all the pennies in the wishing wells

[imugi]

title: sing a song of yesterday.
dedication: larvayne

series: (CORONATION)
characters: Adonai

rating: g

summary: Adonai leaves home.
author notes: --

When they reach Helhem, the sky is incredibly blue. It looms over a vast, blue-green sea, nearly cloudless save for a few wispy traces of white. Angel feathers, Ada calls them, having seen depictions of them in the old books of lost beliefs. She'd begun believing that people once could fly, some time in the distant past long ago, but one day they'd simply lost their wings-- the same way animals lost their gills or grew their necks.

Her hand is still small clasped in Adonai's own, the two of them eight years apart. She's not even lived for a decade of time, and it's her first visit to the port city. Her eyes are shining when he stops and kneels in front of her at the docks, and he quickly comes to realize that it's due to unshed tears rather than childish excitement. He never sees them fall, because she sniffs loudly and throws her arms around his neck.

“I don't want you to go, Adonai!” she wails, burying her face in his shoulder. “Who's going to teach me, and tell me stories, and play with me at the shrine?”

He can't help but smile as he returns the embrace, waiting patiently for her to finish. She eventually tires herself out, stops rambling about how lonely she's going to be, and when she pulls away, he wipes at her tears with the back of his sleeve. He pulls a handkerchief from his coat pocket and urges her to blow her nose. She presses the soft material to her face, hiding from him.

“If you're all stuffed up, how am I supposed to hear you sing, Ada Rose?” he explains gently, and it seems to be enough encouragement for her to obey his wishes.

He looks out to the sea as she cleans her face, to the seemingly endless horizon, to the ships in the distance. Then he looks back to Helhem, with its brightly colored roofs and creamy white bricks-- a part of his homeland. It isn't out of lost love that he leaves, not in the least, but instead for the opportunity to love something anew. It's something that Ada wouldn't understand, but perhaps one day in the future, when she's older...

“Why do you suppose the sea looks green?” he asks, even if he knows the answer.

“That's because of the flowers.”

They aren't really flowers, just algae and other sorts of marine plantlife, but Adonai laughs and doesn't correct her. She senses that he doesn't believe her, however, and as the redness from her tears recedes, her face is touched with indignation.

“They just haven't bloomed, yet.”

And who's to say they won't, someday in the future? The same way men lost their wings and animals grew their necks. Adonai contemplates this, and promises to write her a letter someday all about the sea and the flowers. Their mother appears then with some of Adonai's things tucked in her arms and a kind smile on her face. She says that if there are flowers in the waters, then she hopes that they can bloom in every color imaginable.

Then she pulls him into her arms and kisses him goodbye.

Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing, Ada sings out as Adonai boards the ship, and he turns back in surprise. The people behind him stop as well, turning back to regard their own families on the docks. A small chorus begins— Ada at the forefront, small hands clasped to her chest— and, for the first time, Adonai feels like crying. He sighs instead, smiles again (painful, but satisfied), and holds up a hand.

When will we ever learn?


When will we ever learn?

.

Adonai spends a year on the battlefield, taken into custody of the military the first moment he sets foot on Vethi soil. His training is minimal, and he spends many a day covered in dirt, sweat, and blood. However, he refuses to fight in earnest, and one day happens upon another young man by the name of Dorian.

“You don't belong here, Adonai,” Dorian says, some strange and bittersweet emotion in his eyes as he watches Adonai coax plants to sprout from a scorched field. Adonai brushes away the damaged surface with his hands, green shoots curling up between his fingers.

Dorian is a good man, Adonai comes to learn. And— beneath the dirt, sweat, and blood— also very beautiful, the dignified sort less meant for war than Adonai himself. Maybe it's out of a desire to purge his own sins that Dorian helps him, to free himself by freeing someone else. Or maybe it's that their hardships had indeed formed bonds that were precious, that Dorian is so selfless that he would risk himself to bring Adonai to where he's meant to be.

The old man's name is Ross, and Adonai's hand is dirty when they shake. It's a strong handshake for a man his age, and his smile is bright. Dorian is his grandson, he says, and they've been ferrying people from war for a long time. It isn't a question of helping or not. This is what Adonai has traveled from his country looking for, and the sight of the church is like something he's been waiting to see his whole life.

“Who're you?” one of the children asks when he walks out after a shower, his hair still damp and clinging to his face. The boy is barely taller than his knees.

“My name is Adonai.”

It really explains nothing, but the boy is satisfied enough to offer him a gap-toothed grin. As if on cue, he glances up and begins to pick out traces of more children, hiding around the corners and behind the pews. A small girl with pigtails is huddled somewhere far away, staring at him with distrust but too young to scowl. Adonai feels his heart swell with some bittersweet emotion, maybe the same things Dorian feels when he wants to save someone. He feels closer to the other man than before, suddenly.

“Do you want to hear a story?”

.

When he meets her, she reminds him of Ada Rose. She has those bright and innocent eyes, the same ones that can somehow see hidden things in the clouds. She's strong, and he thinks it even as he feels her shaking in his arms, hiding from monsters that had already lost interest and gone away. Younger than even his sister was the last time he saw her, not having yet lived a decade of time. (Ada would be a decade old now, he thinks, and muses on how quickly time seems to have passed.)

“It's alright,” he repeats comforting words, and tears his handkerchief, using the pieces to wrap around the scratches on her hands and arms. They would be washed and dressed properly once they return to town.

She doesn't say much, a mumble of something here and there, and Adonai isn't sure if she's shy or just in shock from the experience. He never manages to learn her name, even as he carries her in his arms and walks at a steady pace, humming an old tune that his mother would often sing. By the time the trees thin and houses come into view, she seems to have relaxed, no longer shaking or clinging to his shirt with a white-knuckled grip.

“Eirlys!” A call in the distance— Adonai turns and hands over the child to her concerned father, though her eyes linger on him as if there's something she wants to say. Whatever it is ends up interrupted as the father hurries her to the clinic, and Adonai smiles.

“She's a good girl that comes by often,” Father Ross explains to him the next day, arms crossed. “But a little too trusting.”

“She's still young,” Adonai laughs, attempting to curb the man's worry, “It's a bit early for her to become jaded, yet.”

“Listen, Adonai... I'd like you to officially become a part of this church's staff.”

The sudden announcement gives him pause. He hasn't been there very long, but has already taken up the duties of a priest— duties he carried over from back home. One of the other older members of the church nods his approval from Ross' side, and there was really no question of accepting or not— Adonai shakes the old man's hand again, like the first time, and the lot of them begin discussing the details.

A sudden shriek interrupts them, and Adonai turns— spots the young girl from the night before, red-faced and wide-eyed. He smiles and waves, but she only turns and bolts, disappearing from sight like a startled deer, her companion soon following. He's left confused and wondering, but decides in the end that there would be time for that whenever they would meet again.

He makes a mental note to begin writing a letter once he's returned to his room.