Circles — Hadrian & Alessa (Patreon)

Beginning

The sun does not burn but warms the skin like a blanket made of honey. The rays come down from between brittle tree branches, naked and twisting but of deep brown color. They have no leaves because Fall demands it, not because the tree lacks strength.

The wind too can barely be called so. It brushes your hair with the gentleness of a child’s wandering fingers, seeking, curious, the shape of that which it does not yet know. New. Fresh. That is how you feel, sitting by a cliff under a sun that lightens but doesn’t burn, and a breeze that tickles without moving.

Fresh, even as the day slowly comes to an end. The endless waters of the Mediterranean stretch before you, the waves painted in a multitude of colors. Blue, it seems, can be made of many hues. From deep and strong to light and airy, from troubling, in the shape of a wave crashing against a distant shore, to playful, in the shape of her eyes, shining with the light burrowed from a fleeting sun.

Fresh and new, like this pressure on your skin, the touch of her fingers.

“I wonder what it is that have you so enraptured,” Alessa says, and now the blue in her eyes is all the hue you care about. Her fingers squeeze yours, quickly, and you don’t know what it means, but you instantly press back.

“I’m sorry,” you say, although the words are empty. You’re not sorry, nothing about this moment could ever turn into regret. “I was watching the view.”

“Oh, do not mistake me,” she says, and you smile at the playfulness in her voice. “I was not complaining. ‘Tis a nice respite, this silence of yours. It spares me from your mad ramblings.”

You laugh, and then you let go of her hand so you can wrap your arm around her. Alessa comes willingly, leaning into your side to rest her head on your shoulder. A tree trunk presses uncomfortably to the end of your spine, but you don't dare to try and adjust your position. Not with Alessa practically laying on you.

This is still so very new. Fresh. But she is here, so close to you, and the sun is almost by the horizon, but you have never felt warmer. “You love my ramblings,” you say, your voice almost a whisper.

“I can assure you I do not.”

“You could listen to me talk for hours.”

“Only in fascination at how one can speak while saying nothing.”

Alessa’s watching the sea beyond, but her freckles are bathed in a light flush, and her lips are stretched into a genuine smile. It fits her. It grants her beauty a new high, a new impossible edge. “You know, Alessa, that to be deemed mad is the inevitable fate of the genius,” you say, speaking near her ear. “The cruel mockery of our peers it’s a burden we’re fated to bear.”

She laughs into the air, the sound sharp and piercing, shooting straight into your heart. “You believe yourself a genius?"

You smirk. "A genius or a fool. What’s the real difference?”

Alessa’s smile dims as she thinks for a moment. “Perhaps there is none,” she says and then shakes her head and simply sinks further into you, letting the subject rest. Your eyes go back to the waters and the cliffs. To the blue of the ocean, ever closer to black.

“It is peaceful.” Comes her voice. You hum in agreement. “And although I am doomed to share the view with a boastful fool, I am… glad to be here nonetheless.”

You look down at her, but she’s looking away, her lips tightly pressed and eyes narrowed on the horizon. And now your smile is so wide that it makes your cheeks hurt. And the breeze is stronger, almost demanding now that the day finally slips into night, but your chest could not feel lighter. “I am too.”

That is all you say. It's all you need to say. It is fresh and new, this closeness of yours. But just as twilight symbolizes an end, the promise of a new day marks a beginning. And you cannot wait, in the madness of your ramblings, to see what this fresh beginning shall bring.

- - -

End

They are arranged in squares. Four squared designs parallel to each other, each composed of numerous tiny squares, set like clay against a wall that too, is shaped like a square.

Squares within squares within squares. You wonder if it all has a meaning. You wonder if the meaning is that, simply, there is none.

“How old do you think they are?”

Hadrian’s low voice reverberates from your left. You can feel him looming just behind you, just as you can feel the warmth of the torch he holds high above both your heads. Its orange glow bathes the tiles of the mosaic before you, twisting the faded colors and gliding along its surface as if, even with the cruel and merciless passage of time, the ceramic still holds the same shine as the day it was created.

Almost without thinking, you lift a hand, the one bound by a glove you dare not remove, and press your fingers against the nearest one. The tile is cold to the touch, and just like you expected, it’s smooth still. There are cracks along the surface and a deep one in one corner, but they’re not big enough to ruin the overall design.

