X'ain Tia

He’s here again

and

I’m shattering into a million pieces, all over the floor, shards of glass and roses and broken hearts, glittering like bloody pink diamonds. Strewn like a child’s throw. His name is X’ain Tia and sometimes I think he is the devil incarnate, if the devil wears the face of a prince with all of the world’s oceans trapped in his eyes, writhing and roiling and wishing to be set free.

He smells like gunpowder and magic, cheap cologne and brine, and that one kind of flower that only blooms at midnight. Ma tells me he’s unnatural, and I believe her. Uncanny, witchy, bad news, he is. But he don’t do anything to spook us, besides existing, so we let him stay.

He gives good tips, anyhow.

His skin is the most expensive type of caramel fudge on the top shelf of the candy store. His hair is blonde and brown and silver, and styled sleek and smooth like a noble’s. But he’s no noble. He’s a brigand and a troublemaker and a pirate, and has the telltale signs of someone who dances with things unseen on moonlit nights, things that shouldn’t be ever dealt with, not by folks who’re in the interest of keeping their souls intact.

As usual, he seats himself in the far corner of the inn, the darkest part of the room, the depths. He’s quiet, his feet make no sound as they cross the room, and I swear the temperature drops in the air around him. He moves with the grace of a dancer, a queen before her subjects, a spider moving toward its next meal. Elegant, severe, beautiful, terrifying.

I can feel his eyes

I can feel them all the way over here, somehow the deepest blue and the brightest gold all at once, glowing, I swear they’re glowing, and he’s looking directly at me. I can feel it all the way across the room and I know it and he knows it.

He’s grinning, too. He’s always grinning. He’s grinning like he knows something you don’t, something that’s incredibly hilarious, only he’s never gonna tell you, not ever. It’s just gonna be dangled above your head like the best of dog treats, only you’re the poor stupid dog who’s never gonna get it.

I hate I love I hate I love that smile

Those perfect white teeth, fangs, ready to sink into a fresh kill, a maiden’s neck, a steak from our inn. He always orders steak. And milk. Just like today.

X’ain Tia is a mystery. He is Miqo’te, one of the Sun ones, that much is certain. That is all that’s certain. He passes through town around once every two months or so, like a storm cloud, a black cat, a prince searching for his long lost love.

He stays at our tavern, he eats our steak and drinks our milk, and smiles at me, his smile that contains an unsaid attempt at flirtation, a forgotten joke, a thousand secrets tucked away in a padlocked box under his bed. And his eyes never blink.

X’ain Tia appears to be a trader. He is a merchant of things unseen, unknown, not meant to be seen or known. Not meant to be. He meets with other men and women. Often they’re unruly, frightening, more likely than not actual pirates. Other times they’re well-dressed, with hair perfect, fans fluttering, high-class. Seeking something. Seeking secrets? Ma says its drugs. I only half-believe her.

But he deals in something. It could be drugs, it could be love, it could be death, it could be damnation. He comes and goes, gliding in and out like a phantom, something that should’ve long been on the other side but for some reason remains, something that doesn’t belong, something that’s lost.

I am lost, in his eyes. They drown me.

I am in love with him.

How could I not be? He wears the skin of a prince come to take me away, has the ivory white smile of an angel, has the elegant beauty and mystique of a creature of the night. He is enticing, he is enchanting, he is terrible. He is repulsive and that is what he attracts me to him.

He is a piece of evil and I want him so badly.

I am terrible, too.

As I deliver his meal to him, he says his murmured thanks in that raspy voice devoid of any true thanks, and I stare at him. I stare at those kaleidoscope eyes, those doors to his soul, see the still pools of water in them, see the hidden depths of those seas roiling and churning, burning. I see the pain and the loss and the joy and the hate and the secrets, I see all the secrets, only they’re locked up in treasure chests at the very bottom, in sunken galleons, and I can’t pick the locks, and I’m running out of air so I have to swim to the surface as fast as possible because it’s getting hard to breathe and I’m gonna die and

“Did you want something?” he asks, he breathes, he sighs. He sounds like the wind passing through the trees at twilight, the distant roar of the ocean on the rocks, the dead clambering out of hell.

I ask something. I’m not sure, but I think it’s about his identity. I can’t tell.

He reiterates his name. As usual. I’ve gained nothing.

Then

he asks me a question in return. “Would you like your fortune told, Anna?” He asks, with that smirk of his, his voice rough, like a man’s. He is a man. He is not a fantastical forest spirit, dancing elegantly across the top of the water, sending out ripples which form complex patterns under the light of the stars and moon.

Sometimes I forget that.

“Or perhaps a love potion? Is there a boy you like, Anna?”

He shows me an expanse of tiny bottles, unseen, resting in pockets on the inside of his coat. Bottles which should contain tiny messages tossed about by the waves, but instead have managed to capture the contents of the entire universe, diluted into strange, multicolored liquids.

I cannot tell him that he is the one I love.

I cannot tell him that I’d rather dream about my future, on the stray hope that it’s with him, and not some foolish village boy.

I smile back at him and politely refuse but inside I’m bursting, I’m fireworks, I’m a field of daisies suddenly exploding into bloom. I am springtime and sunshine and knowledge of this mysterious man, this X’ain Tia, and I am content. For today.

I didn’t think until later that I’d never told him my name.

-

X’ain Tia is a witch-boy. He rides the sea, the skies, the world, and deals in potions and herbs and concoctions which produce unnatural results (some of which may be drugs, as Ma had claimed. Maybe). He himself is still unnatural, a fairy, a nymph, a mystery I’m slowly breaking apart. His clientele is only the unsavory and he seems to enjoy their company, that sort of rush of excitement that anything morally wrong might bring. Indeed, I’ve no doubts he operates as a pirate or bandit himself, as new scars are added with each consecutive visit. He is a king of thieves, a prince of brigands, an angel of wrong-doers and maritime lawbreakers. He still smiles at me, and looks at me with those of eyes of his that contain whirlpools and typhoons and hurricanes

and

I drown

every time.

He lives on an island only he knows how to find because it doesn’t exist, and travels the world to sell his services. He is a merchant of love of fate and death and hate and dreams and illusions. He tells me stories of it, and of his travels, every time he visits, and I keep them recorded in my journal.

I still love him.

But it has faded with time. It is not the youthful infatuation it once was. It’s sort of like a tiny part of my heart will always belong to him, whether he knows it or not, but I have other loves. I am engaged to be married in a month’s time.

He’s glad to hear this. He says he might attend. Maybe.