Wild: Marriage

I believe in relationships. All kinds, traditional, and non. Either way, we're in it for as long as we want to be in it. We believe.

But it isn't going to work without trust. If you don't believe that you can throw your lover into a room full of what tempts them, naked, have everybody else look like supermodels, and come out victorious, you shouldn't be together. If you don't want your lover to go out with their friends because they might get too drunk and rape somebody in a corner, don't be together.

If you have to smear the filth that you 'only have eyes for them' every morning, as certain as babies' breath at weddings, you shouldn't be together. Be honest with yourself. Look at your life. You don't only have eyes for them. Oh, right now, sure. But in ten minutes, when s/he walks by and your genitals set themselves on fire, is forever as sure? You have a flicker of doubt then, the smallest one, like a little tint of smoke over glass..

If you don't, you shouldn't be together. Your relationship isn't healthy or stable. Your love is a part of this world, not all of it. Otherwise you've been mentally fucked, either by yourself or them, and you need to get the fuck out of dodge.

Yeah. See what I did there?

If you wouldn't sacrifice for your lover, you shouldn't be together, either. Oh, I don't mean heroic sacrifices; you can wipe that smug grin off your face right now. I mean the type of sacrifices that are hard to do and easy to get wrong. I mean, suppose you aren't the right person for your lover. Would you leave them if you knew? What if you're keeping them from bliss and true happiness for a lie, just so you aren't lying alone in your bed at night?

Guess what, buddy. That isn't love.

Or maybe, you and your lover have been together for years, and they've gotten into a horrible accident of some kind. They're a vegetable on life support, and you remember their words: "Never let me live like that," or "Never let me live that way!"

But you keep them alive, or you kill them, anyway.

For you. Because that's easier.

If love emerges from the guilt, from consequences, then it is a bittersweet love and twice as hard to leave it.

Even if you should.

Sacrifice.

Now, Trust and Sacrifice aren't all you need to make a relationship work, but they're the two that pop into my head for the situation I'm thinking about right now. There are others, others we must master. Ego; betrayal, Time, Faith, Balance, a prevailing sense of self-identity throughout it all, fuck it if there aren't countless more....






But you have to remember the one that's harder than self-doubt is.



Sometimes--my God, not always, far from always--sometimes, it is their fault this isn't working. Their fault they push you too hard or they take things from you, their fault that you lie to keep fire from each others' lips, their fault you plunge into a future life hasn't prepared you for yet. No matter how fast you've grown, how much you know, sometimes it isn't enough.

Humility. Another on the endless list.



Realize that you are hurting both of you if the situation calls for it. Realize that you aren't necessarily the best cure for them, no matter how uplifting it is to think (in your most secretive thoughts) of them throwing away their flaws for pure and selfless love.

That isn't how life is. You have to accept them--Acceptance. That goes for them too, is the thing. They have to accept you, as you are, as you will be and were. They can't be pissed that you have a past or are growing into a future that isn't the one they wanted. You have to be free.

Freedom. Another on the endless list.

Every relationship has flaws, but you need to stop and recognize when those flaws are poisoning the both of you, making your pure and selfless love a sure-fire way to end any relationship you might have, ever. Just because you're selfish. Just because you're doing that "life support" brand of wrong--
you have to listen to what they tell you. Same for them.

Both of you have to change to be together. I'm not talking the simple things, either, the "don't leave your dirty socks out and take your medication on time" things. The hard ones.

But you have to be who you are, or it destroys the point.

So you think on that, before you promise forever and just think it'll all be fine because you're a selfless hero who can take on anything. You think on that. Remember what happens when it all goes wrong, as, sometimes, it does; it must.





Think.













And not just for yourself.

Wild: About to lose the laptop; the "just in case" file

one of fucking many... discarded for being too flowery and having no direction. Revise and edit the shit out of this, the words are working too hard.

What I have so far...
I think the idea I have on my phone and this dribble could speak together. Even (especially?) if the prose is too flowery. Remember, he's not from some burned city. He's actually spoken to the man whose dreams make you die (hypothetically).

omg. perfect.

