Blindness
See below for author’s notes.
Rafferty stumbled in the soft sand, dizzy with pain and clumsy without the ability to see to balance himself. He hurtled, barely keeping his footing, toward the crisp sighing of the waves: small waves, rolling gently into shore. The sand suddenly hardened under his armoured feet, and he knew the water was near. He began to cry out. “Solace! Solace!”
He repeated the name several times, as his footsteps squelched, then sloshed, and he slumped to his knees in moving, ankle-deep water, his plate armour clunking.
“Solace!” His voice broke. It hardly ever did that. There was little in the universe that could make the voice of a knight of the sky falter.
He sought to sense Solace’s life force. There were gulls above him – he could hear them as well as sense them – and the whispering grasses behind him, beyond the sand. A wave rushed in and swished loudly against the steel plates of Rafferty’s leg armour, and a thousand grains of sand tinkled and hissed against the metal as the water retreated again.
Rafferty scrunched his hands on his thighs, knuckles pressing against the hard, smooth, curved steel. Don’t make me wait, Solace, he thought; not today, please, not now … please just come to me immediately …
Solace could be anywhere in the ocean, though he frequented this shore, especially when he knew that the knight was near; but there was no guarantee that Solace would be close by today —
“Rafferty!”
The knight had barely finished his thought when he heard his name being called from somewhere out in the sea. “Solace?” he cried.
“Rafferty!”
The call sounded closer already. And then Rafferty’s confused and weakened soul could finally sense it: Solace’s life force, ancient as the depths of the ocean, powerful and clear as towering waves, strong and full of wild motion like the sea itself, but gentle, as gentle as the touch of sea foam on bare skin. Familiar and beloved.
The knight waited. Solace would be arrowing toward him underwater, swift as a dolphin.
Rafferty heard a much larger wave gathering itself and rolling toward him, and then it crashed a few paces away, its aftermath striking his knees and waist. It was Solace’s own custom-made swell, carrying the merman into shore. And, with a small splash, suddenly the mermaid king was on the sand in front of Rafferty, exclaiming in distress, “Raff! My love, what happened?! Your eyes —”
Rafferty felt the merman’s cool, smooth-scaled hands cradle his bandaged face, so gently; and something inside him broke. He felt tears rushing to his face and his throat almost suffocated him with the lump that appeared in it.
“Taliesin did it,” he choked out. “As p-punishment.”
He heard the merman’s intake of breath. “For – me?”
Rafferty nodded, and croaked miserably, “For falling in love with you.”
Solace’s hands left Rafferty’s face, and the knight heard his breathing become heavy.
Then Solace screamed, “WHAT?!”
The gulls fell silent.
There was a hush between waves.
“I WILL KILL HIM!” Solace roared. “BRING HIM TO ME – I WILL KILL HIM!”
“It’s no good, Solace, he’s a commander of the sky –”
“I WILL RIP THE SKY IN TWO! I WILL SHAKE THE HEAVENS UNTIL HE FALLS TO ME, AND THEN I WILL PULL HIM TO THE DEPTHS UNTIL HE DROWNS AND I WILL TEAR OUT HIS THROAT WITH MY HANDS! I WILL DYE THE OCEAN RED WITH HIS BLOOD!”
As Solace raged, Rafferty could feel the air pressure increase, and the prickle of electricity in the atmosphere. The air grew chill, as did the water that washed around his armour – he could feel it through his waterproof bodysuit. He could imagine the enormous banks of black clouds gathering, blotting out the sky, and the first rumble of thunder growled nearby. A cold gust of wind whipped through his tousled hair and found every chink in his armour. The ground seemed to tremble, as though there might be an earthquake nearby.
“Solace, it will do no good,” Rafferty murmured. He reached with one hand for the merman, his other hand planted as a fist in the shifting, waterlogged sand beside his thigh. He found Solace’s forearm, and immediately the merman moved closer, caressing Rafferty’s face, gently touching, at the temples, the soft fabric bandage that covered the knight’s eyes.
“Will they heal?” Solace asked, but Rafferty could tell that the merman already suspected the answer: why would Taliesin inflict a punishment that was only temporary for a love that would presumably last forever?
“No,” Rafferty whispered.
He could feel the tears stinging his ruined eyes, and the pain was almost unbearable. He felt them leak from under the bandage, trickling down his cheeks, and was sure they were mixed with blood.
