20 November 2012
Pax sits alone on a silvery cloud, clasping his hands around a young star for warmth. He likes the way it looks when light shimmers in streaks through the gaps in his hands, casting mysterious shadows about the navy, mottled sky. His lucid blue eyes are glazed over with tears, reflecting the pretty display that peeks through his fingers. It zips and pops inside his grasp, burning his palms with a sooty-grey in an attempt to escape, but he is past sympathy, and it it too cold up here at night to let it shoot away. He rolls onto his front; the dewiness of the cloud sending a tiny skittering shudder down his spine.
"Virtusa... Oh divine Virtusa, what I would give to be with you,"he whispers, clutching his tiny star tight to his chest. Below, he hears the buoyant, seraphic notes of a reed flute carried on by the wind, from the sleeping world below. His eyes widen, all of a sudden alert and crisp. Pax he gets to his feet, brushing the bits of coruscating, wispy cloud from his arms and chest, in doing so, lets the star free. It zips off into the velvety night, fizzing and popping with energy.
"Pax?" A faint, whimsical voice drifts on the breeze, like a song that has been forgotten, playing in the back of your mind.
Pax ties a thin strand of moonbeam to his ankle, and leaps from his cloud, plunging into the night air like a tumbling bird that has been shot out of the sky. As he composes himself, and begins to swoop downwards like an angelic swallow, he catches a glimpse of her. Virtusa.
"Pax!" She calls, climbing onto the wall around her balcony, her white dress flapping in the night air. Her beautiful hands reach out for him, and he feels his body fill with air and life once more.
"Virtusa! My beautiful queen! My angel!" He tumbles into her waiting arms, sending the tiny reed flute in her hand skittering across the hard marble, "Oh Virtusa, I thought I would never see you again!"
"I too, but father is asleep, and I needed to see you one more time, before-" she whispers, choking on her words as tears of joy begin dripping down her rose-bud cheeks. Pax lets out a soft cry, and wraps his arms around her tightly, loving every piece of her, every fragment of stardust that came to make her.
"Virtusa, I love you," he says, under his breath, and, loosening his hold, begins stroking the long white strands of her hair from her eyes. More tears pour from her periwinkle, and she leans in to kiss him, barely standing. Cradling her in his arms, he looks in through the blue drapes of her balcony, and see a wedding dress lain out, waiting for the morning, when she would be wed to the Prince of Solum.
"There must be another way to stop this," she says, clutching onto his shirt, which is still glittering from being in the clouds for so long.
"I know," he replies, "but when the sun rises, your thread will be cut, and you will belong to the prince". He pulls the sleeve of her thin nightdress up, and touches the thin, silver thread that is woven around her wrist, that trails along behind her, into the bedroom.
When Pax first fell from the sky, he was searching for the moon, which he believed was singing to him from the balcony. instead, he landed on top of a beautiful girl of pearl skin and white hair, who sat out late at night to play her flute. When he landed, he had snapped it in half, and so promised her that he would return with a new one in three moons time.
Sure enough, on the third moon, he returned, clutching a tiny silver flute. He had made it from the light of the moon, and had burnt his hands doing so. She offered him a place inside to warm up, and some bandages for his hands, which he cautiously accepted.
"What are you?" She had asked as she bathed his hands. "I'm a fallen angel," he replied. "A fallen angel? How unusual! I've never met a comet before" she laughed, her eyes lighting up. "I am an angel!" That's why I fell from the sky. I took light from the sun to stop rain from falling onto the flood plains, and so my wings were taken" "How awful..." She blinked.
From that night on, Pax soared down from the clouds, and told her tales of the sky. She listened intently, and told him of books and legends and numbers and music. Soon, they were in love, and planned to run away to the lost kingdom of Drint to live together forever.
However, one night, Pax flew down onto the balcony, and saw that his love was not there. Pulling back the blue velvet drapes, he saw that she was not in the bedroom either. He stepped inside, calling out for her.
"Virtusa? My love? I am here!" He said, peering through into her library next door.
There he found her, weeping and in her night clothes, wrapped up in a silver thread.
"Virtusa! What has happened to you?!" He gasped, untangling her from the thread. She was barely conscious, her face bruised and her body limp. Cradling her like a child, he watched her as she opened her sore, blue eyes, and tried to mutter something.
"Pax. My father," she said, breathy and exhausted.
"Yes?" He whispered, resting Virtusas fragile head in his hands.
"Pax I am to be married. In three moons time. My father saw you land on the balcony last night, and said he was not letting any daughter of his love an evil spirit. I am tied to the floor by a silver thread, so I cannot leave. Pax, I love you, but my father will kill you Go, and never come back."
***
"Pax, I love you,"
They kiss, one final time, and embrace in the silver light of the moon. For once, in all of their lives, things were not going to turn out well. Four years, Pax had flown down, and tonight, he would fly up, last time.
"Virtusa? I will always watch over you. I will see you on your wedding day, and know that you should have been my wife. I will see you live happily in wealth and class, with many beautiful books to read. I will see you grow old, and watch tiny wrinkles appear around your eyes from all the laughing you will be doing. Virtusa, I love you, and every time you are feeling alone, look to the sky and I will be watching"
Pax & Virtusa I • Opuss № I