 1:02:47 GMT -5
Between the two of them, Orpheus was fairly certain he was the more likely to monologue. L’s mind was, by and large, a mystery to him. He didn’t know what the other immortal was thinking, and he didn’t know if he would ever find out. L’s thoughts rarely seemed to make it out in words, and Orpheus couldn’t shake the feeling that it was because there were too many thoughts to be translated well. Orpheus’ many thoughts tended to worm their way out in songs and lyrics and poetry. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have a head full of thoughts and no way to let them seep out. From what little he had heard, L’s thoughts seemed even more numerous and complicated than his own. It was one of many reasons he found himself both admiring and intrigued by him.
This… the fact that L was saying so much and working to translate his thoughts into coherent words… it meant something. Orpheus knew he was saying something he considered important, and even without that knowledge, Orpheus couldn’t help but feel the same way. They were both alive. They continued to make impressions, even if the world worked to wipe away those impressions as soon as they had stepped away. As much as Orpheus had seen of humanity, he knew that there were only a small number of things that lasted more than a short period of time. People’s names, sometimes, but their faces and voices, the words they said… those were often lost unless they were a very special kind of person.
“I suppose we’re lucky in that way,” Orpheus whispered after letting L’s words hang in the air for a long moment. They may not have left a lasting impression on the earth, but they would leave one on Orpheus. Even if he couldn’t remember the exact phrasing a thousand years down the line, he add a feeling he wasn’t likely to forget this conversation.
“We get to keep making impressions. We get to keep telling the world that we were here. And the sand beneath our feet will remember the weight of us, even if all of our footprints fade away.” He let out a soft sigh, then lifted his gaze back towards the horizon.
“I’m grateful to you,” he added, the words barely audible. “I think… you help me keep being the person I want to be. You help me leave an impression in just the right shape.”
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