Solace was silent in horror.
Another wave rushed in, tiny grains of sand hissing grittily against steel plates, and a few small shells clinked as the water dashed them against the metal. The wind gusted coldly again, but there was no more thunder.
“… H-He did it to punish you as well,” Rafferty croaked. “S-So you would know that I could n-never again ap-preciate your beauty.”
The searing pain of the tears was almost as bad as the pain of what Taliesin had done to his eyes in the first place; but he could not stop them. He clung helplessly to Solace’s elbow, his other hand still buried in sand, in a fist so tight that it had gone numb.
He couldn’t read Solace’s face. He couldn’t read anything. He would never see anything ever again – just darkness, accursed darkness, forever. No Solace. No sea. No sunrises. No clouds. He’d never see his own reflection again. He’d forget what he looked like. Worse – would he forget what Solace looked like? Oh, why hadn’t he looked harder at everything when he had still had his vision?! Why hadn’t he memorised every detail of Solace’s face, and his body too – everything about him? Why hadn’t he —
Solace embraced him.
Rafferty could feel the merman’s strong arms around his torso, Solace’s cool hand on the back of his neck, and the merman’s enormous cloud of long, wavy black hair, which was somehow always fluffy and flowing even when it was wet, touching his face. That hair had an unearthly, glimmering starriness throughout – as though it were spun from a glittering midnight sky, or a hundred tiny fireflies were caught in its curling strands. It was strange to feel that familiar hair but not be able to see it. Solace’s smell enveloped him: fresh, salty, wild – the smell of the sea – but also sweet, cool, and deep. Rafferty buried his nose in Solace’s damp hair, trying for a moment to pretend that the reason all he could see was darkness was because his vision was filled with that deep-black hair and he had closed his eyes to bury his face in it. He returned the embrace with both arms, feeling Solace’s cool, smooth skin under his sandy fingers – the contours of Solace’s back and slim waist, the softness of his hair …
But he would never see Solace’s breathtaking sky-blue eyes again. Nor his pale, flawless skin, nor his dark, blue-green, shimmering scales … the thin, draping chains of gold jewellery around his neck and head, framing his youthful-looking, expressive face, his strong dark brows and those thick, long, black eyelashes …
He could remember them – for now – but not see them. All he would ever have, from now on, was memories.
Rafferty choked.
“You do not need to see me to love me,” Solace said quietly. “And nothing – nothing – that Taliesin or anyone else can do can make me stop loving you.”
Rafferty sobbed.
The pain of weeping burned his eyes more and more, but he was past caring. He clung to Solace, vaguely aware that the plates of his armour would be digging into the merman’s bare skin, but Solace did not flinch and Rafferty could not bring himself to let go.
Blue eyes … Solace had forget-me-not blue eyes.
Forget-me-not eyes.
Rafferty tried to picture them, tried to picture them so clearly that he could convince himself he was seeing them, but the harder he tried the harder he sobbed and he could no longer be sure he was remembering anything correctly.
He sobbed so hard that he could not breathe.
Rafferty felt himself swooning sideways, capsizing into Solace’s arms, and for a short while his mind seemed to go dark as well as his vision, and he felt nothing.
It was a relief.
When the darkness lifted, Rafferty tried to blink away the blackness in his eyes, only to feel pain rush back into his head and to remember that he would never be able to blink away the darkness ever again.
“Rafferty? Raff?”
Solace was saying his name, and the wind was cold, so cold, and he was lying in water and sand and shallow waves that rocked his legs as Solace cradled his head and shoulders.
Rafferty tried to speak, but his mouth was dry, his eyes burned, and he wished he could go back into the darkness of his mind where he could pretend that he was only asleep and not blinded forever.
He started to shiver, and the shivering intensified until his armour started to clink with the force of it.
“Rafferty, my love, stay with me. I shall take you somewhere warm.”
Solace started dragging him through the sand, toward the sea. Rafferty barely registered the sand building up in his armour, being scooped up by the plates in one instant, then flushed out at once by the next small wave. In a moment they were in shallow water, being half-lifted by each wave, and then they were floating. Rafferty was on his back, Solace’s arms hugging his chest, Solace’s fishlike tail undulating rapidly beneath him, towing him out to sea.
