(Flashback) The Price of a Poem (Solo)

[Blythe]

56 Summer, 507 AV Blythe was sitting on her bed. A pillow was leaning up against the wall, and she was resting with her back up against it. A pale pink sheet was pulled up and over her body, it covered everything from her waist down, and pooled around her feet in a single, wrinkled cotton mass. Blythe’s legs were bent at the knees, and were tucked upwards and towards her chest. Her journal was resting in her lap, and had been opened to the next clean sheet of paper. She was holding her quill pen tightly in her right hand, and it hovered over the top of the sheet; waiting for Blythe to make a move. Blythe’s mind had been strangely empty of late, and no matter how much she seemed to try, she simply couldn’t come up with any poems. She supposed part of that may have to due with her constantly sitting herself down, and trying to write. She simply couldn’t force the words out. Such things simply came to her, and she just had to be sure that she was ready at all times to record whatever came to mind. Blythe had been staring at the blank page for an hour now. Nothing had come to her. Not. A. Single. Word. She was beginning to wonder if she were going to get anything, or if she should simply give up. Or perhaps she should just look around her room and start writing about the first thing that caught her eye. Anything. She needed to write something. But the only things in her room were herself, the bed, a dresser, and of course the window and the door that led outside. None of them were very exciting. Nothing she deemed worthy of recording in a poem. Blythe sighed. This was simply getting ridiculous. Coming up with something to write about shouldn’t be so difficult, she thought, as she lifted the quill pen and brushed the feather across her pale lips. It tickled a bit, but not enough to make Blythe laugh, or even, to make her smile. All she wanted to do was write, and even such a delicate and generally playful action could not get her to lighten up, even for a moment. Blythe sat unhappily for a few moments before she lowered the quill pen again. The pen hovered over the page for a few seconds before it sank, as though being drawn to the page by some sort of higher power. Blythe didn’t even know what she had been writing. Her mind was empty. She hadn’t told herself to write anything, and when her hand had stopped moving, and she had looked down at the page, she was surprised to find the words: the celestial seat is a place for only the loftiest of all affairs, a place for beings to soar among the stars, to touch the sky, to be swallowed up by the sun’s golden rays, but they must be careful, for it is easy to be lost in a black hole, for the mind to be lost among the clouds, white and fluffy, or even grey, and such endeavors should be left to the Gods themselves and no others, for the mortal man or even the mortal woman would most certainly find themselves trapped alongside the man who is already trapped within the confines of the moon Where in all of Mizahar had that come from? Blythe wondered, amazed with what she had written. The poem made little sense to her, but if she had to guess, she supposed it was some sort of warning. A reminder of some sort, perhaps something to do with power, and how it could easily lead people astray. Or how lofty ideals seemed to cause people to be lost amongst the stars, having aimed too high, and found themselves incapable of finding their way back.

[Blythe]

Either way, it left Blythe feeling rather confused. She had no idea where the poem had come from. Perhaps it was her subconscious, for it seemed the only likely explanation. Shrugging, Blythe decided to move on, perhaps the poem’s point would become clear to her as time passed, she thought. Blythe led the tip of the quill pen farther down the page, to the next empty space. She thought for a moment before writing the words: the branches of the old oak, have surely broke, beneath the fury of the storm, that rushed in this ‘morn, only to be swept away by the sea. Darn it! Blythe thought. She hated rhyming poems with an intense, fiery passion. She ran her quill pen over the words several times over. Blackening them out. They were dead to her; they had never even existed. Sighing heavily, in a frustrated sort of way, Blythe turned the page of her journal. She needed a fresh start, she thought, as she pressed the quill pen into the top left corner of the page. The ink was seeping into the paper, but her hand had not moved. The dot on the page was getting larger and larger by the second, and darker and darker, but no words were coming out. Think Blythe think! She scolded herself. There had to be something buried under her blonde lockes, something stored in the inner reaches of her brain. She sat silently for a few moments, her quill pen digging into the pale white paper before her hand began to move again, she wrote: it washes over you, like the waves of the sea when they crash into the shore Blythe shook her head. No, no, no! Not that! She thought as she crossed the words out and tried again: She knelt over the surface, looking into the blue-green waters of the pool that had gathered at her feet, the tears of her lost lover, longing to hold her one last time. She was crying too, crying for him, she felt so sorry, for having to leave his side. She could just barely make out her reflection through the glassy-eyed tears that fell into the water, sending a cascade of ripples running through the otherwise smooth surface. The tears dropped lightly, making no true sound, or at least, nothing that could be heard over her sniffles and her sobs. Nothing that could be heard over the sound of her hands pounding the water angrily, begging for him to come back to her, her blonde curls splaying across her face, sticking to the sides of her pale pink lips, her ice blue eyes the only thing that connected her to his world now, the only thing that reflected in the refractions of the ripple-filled water, the only thing that showed him that she felt the same way. The only way he could see her, through the looking glass, the water that distorted her beauty from when he looked upon her from below, before the lily fell from her hair, and was dragged down below with him, by his own hand, longing for a piece of her, anything, to hang on to. Well, that was… different, Blythe thought as she lifted her quill pen off the paper. It reminded her of Avalis and Laviku, but she wasn’t truly sure why. Perhaps it was all the talk of water, and the lilies at the end… Blythe thought about it for a few minutes, and wondered if it even came close to reflecting what either of them felt towards one another. If it even came close to depicting their love and their pain. Or, what would be their pain, or could be anyway. For even if Avalis and Laviku were separated, at least in body, were they in mind? Were they truly apart, at all? Blythe let her quill pen fall into the tiny crevice between two of her journal pages, and then closed the book with a strangely satisfying “thud.” That was enough poetry for one day, she thought, as she placed the journal down on the bed, kicked off the covers, and got up. Blythe was still wondering what it would be like not to be able to hold the person you loved. Surely such a thing would be torture she thought, as her grandmother called her, and everything involving the Gods and poetry was cleared from her mind. OOCObviously, I took a few creative liberties with this, but I tried to keep it as Mizahar-lore-friendly as possible. Also, sorry my poetry sucks! (But Blythe is at a novice-level, so it works out ok I suppose. >.<

[Alice]

Blythe

Experience: 3 Poetry
Lores: The Desire to Write, Including a Warning in a Poem, Hate for Rhyming Poems, Writing of Avalis’ and Laviku’s Love, Interpreting One’s Poems

Comments

I couldn’t think of any other skill to award. However, I hope the lores are what you hoped to get. Your poems are truly beautiful and very much sound like something a Konti would think of. I really enjoy reading them.