They say that time heals all wounds. For me, there’s only too much of it yet never quite enough at the same time. I don’t know who they are, but I wish desperately to believe them. Day after day, night after night, shadows of the past crawl over my skin, causing it to prickle from its intensity. Hour after hour and minute after minute I pray… no, I wish for it to end; for there to be an end for me to go to, but there never is.
The years pass and fade together like droplets of paint running down a still wet canvas. You don’t know where one brush-stroke starts and another finishes. That’s how life is to me. The world is full of people and always has been ever since time began. But people are born and when they die all that remains is I. It’s always me, only ever me.
People at all times strive to stay young and beautiful, looking their best. If the Fountain of Youth actually existed people would be pushing and shoving each other to obtain a single drop. To be young and beautiful for all of eternity, most would call this a gift. I call it my curse.
Year after year, century after century I have lived on this earth. Ever since time began I have existed. While everyone around me grew old, cursed me for my youth, and died; I lived on. At times I felt almost one with them, the mortals, only I had to remind myself to breath in order to blend in. I went through this endless charade of living until I finally couldn’t bring myself to endure it any longer. Watching people around me suffer and die for centuries, people I cared for, people I loved; it nearly killed me. Not in the literal sense of course, but you get the picture.
After so long of suffering alongside them for I don’t even know how long, I stopped. I never stopped caring about them, not completely anyway, but I stopped ‘living’ as one of them. For thousands of years I stopped ‘living’, always wishing I could stop the actual thing. For thousands of years I exiled myself from where the mortals lived their lives. I was never so far away that I couldn’t see them, just distant enough so they couldn’t see me. I was just far enough away as to keep me out of their lives but close enough to know it still existed.
One day however, that all changed. One day I began to live again. I don’t know why it was in that period of time for time is so diminutive to me. However I do know one thing, it was because of her: the radiant maiden who fell from the heavens and reminded me to breathe again, if only for a minute in time. If you ask me what made her so special that I gave up my ‘life’ to live hers, I can’t tell you because I myself do not know the answer to that question. Why was she so special, you ask? She just was.
Right now most stories would start out by describing the hot blistering sun or the caress of the ocean breeze. My story has neither. It all started with rain.
The rain was coming down in blinding sheets of gray and white. Most people stayed sheltered in the privacy of their own homes and would recall the age old saying that it's raining cats and dogs, but not I. Then again I was walking this earth long before that saying ever came into being and I longed for the freedom the rain brought. It has always been one of the few times I can venture where I please and not be burdened with the seductive thrall of living. The rain had always been my special time until the one night when everything changed. Then it became special for an entirely different reason.
I was about my usual walk, savoring how the chill of the rain made my skin prickle, sending shivers down my spine. I always loved how it made me feel as if minuscule volts of electricity were dancing over my skin. It made me feel alive and that is a feeling I don't often come by. That night however the water droplets didn't hold their usual magic over me. Something wasn't quite right. A feeling inside of me buzzed causing the fine hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I couldn't get over the feeling that somehow someone, or something, was watching me.
I looked about me but all I saw dissolved into nothingness. There were trees and a few houses off in the distance, but it all faded into the black of night. Time seemed to still the longer I remained standing. Something, no, someone was there watching me. I just had yet to find out from where.
My eyes continued to search the night while my mind raced with thoughts and feelings I hadn't felt in years. It had been so long since I closed myself off from the world and everything associated with it. All the sensations I had long since abandoned bombarded me, drowning me in a sea of emotion. Struggling to keep my heap above the rocky water weakened me more than I thought was possible. I knew it would not be long before my composure brought me down to my knees and that was when I saw her.
The moonlight radiated off her tresses spilling down her back, framing her with a halo of light. She sat on a rooftop of a nearby house some 200ft away, legs dangling over the edge of the stone shingles. I was sure with the darkness and the distance that she could not see me yet something lured me to her. Silently, as my years have taught me, I made my way through the foliage until I could observe her more clearly than before.
I had never seen her before, I was sure of that. Still she seemed almost too familiar, as if I were looking at my very soul. Never before had I felt this way about anyone, least of all a mortal. And never before had I been so right and not even known it.
I did not speak to her that night nor the night after. At first I just watched. For so long I had distanced myself from humanity, hiding behind veils of stone. I desperately wanted to reach out and brush her cheek with my hand. I wanted to feel her lips upon mine, passion dancing across our skin. I wanted to hold her close and protect her from the harsh world I have come to know, love, and despise. I wanted to see her happy and hear the sound of her laughter. Most of all I wanted to be the cause of that happiness. But I had no idea how to begin. I had no idea how to approach her.
For months this went on, my watching and yearning for what I could not attain. A time or two I made an attempt to approach my maiden but always stopped short before I got too close. One part of me was terrified out of my mind that if I met her she would think me beneath her. The other part was all too aware that if I never tried then I would wonder if it was me she would love. At times I didn't know which was worse, knowing that she would never love me or forever wondering if she would.
I had started to become more courageous in my courting efforts. Instead of watching from afar I would venture closer bit by bit. On one such morning I watched as she danced, her hair wild around her shoulders and her feet gliding soundlessly over the dew-covered grass. I could tell her skin was prickled by the morning breeze and I could smell the lavender of her hair that drifted upon the air. So soft were her steps that it almost seemed like her feet never touched the damp earth beneath her. In that moment she was perfect, a beautiful apparition of serenity I yearned to possess with all of my being. Twirling with arms outspread, the soft light of the dawn bestowed upon her a halo of light that added a glow to her flowing hair. Her tresses performed their own ballet of swirls while she danced. And in that moment I fell irrevocably and unconditionally in love.
Lost in the ecstasy from watching I barely noticed as she turned in my direction, a smile gracing her face. Realization dawning, I watched in disbelief as she slowly glided my way. I knew that I should run, but I found myself frozen with indecision. My head was screaming at me to run, telling me that I had no right to pull her into my darkness. My heart on the other hand was pleading with me to join her in the warmth of the sun. A moment too long I paused, wondering if I could leave behind the shackles of apathy and make a life with her in the light.
In the moment I paused she had come to me, her hand outstretched, beckoning for me to grasp it with my own. Right then my head and heart became one and I could no longer resist. Gently I took her hand in mine and allowed her to lead me out onto the grass that was her stage. With her hand in mine and our bodies intertwined we danced to the lull of music only the two of us could hear. For what felt like a millenia we stayed like that. It was a glorious dream I wished would never end.
But like dreams, they all come to an end. Faintly in the distance I could hear the voices of people I would later come to know as her friends and who would even later become mine. They were nearing the clearing and I knew that I had to leave. Now was not the time for confrontation with more of her kind. Remorsefully I pulled myself from her inviting embrace. With a brush of my lips on her cheek I began to make my leave.
"Wait!" She called after me, the sound of her voice stilled me in my tracks but I dared not look back. "Will I ever see you again? I don't even know your name."
My name... such a simple yet complicated request. I have taken many names through the years but a part of me knew it was not a falsity that she sought. The name I had been given I have never known yet I knew it was imperative that I be as honest with her as I could be. Before I was out sight I turned to her one last time, the words dieing on my lips.
"My name is Ancion."
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