icarus, lead the way (areto, day 7)
Aug 15, 2021 14:06:18 GMT -5
Post by calla on Aug 15, 2021 14:06:18 GMT -5
The masks fall a little anti-climatically. The air hits Areto's face, and she breathes for really the first time all day. Then she looks down and sees her spear through Julian's chest so clearly.
"It hurts." He says.
And "I know." Areto replies, but she doesn't say it out of cruelty. She says it out of kindness, and out of understanding, and when Julian slumps against where Emerson's monument is, she eases the mask off his face and helps him down gently.
"You have to win." Julian tells her, and Areto tries to shush him, she tries to tell him that speaking will just hurt more, but he keeps going. She nudges the spear in him so it doesn't keep ripping into his middle, steadying him when he lets out an almost-laugh and jostles himself.
"You're already a hero." She says quietly. "You're Alectrona. The sun. You'll rise again, just like she does. You'll keep shining."
She makes a decision then, because she knows that it's not just Julian listening to her now. There are more eyes and ears than she can count. She had told Bellamy about Galatea, she had compared Love to Apate and Aspen to Polyphemus and Emerson to Megáli Gáta, but she is not naive enough to believe that the Capitol aired the stories of her island freely.
She knows that it will be demonized, and her beliefs will be ridiculous and more Peacekeepers will be sent to Four to erase them. But here, as the last of the Le Roux lions starts to fade away, Areto knows that he is too important for the feeds to cut away. Maybe there is something selfish in her that recognizes that, and maybe there's something other than the goodness of her heart that makes her speak again.
'We will not be erased,' she had told them in the beginning. She had promised.
"Alectrona is the rising sun." Areto says as she sits and watches the fall of Julian's chest. "She climbs the tallest mountain every morning just to bring light to us."
"She was a strong warrior, but in one battle, the enemy was cunning, and they used a great arrow to shoot her from the sky. When she was killed, her body fell down into the sea and the world turned dark. The evil became stronger when the gods could no longer see. But Alectrona's seven brothers were sailors, and while the fighting continued, they searched for seven days in their ship to find her."
"Eventually, on the final day, they sailed between two cliffs and saw a warm glow in the water. It was Alectrona's body, and she was still alight. They wove a net of silk and pulled her body up and sailed back to the mountain that she had lived at."
"But as they travelled, the monsters were attracted to the light and tried to extinguish it. Each brother fell defending Alectrona until only one remained. He reached the mountain alone and carried her to the top, where her lifted her body and light shone over the world again."
"But the remaining brother had been injured in protecting her, and he couldn't hold Alectrona for very long. So he prayed to the Mother to give his sister his strength instead, and to save the rest of her children, the Mother agreed. The brother fell, and Alectrona rose, and the fight was won under the strength of her new light."
"Now, she rises once every day to remember each of her seven brothers."
Julian rests against the little stack of rocks he said was for Emerson, and Areto doesn't quite know what it is, and she doesn't quite know what is symbolizes, but she can understand the thought of it. The island has monuments like that. They have pyres and saplings and little slabs of driftwood that commemorate their fallen.
She hopes that he won't ask her to bury him. Because she's not sure she would be able to.
But Areto looks at the little stack, and she looks at the way Julian leans on it, and it looks important, so she places a hand on his shoulder. His breathing is shallower now, and Areto squeezes once before rising. She doesn't want to leave him, not while he's still here, so she moves quickly. She gathers up more of the little stones and stacks them up beside him.
"Alectrona will rise again for you too."
“Let this be his monument.” She says to the darkness, and it sounds a little strange in her mouth. Alectrona is not her patron, and she has never done her rites before. She does not know how. The sun is not here but she knows it will be someday. She knows that everything must rise again. "Let him return to the sky."
She stays by Julian's side until he's gone, and then she puts her hand on the little stack of stones, and she stays a little longer.