Rafferty relaxed, trying only to keep his head above water. Once he realised that Solace’s shoulder would do that for him, he stopped trying to do even that, and just let Solace carry him, his fingers trailing loosely through water. After a while, the knight’s shivering became sporadic, not because he was warming but because his body became too numb and exhausted to shiver anymore.
For what seemed like a long time – or maybe it wasn’t; he really couldn’t tell – Rafferty felt nothing but darkness and an occasional slosh of water against his cheek. His mouth tasted of salt. Something strong was wrapped around his chest, and he was floating, bobbing. Something in his head hurt, or maybe it was his whole body. And there was darkness again, blessed darkness.
And then he had a splitting headache.
It was warm; he was on firm ground, with something vaguely cushioning underneath him. He could see nothing but darkness, but his head felt like his skull had been split with a sword and his eyes burned as though they had been —
Rafferty whimpered, then screamed.
An undignified, unholy sound to come from a knight of the sky. He screamed and screamed, uncontrollably, scarcely pausing to inhale, until somehow the sound of Solace calling his name and the sensation of hands gripping his arms filtered through the screaming, and it petered out into gasps.
“Rafferty, Rafferty, my love, I’m here. I’m here. Breathe. Breathe, my love.”
“S-Solace. What – where are you —”
“Right here. I’m right here, my love.” Solace placed Rafferty’s hands on his own face, letting him feel the mermaid king’s smooth skin and long eyelashes. He kissed Rafferty’s palm.
Rafferty calmed somewhat. “Why can’t I – why can’t I see you?”
His mind knew that something terrible had happened, but somehow he could not understand it.
Solace’s breath hitched. “B-Because – because you — Because Taliesin did a terrible thing, my love.”
“… Taliesin …?” Rafferty breathed.
And then he remembered.
For a moment he felt utterly numb. Even the splitting in his head stopped, for that moment.
“Taliesin blinded me, to punish us,” he said hollowly.
He felt Solace nod against his hands. Wetness appeared on Rafferty’s fingertips: Solace’s tears.
Slowly, Rafferty pulled his hands from Solace’s grasp and placed them on his own face. The bandage was still there.
He lay still for a moment.
“Did you look?” he asked Solace. “At … at the wound?”
“No,” the merman whispered brokenly.
Rafferty lay there, head pounding, eyes burning, in silence. He felt Solace’s fingertips brush the back of his hand, silently requesting mutual comfort, and he took the merman’s hand and gripped it.
He realised that his armour was gone: he lay in his bodysuit on some sort of vegetation. Life force was all around him – he could feel it like a gentle hum in the back of his mind – but he was far too exhausted to examine its sources.
Eventually, the knight asked, “Where are we?”
“On an island. Small. Warm. There are no people here of any kind; just birds, insects and plants. You can rest here, for as long as you want to.”
Rafferty could hear the tears in Solace’s voice.
“I will bring you food, and –” the merman’s voice broke, and Rafferty could tell by the way the hand clutched his, shaking, that Solace had dissolved into weeping.
He pulled the merman closer, feeling that cloud of hair fall over him, and they lay chest to chest, holding each other, as the mermaid king sobbed for his love’s lost sight.
~~~
Two days passed.
Solace had been out of water so much that the scales of his arms and hands had started to temporarily fade into skin like the rest of his torso, and his hair had lost most of its fluffiness and starry shimmer. He had refused to leave Rafferty’s side except to find food, lugging himself awkwardly over land or swimming around the island’s coast until he found overhanging trees that bore fruit. He had positioned Rafferty near a freshwater stream that flowed into the ocean, and used a piece of Rafferty’s armour as a dish to bring him water to drink. On the third day, he guided Rafferty to the stream and helped him to bathe.
Solace’s heart grieved every time he noticed how differently Rafferty moved now. He was tentative and uncertain, where before he had been graceful and sure. The knight was still strong, inside and out, and Solace knew that he would survive; but he was damaged, so damaged.
Once Rafferty had bathed, Solace, at Rafferty’s behest, forced himself to unwrap the bandage from the knight’s eyes. Rafferty sat on a mossy rock at the edge of the stream, while Solace, lying in shallow water, carefully unwound the long strip of white fabric from around Rafferty’s head.
