blue lake

We huddle together as close as two babes in the same belly. The need is unspoken. We are Men - and whatever happened today, whatever force directed the waters - was not. We are Men, and for all our valour and our shining swords, we know when to find a fortress to shelter us from the unknown. A refuge of reality from which we can stare out at the world when it twists into an unknown shape around us. Here, no stone, nothing made by the hands of Men to seek a refuge in. Flesh then must do, and the solidity of bone, the regular familiar in and out of breathing to remind us that there is reality. This slim island of land, caught between the cold lake that would drown me, and the deadly beautiful cascades and pools that would claim me. This spit of land is sand, the nearest I can get to stone - save for his eyes, stone coloured. Here, finally, he sleeps, after so many nights alert. It has taken a day such as this to force him to exhaustion. So many days and nights with scant sleep, then running, hunting, fighting as well as a younger man newly risen from his bed. But this is other, She is other, as unfathomable as the lake he believes She is, or controls ... I do not know what this is. It is the not-knowning that gnaws the bones and flesh to exhaustion in a way no physical enemy can. How can I fight something when I do not know if it takes form and lives - a thing that can hold his vow and work jealousy, that can work my own mind such that cold is hot and every sparkle on the lake is a memory drawing me to my own drowning? So, now, here and now, I take refuge in one simple thing and wait out the night. I watch each rise and fall of his breath.