Uncertainties & shaky hands
make for a nervous gait
but who's eyes broaden upon the lands
searching for the road to Dream

Another SongPost just for fun. :) And because I like linking stuff even if I've linked them before (check post True). Not a lot is going on and I've been reading about the USSR like crazy for a History paper and other things and the information is kind of overwhelming but it's all good. Just found out I might be going to Canada this summer... More characterization and sad stuff *hits self b/c she can't write anything not sad and depressing*. Darn Silent Hill music. I love it so much.

xD Can you tell I'm trying to avoid using the character names?

+ + + Heaven's Night—"There's still happiness"

The Heaven's Night festival was held on this one day of the year where everyone, since this being a very small town, would gather in the highest clearing, yards from the town. It was called "One Star Hill" because of the myth that a star fell there long ago in the past that made the land what it was. The town's name isn't that special and has had a history of conquerors and battalions trampling over this land for the people beyond—those that have reason to call trouble like that, the ones with fortifications and riches beyond us peasants. As a whole, this town has been rebuilt over and over all because of the motto the council chose thusly: In somnis veritas or "In dreams there is truth."

It was said that this town was the epitome of dreams, where you are able to dream because how this town functions looks all so simple...from the surface. But I'm not saying that I know how and what the council deals with on a daily basis but everyone that lives here has so much pride and hope for this tiny town...

Dreams. Hope. Heaven's Night... All make me think of fairytales. Can this town, it's civilians; is this all a big fairytale? If that's so, let it stay that way, if not for me then for everyone else.

The street on which I walk now, the narrow paved path with quaint dusty brown buildings lining the sides. Steel and iron painted a shiny black were the lights that appeared at so-and-so interval of pavement, baskets of greenery and fragrant flowers brightening the path. The sun was just setting so the lights themselves were being lit one by one as I walked past this all too familiar road.

Many people I knew passed me by, all huddled close with their companions and shivering in their coats and gloves. Though enamored with their lover or in a heated conversation, they gave me a short glance before turning away. Smiles, small and maybe even hopeful, were etched on their faces. I knew what they were thinking about. I knew that they knew where I was going, who I was visiting; they'd seen me far too often. I blushed, pulling my cap down at the same time.

The more I walked, the more and more empty the street became. Buildings began to disperse as wider, loner snowscapes met my eye and trees spotted the white all around me. My hands in my pockets I continued this dirt path, trudging on the incline. A carriage just passed me by; I heard the whistling and chugging of a train in the distance. It was close now, the house, though a bit near the mouth of the woods, gated but tiny—a cottage. The husband worked in the town, the mother stayed at home, she stayed at home as well, save for the occasion of school.

I'd met her a very long time ago and had been by her since then with the permission of her parents. I with my father by my side and my mother gone with a lover and a child of her own—a brother can you believe that? With the two being acquainted in business ventures and both on good terms, I was able to come and go to their house at any time. I remember my father laughing at how suddenly active I'd become since I was born not in the best of health...

And here I am now, about to knock on the door. From here I could hear a faint singing, footsteps and the crackling of a fire. I knocked and in a few seconds the mother, with her kind but wan face, let me in with a smile, urging me to sit by the fire and rest. I did and could never have been more thankful.

+ + +

It was a dark clear sky with no moon. The only lights we could see were from the stars and the square in the town accompanied with low cheers and music. Eventually, one by one, the lights would shut off and the civilians, with candles in their hands resembling fireflies in the summer, would make the pilgrimage to the hill and watch the sky. There were groups and broken lines, like blotches in the snow, who'd sit quietly or play around for everything was silent and their joyous cries could be heard miles away—where we were sitting.

It would stay like that until the night air became unbearable but till then, a fire would be created and everyone would sit closer to hear the stories and myths of olde from the mouths of the civilians themselves. While that happened, the lights of the patrol could be seen fading in and out of the dark crevices of the town, guards were posted by the possible entrances where any danger but that rarely happened.

The bench we were sitting on was crafted by my father but the location as to which it was to be placed was suggested by Leander, her father. His excuse was because it was always nice to look out from a high place. And it's wonderful, especially in the springtime when all the greenery and flowers looked their finest. Now that I think about it...it does sound like a fairytale. I mentioned this to her and she smiled but she seemed more lost in her thoughts. I asked her what was wrong and she snapped back to her normal self.

"Everything is fine," she had said. People said that when they were not fine.

I didn't push the subject. There was something about living for so long with this girl that made one almost know what she was thinking in a single glance. There was also the definite tightening of the edges of her lips; sometimes they'd be little tugs, as if all she wanted to do at the moment was frown. Then there was a certain look to her face and—as if aware of the deep slant of her brow—the modest dip of her head caused her hair to partially obscure her profile where she, following that, would brush it over her ear with white frozen fingers. The slant looked less severe but it remained nonetheless.

She was definitely not saying something that needed to be said. And I, noticing how this observation of her mannerisms struck me as a little...creepy. Turning away, even though she hadn't noticed my staring, I thought of what I could do. She was the type to, say, "suffer quietly." Even then, when we first met, she was quiet around other children and was always left behind like a shadow. When she was alone with her mother and father, she was the opposite... Maybe it has something to do with her parents... Probably—

"What are you thinking about?" Her voice clear and loud in the silence, like the hourly bells.

Her face was turned towards me... Has she been like that for some time? I pulled my cap closer. I thought of what I'd been doing earlier and couldn't help but be guilty.