“Hmm, I’m not sure,” you say, pursing your lips in thought. You’re underground, and you suppose the lack of wind and rain, of wandering hands and merciless sunrays, has shielded the mosaic. “They’re well preserved.”

“But they’re from before, right?” Hadrian asks, his green eyes seeming deeper in the oppressive darkness. You can hear nothing more but the flames of the torch and your own heartbeat. Here, surrounded by dust and silence and forgotten people, it seems as if the world has no one but the two of you. “Before the Church, I mean. Before…”

You nod, feeling a shiver at the base of your spine. You were almost certain when you entered the ruins, but this mosaic confirmed it. This is a construction of the ones who spoke Latin. Of the people who should not be.

Hadrian grabs his cross. He takes a step back and raises his arm even higher so that the torch can illuminate the whole of the mosaic. The four squares each depict a different image. Hadrian narrows his eyes at the one on the top left, and then his face lightens in delight. “It’s a newborn,” he says, pointing at it. And you can see a tiny shape being cradled by a woman made of tiles.

Hadrian then moves the torch to the right, studying the next square. “And here… a horse?”

“It has a rider,” you supply. Red and blue tiles make up the image of a lone ranger riding into a wide, open field.

“And this one can only be an old man… or a woman,” Hadrian continues, studying now the design on the bottom left. He glances at you before you both turn to the fourth and last image. And even before you see the skull, you know it would speak of death.

“Beginning and end,” Hadrian murmurs.

Something about his tone has you looking away from the ancient tiles, the retelling of a tale as old as life itself. That it began and ultimately, that it shall end. You look away from a truth shared by all and focus instead on Hadrian. He has his brows knitted together, and his jaw clenched as he looks down at his feet. You can’t name what you read in his eyes.

“Death and birth,” you say, in part just to fill the odd silence that had settled. You point to the last tile, the one on the bottom right, and then drag your finger to the very first one. “It works this way too."

Hadrian stares at the baby and then smiles a small, tentative smile. "That it does,” he says. He moves closer, his hand coming to rest on the first square too. His fingers, long and coarse, are near yours, almost touching.

You try to ignore the way it makes your heart speed inside your chest.

“Isn’t it strange?” Hadrian murmurs. “To think they cared about the same things that we do.”

“People are people,” you say, watching the flames play with the lines of his jaw. And you wonder, too, if these ancients ever depicted what you feel right now. This quietness, tucked in a corner of a world made only of you and Hadrian. This… uncertainty. This strange anticipation.

Hadrian still looks at the painted tiles. “Even those who ended.”

“Yes."

Hadrian blinks and finally looks back at you. His chest is right behind your back, almost as if he's hugging you. The tips of his fingers almost brush yours, and you can see him curling them, his nails dragging on the tiles as his mouth cracks open—

But no sound comes out.

He’s close, and silence would reign if it weren’t for your heart drumming against your ears. You watch Hadrian’s eyes roam your face, then snap to your hands, and then his other hand has his cross clenched tight. “I… we should go,” he says, making no move to leave. If anything, you think — you hope — he stepped even closer.

Hadrian smiles again, tightly and awkwardly, and entirely handsome. “Tarek will be happy to hear about our find, and I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the extra slice of cheese we get as a reward.”

You can’t help but laugh. “You sell yourself too short, Hadrian. At least ask for a fine wine too.”

He chuckles, and you swear you can feel the vibrations against your skin. “I’m a simple man,” he says, taking a step back now. His hand falls away from the wall, but he keeps close. “But since you’re also involved…”

You start to walk side by side to the surface, leaving the tiles behind. The light no longer reaches the ancient pottery, and the images plunge once again into darkness. An end. “Well, you deserve more than cheese and wine,” Hadrian continues, eyes well away from yours. “I’ll, uh. I’ll have to ask more of Tarek.”

You see the flush on the tips of his ears, see the tightness on his lips. And you can only smile a secret smile as your knuckles brush his. “How you flatter me,” you whisper.

Hadrian only smiles in answer as you reach the outside. The midday sun shines from above, hurting your eyes with its intensity. But even as you’re momentarily blind, you feel his hand squeeze yours. Quickly and swiftly and gone much too soon.

Another end. But what fool cannot tell that it only leads to a beginning?