Anselm walked in a styled ruggedness on the only road to Finard in a state of semi-illusion. Brushing his black bangs from his thin face. He was tall, strong, and handsome. His skin was dark, like ground coffee leaves (which also glowed a slight gold), and silver-brown eyes, a strange combination of the ordinary and extraordinary, glared with a harsh anger at the forest-lined dirt road.
His left ear was pierced, and shone brightly to the sun, even reaching beyond the tree line of the woods of Arnoc. And if this piece of knowledge was quite unfortunate for him, it was only because four members of a band of thieves lay waiting for the next man traveling alone, he happened to be traveling alone, and it was almost dusk. The red sun was sinking over the horizon of flowing green grass, (for Anselm had almost made it from the woods) saying-goodbye to the nearest town, which he could see sparkling in the distance, a silhouette against the lazy sky.
A small stone sign lay waiting on the road.
“Finard, two miles,” he murmured to himself--and the thieves were upon him. They were dressed in a combination of stinking rags and the finest cloths available (those spun from spiders’ silk and moonbeam reams), so Anselm knew them exactly for what they were.
“ ‘Finard, two miles’,” mimicked a thief with a scratch where his left eye should be. “’Twoud be our greatest honor to guide you to Finard, sir, for as you can see, we are merely a brand of connoisseur whose talent is unrecognized.”
“Your guidance would perhaps require the return of my empty pocketbook?” The lesser thieves looked at Left-eye, who stared at him with narrow eyes, tossing the bag to Anselm, who caught it with an effortless hand. “And now mine, I think,” continued this victim of robbery, “You see, this is a look a like.”
Swearing, the Thief lord tossed Anselm another pocketbook--his own.
“You may have this one,” said Anselm, “I will leave the thieving to you, if there is any to be done.” He slew the decoy back to lord Left-eye, the king of Arnoc wood, with such force that when he caught it, he stepped back twice, bumping into a tree.
“Who are you?” Asked one of the lesser thieves, a boy no older than twelve.
“My name is Anselm Ysabel,” he said, “and I am the horsemaster of Dickensale.”
Murmuring went through the men, worried glances.
“Dickensale has been ash for less than a fortnight, sir, and you are already two miles from the Quartz Gate?” Asked Left-eye, as snippets of the others’ conversation-- “how did he escape?” and “But the  witch--” were heard.
Anselm’s silver-brown eyes glimmered in the moonlight, daring the thieves to challenge him.
“If you would rob a man who seeks to avenge his village--slain women and children--step forward,” he snarled, no longer civil, no longer staring at the ground, but now at each of the thieves in turn; “for I have been touched by magic”--the men took a step back from him-- “and you would be a fool to parley with me, because I will kill you. If once the idea of killing a fellow down on his luck perturbed me, that weakness has passed by my circumstance.”
The thieves stared at his eyes--his eyes searing their souls--and all but one melted into the forest.
“No Thief of mine will again make the mistake of hindering you,” he said. “Should you ever need aid, light a fire with Wolfsbane; and we shall assist you.”
Anselm nodded his thanks.
With Left-eye watching, he continued to walk down, reaching the city of Finard just as the sun rose for their village.
“Gods keep you,” murmured Left-eye.
***
The village of Finard had not changed in half a century. The lower class had mud-built, straw-thatched roofs in the living district (still called the living district), and the high class had halls of white marble and doors in cherry wood, edged with gold. The market district (with its’ bright-tipped tents and stalls) sold the market materials, the arts (with its consistently and exclusively bright purple tents) the arts, and that was that.
Today, however, there was one particular individual who cursed the injustices of this highly-practical--and specifically organized--example of archaism.
“You will give me this stand,” she said, indicating the nearest empty stall, with its fine covering of Robin’s egg blue.