She then looked to the gathering below, leaning forward, then she looked up. She gasped. Breaking out into a wide smile, she suddenly took my arm, the same one still holding onto the cap. Startled, the thing practically flew from my fingers to the snowy ground. I really should keep a better grip on that hat really...

"Did you see? Did you see?" she said, exasperated.

I shook my head. I asked her what it was it she saw and she replied—

"It was a shooting star... No. There were two—no"—she blinked, trying to recall the number of stars she saw fall—"Oh, there were a couple I know but one of them was very bright, like it was going to crash onto the hill like the myth."

I replied that it was probably a good omen and that the town was going to prosper. That everyone was guaranteed happiness since the year was ending soon.

She was still for a moment, her smile diminishing into a grin. Then, she nodded, leaving my side in order to pick up the hat, brushing the snow from the material. Instead of giving the hat to me she put it on, mimicking the walk and talk of a man. We laughed and she seemed to be in better spirits, sitting back down with a satisfied exhale as a chill shook her frame. She returned the hat to me as she relaxed onto the bench. I could see that the revelry was but a temporary reprieve from her thoughts for she looked as if she was about to cry... I hesitated but I placed the hat over her head, her sad eyes.

I thought she was going to smile, maybe even laugh and take "revenge" as she always did. But she didn't. She took my arm as before and leaned on it, the cap stayed so I couldn't see much but her nose and the tip of her chin. Soon, tears rolled from her cheeks and she'd inhale through her nose constantly, her grip round my arm tightening—if it was any tighter bloodflow would stop entirely in it's tracks. But it didn't hurt.

I really didn't mind but I felt as if she expected something from me and I felt idiotic that I couldn't just read her mind and find out how to offer solace on what she wouldn't tell me.

+ + +

We both sat there, the crowd dispersing slowly. Some lights, the streetlights mainly, were turned on in the town, there were some lights in some of the buildings too. She still wouldn't say anything but the tears had stopped. Her breathing was still uneven but, other than that, she was all right.

"Look up," I said, "Before the stars are gone."

She didn't. This, and my overall helplessness in these kinds of situations was slightly irritating me. I knew that there were things that people were supposed to and not supposed to do when in situations like this, or so I've heard. Then there was the fact that I had no idea what she was so worried and sad about... I took the plunge and just asked.

She had to repeat her answer, having to clear her throat first because her voice was watered down—"Mama is dying."

So it did have something to do with her parents... Ah, I still felt like an idiot and wanted to die in some obscure place. Again, she went against my expectations and looked at me with those large watery eyes but only for a second. She looked away, down, onto her lap then went ahead to removing the cap hitting me square in the face with it.

"But I'm all right now"—she amended with a half-hearted smile—"There's still happiness...for her. Sure. It'll take a while before I—Daddy and I—get over her...death... But we'll be by her side when she goes, wherever she goes...and we'll remember her too"—she grew quiet, her words coming out as whispers easily lost in a wind, if there was one—"as if she never died." Tears began to fall but she caught each with the swipe of her hands and cuffs and sleeves. "I have...hope"—she began shortly after—"that she'll be fine. And if she's fine then we are too."

Her body, as she talked, became stiff. Her back didn't touch the bench, her hands tense over her knees, her boots together like those who marched in the civil militia... She can't return to that girl again...the one who stood farthest from the group of schoolchildren. The one who refused to say a word unless she was called on by an instructor... I lightly placed my gloved hand over hers, turning it over so our fingers entwined and as I moved to lean on her shoulder, startling her, I said quietly but clearly—

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do but I do know that I'll be there for you—my father and I will be there for when it's just you two. However, remember that you can't keep this all to yourself. I don't want you to be like me, to end up like me, secretly despising other families because they had a mother along with a father." I couldn't help but say it out loud. If there was any chance for her being more open to me then I had to do the same for her. She loved her mother, and I had some love for mine under a smoldering hatred of her leaving...

"Then," she said, "did you hate me as well?"

"I hated everybody, honestly"—my voice lowered suddenly, as if I'd lost the will to even speak—"but I could never hate you. I can't hate anybody now." I moved from her side but our hands remained intact.

Her voice too lowered, the same went for her eyes. Her hand went tense under mine. "Why is that?" She repeated herself even though I heard her fine, stronger and uncertain.

"Because I couldn't find someone who could prove me wrong. You can't hate your parents, even if they did something wrong. I saw you with yours, saw how happy you were, and felt, at first, so much anger but found out after how sad I really was. What I'm trying to say is that I found you—even though you didn't know—but you have me there—here—already. Understand?" I wasn't sure how these words got out—nor was I sure if I understood them correctly (though it made more sense the less I thought about it)—but it seemed to be working.

She was set at ease after but I had a drop of regret for not thinking over my words. I mean, there's something wrong when words just come out of your mouth right? Words you didn't know you could say?

She said something and I couldn't hear because I was lost in my thoughts. I asked her to say it again.

"There's still happiness."

+ + +

That was the last Heaven's Night we spent together. She and her father had moved several months into the fall to one of the walled cities beyond this tiny town.

+ + +

Dreams. Hope. Heaven's Night... All make me think of fairytales. Can this town, it's civilians; is this all a big fairytale? If that's so, let it stay that way, if not for me then for everyone else. Then if not for everyone else, let it be so for her.