The eyelids were fused closed; the thick, soft, fluffy white lashes stained and crusted with blood, sticking in clumps to each other and to Rafferty’s brown skin. Red trails – tear trails – led out of them and started down Rafferty’s cheeks, down to the point where the ocean had washed them away. The swelling that had been visible even with the bandage in place had diminished to a slight puffiness, but the delicate skin all around Rafferty’s eyes, even to his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, was livid with horrifying bruising.
The knight had been using his magic to heal himself, and Solace winced inwardly at the thought that this was the healed version: how much worse might his wounds have been if Rafferty had had no magic?
“… How does it look?” Rafferty asked, with some apprehension in his voice.
Solace clasped the knight’s face in his hands, and kissed his forehead, above his white brows. “You are as handsome as ever, my love.”
Solace washed the bandage in the stream, then used it, with painstaking care, to clean the dried blood from Rafferty’s face. The knight sat, calm and accepting, while at every other moment Solace had to wipe away his own tears.
That this horrific act had been done to his shy, sweet knight – the gentlest person Solace had ever known, whose magic was all about life-force and growing and healing – made Solace’s heart burn with anger.
And that the love of Solace for Rafferty, and of Rafferty for Solace, was the reason for it, made his heart break.
Eventually, after a long time of Solace working in silence, Rafferty said, “Solace.”
“Yes?” The merman paused, holding the moist cloth in mid-air before the knight’s face.
“I still know that you are beautiful. Even though I can’t see it, I still know it.”
Solace gulped, fresh tears rushing to his eyes.
Like all merpeople, Solace cared a great deal about his appearance, and was proud of his beauty. Taliesin had chosen blindness as Rafferty’s punishment because he knew that it would hurt Solace to no longer be admired by his beloved, and to no longer be able to bring enjoyment to Rafferty through his appearance.
It was a foul, cruel manoeuvre, and Solace would wait for his chance to take revenge on Taliesin, no matter whether Rafferty said it was useless or not. Like the sea, Solace’s rage could be sudden and devastating; and like the sea, he could also wait forever, and slowly, slowly wear away anything that he wanted gone. Taliesin would keep. And someday, somehow, Solace would make him wish that he had never even
breathed near Rafferty.
“Solace?” the knight prompted, since the merman had made no response.
Solace had no words. Instead, he put down the cloth, leaned forward, and, taking Rafferty’s warm brown hand in one of his and using the fingertips of the other to lightly support the knight’s chin, kissed Rafferty gently on the mouth.
~~~ End. ~~~
Author’s notes
This fanfiction story is based on a particular image Thacmis drew – ‘Blind’, the second image in this set: <
http://thacmis.tumblr.com/post/167067793775/jayessart-inktobers-19-24-using>
I don’t often write fanfiction, so this surprised me somewhat. Thacmis’s
art is utterly beautiful – deeply sweet and romantic. After sighing for hours over Thacmis’s art of their enchanting characters
Rafferty and Solace, I was suddenly and madly inspired by ‘Blind’, and this story tumbled out of my fingertips. The story doesn’t fully gel with the canon that Thacmis has explicitly stated for Rafferty and Solace, but the image ‘Blind’ seems itself to go against some things in Thacmis’s canon; so ‘Blindness’ is based specifically on ‘Blind’ and what it suggests.
There is not a lot of detail in the lore established for these two, as far as I can find, so I’ve had to make some guesses.
Rafferty is sometimes drawn with his wings and sometimes drawn without, so for simplicity’s sake I’ve not mentioned them. I have called the skin-tight garment that Rafferty wears under his armour a ‘bodysuit’ and guessed that it must be waterproof, for knights of the sky must surely fly through rain and clouds and wouldn’t want to get soaked to the skin every time they do. I couldn’t find a name for the ‘superior angel’ who blinded Rafferty, so I chose a name that, like ‘Solace’ and ‘Rafferty’, exists in our world but is somewhat rare. I don’t know if Solace calls Rafferty ‘Raff’ or not, but I took a chance. Solace’s power seems to be to cause earthquakes and tsunamis rather than thunderstorms, but I couldn’t think of an effective way to show either of those that wouldn’t disrupt the emotional atmosphere, so while I included the fact that he can influence nature with his mood I’ve taken some poetic licence as to how.
I have posted this on
my Tumblr blog as well, and Thacmis has read it and has been
very complimentary. I am thrilled to have pleased the person who inspired me so.