The bearded man (the manager of the First Market district), shook his head. “I am sorry,” he replied, almost sincerely, “but you wares do not belong among these stands, Sorceress. Magic, food and barter are not meant to be together--what if some child should trade his dinner for your lack of? I am not in disrespect of your talent or power, sweet-friend, but I must bar your path--the Arts’ district, perhaps?” And ambled away towards the red tent there-next, which sold peaches.
And so our Sorceress--the witch of the blue-black hair and color-changing eyes--moved to the Art Market, who told her a self-same tale:
“I am very sorry, Witch-of-all-witches,” purred the equally beautiful art-guild in a voice like a babbling spring, “but we, we sell art.” Her voice was raw with a passion, one which bored now this twice-rejected magic-maker. “Art is made by love and feeling, not a waving carvers’ discard or a wayward writers’ phrase.”
And the sorceresses’ eyes were now yellow, with orange rims.
“Of course,” she said, but when she left, there was a frog on the ground behind her…. And for three and a half days, no one could find the director of the Arts’ district, who to this day spoke with a bit of a croak.
***
When Anselm arrived in Finard, he found himself in the Market district, and the smell of food--food, something Anselm, like most medieval men, was rather fond thereof--and half-dragged, half-sprinted himself to the peach stand.
“Peaches,” he murmured, “she loved peaches….”
“Unless you and I share the gift of premonition, stranger,” called a woman, “you are tallying without purpose, which suggests weariness, and staring without seeing, which suggests horror. Horror and weariness means…..?”
Anselm stared. Not only at her unnecessary boldness, but also her appearance. The stranger had calming grey eyes, like a storm upon the sea one saw from a distance, which stared at him in combination with an irksome half-smile with the radiance of fresh-fallen mountain snow.
Her skin was light brown, like coffee mixed with cream, and around that small face of coffee-smooth skin was the blue-black hair of a wraith.
She was clad in a multi-layered rag-dress, much like a Pagan or Gypsy’s, and--
“Your name would be nice before I depart my wisdom, stranger,” said Anselm. “Have you seen the Market Manager? I have much desire to speak with him.”
The beautiful woman glanced in the direction of a large badger who seemed to have a beard. “He’s unavailable at the moment,” she said, “come to my stand? We may wait for him,” and guided him to that next to the peach stand, a strange stall of robin’s egg blue.
Anselm’s silver-brown eyes beheld his surroundings defensively.
“You’re a Sorceress!” he spat. “Devilment! Trickery! Soul-stealer!”
“Sorceresses deal with souls,” she said boredly, “I am a witch, which is much less limiting but with half the potential. Ah! Which is the witch!” The not-sorceress cackled wildly, and Anselm took a step away.
“Your name, Witch,” he said, and although he said it evenly, the enchantress thought it prudent not to prone the fire that rested behind those silv’n eyes.
“Taesha Blacwin,” she replied. “How may I be of help to you, sir…” Her eyes flashed pink, and Anselm stared.
“Anselm,” he said, “I also apologize, Aggie Blacwin, for no help may be born me by your dealings. What I need is---”
“The Market manager!” said the Peach vendor (a fat fellow with a sheltered upbringing), “Look at him!”
Ah, the Manager of the First Market District had had quite an unspeakable morning. His beard, apparently false, was askew; his clothing torn, rumpled, and stained, and all of that persona of his stank of the wild and the unwashed streets of the city--
And he was headed for the witch with an angry, pointing finger.
“You,” he mouthed, and she smiled, a huge, entertaining smile like she’d seen a puppy recently, and then he spoke again (audibly this time), a horrible dark undertone, “you!”
“Lucky you, Anselm Ysabel of Dickensale, Horse-master of the ash-made ruin,” she said, completely ignoring the Manager despite her roguish smile entirely for his benefit, “May I offer you a cup of tea, and--oh, my word!” the witch feigned surprise, “You’ve found the manager!”
With a poof of colored smoke, she was gone, leaving Anselm alone with a (very angry) former badger.
***
*curse: For every person you meet, you will know their greatest shame.