Wednesday Words

On August 16, 2017, P.T. Wyant posted this picture at ptwyant.com for her Wednesday Words prompt.

This Tale of the Navel was my response. :)

The water cascaded down from all directions, splashing into the pool below. 

“All the color is gone.” Christopher stood beside him, watching the spray collide with the glittering surface. “Somehow the process of rushing through the forest drained it of all its various hues.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Danyel turned toward his companion. “Once water has been clensed, it’s safer to drink.”

“Is this nothing more than something to drink?” Christopher lifted a hand to gesture towards the falls. “Surely it has another purpose?”

The spray sparkled, reflecting off the angry gleam in the boy’s eye. 

“To bathe in?” Danyel asked the question with some hesitance. 

His own words didn’t taste right in his tongue. They spread across his mouth with a sour emptiness. 

The fury dimmed in Christopher’s gaze to something softer. 

“Is that all water is? A tool to be used?” The boy dipped his head, sending his short, coppery locks rippling across his brow. “Isn’t it purpose enough to hold our attention, making the world a little better with its beauty?”

Danyel opened his mouth, then shut it. 

“You’re right,” he said as much to himself to Christopher. “You’re absolutely right. Just because I require a purpose doesn’t mean the falls should.”

Christopher turned, startled out of his reverie. His lips moved, shaping words which Danyel wanted so badly to hear. 

If only he hadn’t stirred in his sleep at that moment, waking himself up. 

He stared up at the dark expanse of his ceiling, feeling his chest ache. 

“What purpose do I requre?” Danyel whispered his question to the ceiling, trying to keep his voice down. 

He didn’t want to wake Dayel. Dayel detested questions. 

For Danyel, questions were the only true answers. Each one was like a gemstone, sparkling in a path he needed to follow. Each one he asked led him to another stone. 

Farther along the path he needed to follow. Perhaps eventually he’d see it. 

“Christopher.” Danyel rolled the name across his tongue, tasting it. “Why do I feel like you’re willing me to answer my own question?”

“He’s got no right to expect you to answer.”

The words ripped through the silence, harsh and cold. 

Dayel didn’t move, but he fixed a gleaming eye upon his twin. It glittered, just as Christopher’s had in the dream. 

“Your precious Christopher can mind his purpose, leaving yours alone.” Dayel turned over with sudden violence, keeping his gaze locked on his brother. “Don’t let a vision drag you into his irresponsible quests.”

“He’s not dragging me into anything.” Danyel wasn’t sure why he defended Christopher. He didn’t entirely trust the mysterious boy, who’d come to live in his imagination, only to stalk him in his dreams. “He’s searching.”

Such a small, simple word. Danyel struggled to find the right ones to convey the depth of his concern, how he’d grown attached to this character from a book who was becoming real. 

“He’s lost.” Once again, Danyel found himself using the simplest terms to convey Christopher’s peril. “He needs to be found.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re the one who has to find him.” Anger vibrated through the bed, transferred from Dayel to Danyel across the blanket. 

Danyel tasted something cold and fearful on the back of his tongue. Almost icy. 

Fear. He wasn’t sure it was his own or Dayel’s. 

He couldn’t let fear stop him, though. Fear would only freeze him in place, making him unable to move, think, or do anything. 

“I don’t like turning my back on someone in trouble.” Danyel fumbled for the right words to express what was so simple and natural.

To him. Not to Dayel. 

Even so, Danyel tried to explain. 

“Even if he’s just a dream, it bothers me to see Christopher lost,” he admitted, clutching his blankets to his chest. “I want to help him.”

“Give in to this desire and you’ll always be helping creatures like him.” A bitter, bleak note entered Dayel’s cold tone. “Eventually, they’ll help themselves to you.”

Danyel shivered in the darkness at his brother’s words. 

He didn’t doubt they were true.

“Does it have to be like that?” He heard a plaintive note of desperation enter his own voice. “Someone helps and someone helps themself?”

“There isn’t any alternative.” Dayel yanked at the blanket, pulling some of it from his brother. “It’s just how things are.”

“What if there was another way?” Danyel stared at the darkness above. “What if I found it?”

“Don’t go wishing for impossible things.” Dayel shivered beside him. “You tear a hole in reality.”

Danyel didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. 

Dayel could probably guess what his next questions were. 

Would tearing a hole in reality be a bad thing? Especially if it was a reality where one person gave and another took from him?

Danyel doubted his twin could come up with an answer. 

It wasn’t going to be that easy.