Author's Note
I was inspired to write this following a podcast of Reviewer's Web. It felt like something unexplored in the Kirin's existence yet talked about extensively within the Sounds of Silence episode.
Please, thoughts?
Love without Feeling
I don't know who will find this journal, or when. I do not know if there is a cure of any sort for my people. My name is Playwright Flare. I am a kirin and I remember how wonderful the feelings of joy, happiness, passion, and love felt. What we were before the stream cooled our emotions and turned us silent inside and out.
My coldness, now my oldest friend, is this curse of silence. We can no longer feel rage to become civilization ending niriks; the cooling has removed far more than just our destructive flame. Without speaking, I feel trapped within my own thoughts, and the best thoughts I can find are memories. From before we accepted this “Cure” of silence.
My husband just came in, the only sound is the door closing. The yearning of my heart flares to feel his embrace. The desire to run to him and wrap my hooves around him while he strokes my mane. Something we did before the silencing our leader demanded.
Yet here I am, writing this with but a simple nod to him and an exasperated silent sigh. My body no longer able to even make the sound of exhaling air in emotional release. While my heart makes demands, I feel the coolness run through me. It drives the warmth of love from me and chills me inside and out. To cool that passion to seek out a simple joy.
I remember what it was like to see him come in, to passionately embrace the stallion I love. To feel his breath upon my neck, to sense his powerful muscles around me being as gentle as possible. The warmth coursing into me from him both physically and emotionally. While my own caresses and sweet soft heat push back into his chest. Yet now, the chill inside is silencing my heart. This chilling quiet more destructive than the embrace of death. Yet here I am, unable to do more than nod in his direction.
Autumn Blaze spoke and attempted to sing to us all. She shattered the curse of silence and for that was given a sentence worse than death, to be alone forever. I cannot decide which form of cancer grows faster; truly being alone or feeling like I am a void in room full of kirin. I want to talk with all of them again. The seed my memories leave cause a tear to well up within my eye.
To speak would make all look upon me, declare me a “Fool” just to save themselves, and remain within this torment and agony. They would declare they do not know me and cast me out; if only to stay within the curse of silence. They would rather be caged than risk burning with passion once more. Our fate of hollowness is far worse than the grim reaper’s scythe could ever be.
If only they could hear the words I write with such fire and passion! No one could deny my teaching! I would stretch out my hooves to them and embrace them, if only to reach their sheltered minds.
We continue within this existence and yet even now as my husband comes back he sees my mind fighting to win. My heart screaming and raging to be heard. All I can do is let a single tear drop upon this piece of paper. Like a silent raindrop it falls to grace my work with the only bit of emotion I can express beyond the words I write. All he can do is look upon me with concern. He is as crippled as I am. Together we are more alone than in a room without each other.
There is no embrace at night. There is no reaching each other that we might save ourselves from this. Any feeling of true love is suppressed by the utter coldness of the curse of silence. Our leader's wisdom may have saved our village from our rage, but her arrogance has doomed all of our souls such that I would rather seek death that stay in this state of being.
I want to speak to him, I want him to hear me. Instead all we hear is the moving of my quill and the teardrops upon the paper. They are like a pindrop upon a Hearth's Warming night. I want us to listen to each other, softly holding one another, heads laid upon pillows of feathers. Whispering sweet nothings to each other again would be simply divine. My soul can only take so much as I look from him to my letter opener. Would he even notice if I were gone?
Would he be able to feel the weight of my death? Would he be able understand with his emotions or would it be purely a logical emotionless thought within him? His lover is now dead, a mere shell of what she once was. Would the cold of silence still grip him or would he find the strength to break the spell and speak? Would I even receive a eulogy from him?
I am lost to that neon water and the power it holds over us. Like a malevolent god, even writing this has caused the cold within to become physically painful. I want to scream out in agony. I want to let the thoughts go and feel the cold wash over as it once did the first time; when I stepped into the stream. Yet if I do not write this, no one will hear my scream.
The words form upon this paper as I fight to write. The chill of the stream trying to stop me from saving our people from a living Tartaric Hell. I have no other way to describe it. I am not allowed to speak it, even as my lips quiver, the cold grips my heart like the ice of Yakyakistan. The depth of chill reaches so far that forcing my lips to move to make a sound has caused me to drop to the floor and lose my will to remain awake.
I am at a loss to say anymore. The torture must come to an end, I must have some hope of escape and at this point. My husband's eyes, they went wide for just the briefest of seconds. Is this the realization of just what is eating at my very heart and soul or is it simply the thought of true loneliness gripping him?
He already goes to a market stall with other kirin all around him yet is completely within a prison. The prison that makes him alone despite being surrounded by our kind. I see the tears in his eyes. The warmth I know is within him, now fighting desperately to beat the cursed silence.
I should feel horror. I should feel regret. I should know the passion to end one's own existence. I have done it so many times upon stage as a illusionary play. The rejection, the rage, the screaming out to the world in utter surrender.
Yet all I feel is empty, I feel the cold embrace of the curse fighting its way trying to reclaim my mind. Now desperate to suppress the passion which had led me to this point. To deny me even the simplest of part of all existence: The right to have an end.
He pushed the knife onto the floor. Physically with his hoof the letter opener rolls away from us. I felt tears well up and force their way out. Not a single raindrop but a stream of silent agony unleashed. The feeling of hopelessness shattered for only the briefest of seconds to allow such a display.
The depth of love it took for him to manage that simple action, yet I have no words with which I could thank him. He felt something that wasn't being suppressed by the blackness that damnable curse of silence brought with it. Together we stayed, closer than we had been since embracing this curse.
As hope begins to fade it was suddenly made anew. I could hear something for the first time in what seems like an eternity. A voice.
Have I made a terrible mistake? Was all this for nothing? Can I finish this writing? Can we be saved? Or is this another false hope, my husband only now fully realizing the horror of my existence without passion?
I watch him read what I’ve written. I see his eyes growing with the same dread I feel waking up every single day. It is not his voice that has fought through our curse. He is as quiet as I am.
Does he even feel it as I do? I see the tears fighting to the surface upon his face. One of them falls and stains this page, next to my own. I feel his hoof against mine. Can this damage be healed, body or soul?
The voice rings out louder in ponish, “If y’all have a friendship problem, we're here to solve it!” I cannot recognize that accent as my strength resist the numbing grip fades. The coldness in my heart spreads through my body. My ability to fight this curse is dying. I must give in. I’m nearly too cold to move. My magic is sparking out to move my quill. Was this pain, truly worth it? To have to scream out so loud with pen till I feel my blood run cold. Could our saviors have arrived? I feel his warmth and look to him, he has heard me.
Has our love found a way? Can I be brought back from the edges of this icey Tartaric cage? Time and action will decide. For now, I simply find a small sliver of joy in that the two of us can touch and cry. Even knowing, this curse of silence will claim our tears yet within but a few moments, once our will to fight it surrenders to frozen tomb surrounding our hearts.
