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Eclipse
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George has always known Clay as the one whose gentle kiss ignites blushes on the cheeks of morning clouds. He fills the heavens with fiery silk, golden crown leaving a veil of crimson behind his brilliant chariot. Lips as sweet as honey murmur good morning, and in the sky blooms a garden of orchids, cherry blossoms, daffodils. And when he begins his journey across the great blue, the whole world follows, seeking his warm embrace.
He is consistency. He is resolution. He is unwavering and true. He never strays from his radiant path, rosey beauty stemming from his persistence across the sky.
But while Clay is steadfast stability, George is the embodiment of change. He is the glorious harmony of a push and pull. He is the tides that shift with the rise and fall of a gentle breath. George was made to wane and wax, to be taken apart and put back together in an endless cycle.
For Clay is the Sun, and George is his Moon.
And Clay has always known George as the eye of the storm, a beacon of hope in the darkness of night, and a lighthouse in the unpredictable tempest of life.
No one knows how long their orbits have been swayed by each other's gravity, how long they've been doomed to love from afar.
Some say it began long before history could be recorded, long before an astronomer in ancient Ugarit carved their story into stone. Others say it began long before the ancient Greccans watched Zeus make night from midday, long before the Sun could be eaten by ancient Chinese dragons.
And only they can know which god had been angered, which stars had been crossed. Only they can know why the Fates chained them to the longest string, or why the universe deemed them deserving of such a beautifully cruel destiny. Perhaps they were meant to be punished like Prometheus, condemned to suffer an immortal love that regrows no matter how many times it is ripped from them.
They are an ocean, no, they are a world apart, tied together by a string that only unravels the more taut it is pulled.
Some may call their love forbidden. Some may call it impossible.
But in spite of the distance, in spite of the yearning, the pain, the stifled passion, they've never had reason to complain. Their love is greater than the test of time, stronger than the gravity that forces them apart. And the gods have always been mystified by agony.
If George is Selene, then Dream is his Artemis. Selene only slips below the blanket of the horizon when she knows that her beloved Earth is safe under the watchful eye of her lover.
One cannot exist without the other. It is from the Sun that the Moon finds its radiance. And how could the Sun bring about the morning without the Moon's guidance through the coldness of night?
There have been others, Icaruses who burned in the face of such brilliance, and stars that sparkled for George alone, but the Sun has always been the brightest star in the sky, and Dream has always been the brightest love in George's life. No fleeting flame can last next to the inferno of their love.
And yes, they may be a world apart. But the world is said to be an oyster, isn't it? And maybe, just maybe, something incandescent hidden within is worth the distance.
George was made to be loved, and Dream was made to love.
Distance was made to be crossed, and time was made to be broken.
Sometimes, the stars can align, and paths can cross. Sometimes, hearts and souls finally eclipse, and for one moment out of billions, they are finally, finally allowed to meet. Bodies encased in light and love find each other after eons of blind searching, and the world is whole again.
In a moment just for them, the skies darken out of respect, and the Earth shields her eyes. A gold ring of light appears in the heavens as the only tangible proof of their vow: to be yours only and yours forever.
But minutes are made to be counted, and moments are made to end, and so they slip back away into the habitual distance, falling into the strange comfort of a familiar ache.
Once again, they are a universe and a lifetime apart.
But do not pity them, no. For they are as infinite as the universe they hold inside, and time is nothing in the face of eternity.
And they shall eclipse again.
