For the briefest of moments, all is well.
The cold of space is behind him, and he is warm and nestled within the wormhole. Not hiswormhole, because his sister lingers just behind, having answered his plea for help (how can she refuse that which flows through her very veins? Helping him is helping her any way you cut it). It squeezes him, but not uncomfortably so, more like the casing before his birth. And in a way, this was an entirely new kind of birth, really. A blossoming of his mind, an inescapable circumstance that will leave him forever changed.
He’s warm and happy until he’s not.
The wormhole closes with an almost audible pop. The pressure change gives his ears an uncomfortable reminder that he is here, landed in a newfound hell he is probably ill-equipped for. That’s alright, he thinks, shaking the space from his skin, at least I won’t go it alone. He smiles gratefully back at the nothingness that should be Joscelin. Would be Joscelin if she hadn’t been snatched from their thread of time-space. She’s gone, though, and looking about his new surroundings, he’s almost glad for her. It’s infinitely darker; the sky aches to breathe through all the grey soot kaleidoscoping the air. He can hear things he wish he couldn’t, smell things he never hoped to smell. Ramiel frowns, and the first inkling of fear creeps across his skin, threatening to overwhelm him.
He may have called for the end there (of this adventure or more, even he’s not sure in that moment) but for the sheet that suddenly covers him. It’s solid, metal, eerily similar to his mother’s skin and just as achingly familiar. How often has he sidled up to her cold side? How much more at home is he to metal than flesh? The black colt doesn’t know why it happens, but gaining the shield-skin protects his mind as much as his body, if not more so. The Dale feels more immediate than the millions of light-years (and actual years) it surely is away. In his metal, he is home among even aliens.
The voice comes back to him then, the cool powerhouse that lingers in the back of his mind even when it doesn’t speak. He is their captor as much as he is their guide. The yearling does not forget that his life is a small flame to the god, a piteous spark that can be easily snuffed out. So when the voice tells him that he will need to find a beach, he knows that is exactly what he must do. That is what he must do to find Gail and to live. Failure and refusal are not an option.
Ramiel moves out across ground that seems desperate to escape gravity. It flies up around his hooves, a bluish dust that clumps and reminds him of dry red clay back in Beqanna. The residue that comes off of his hooves is sticky, though. It’s a curiosity, but what isn’t in this strange world? The groans and moans of the injured and dying sound out around him, a morbid soundtrack to his mission. He becomes invested in some of them – almost leaves his course once, when he hears a distressed equine-sound in the distance – but ultimately, he doesn’t stray from the path he has set for himself. The footing becomes more treacherous, however, and a quarter of the mile to his destination, Ramiel finds himself deeply entrenched in the blue ground.
He is stuck fast in the alien quicksand, and his struggles only solidify his tragic demise on (far) distant shores. He tries, anyway, wiggling his body which is already weighed down by his metal armor. The boy calls out once before he realizes it might not be the best course of action. Shadows stretch longer here; the trees seem almost alive with their evil intent. Who knows what will hear his plaintive cry? He’s still figuring out how, exactly, one frees himself from a tarry death-pit when the situation deteriorates into dire. An enormous shell (perhaps a conch, though he’s certainly no expert on the matter and wouldn't dare claim to be) rises from the blue depths beside him. It’s nearly twice his height, a living, breathing transplant from the beach he is supposed to find. As if I need the reminder, he thinks, oddly calm in the face of death.
And what a face Oorn turns out to have. It’s shockingly blank, the kind of blank a writer faces just before a deadline. The kind of blank that the dead wear on their faces, a void where something should exist but doesn’t. It regards Ramiel as indifferently a wall would, but he knows he is prey. A primal fear stirs in his gut. This thing will disembowel him. This shell will pull his stomach through his nostrils; will take his heart down with it like a sinking ship below the surface. He’ll become an out-of-place-and-time fossil, a puzzling discovery if the universe makes it through this latest apocalypse. That is, if there is anything left of him. Oorn has tentacles, too. Devastating limbs that curl in serpentine motion; arms that seem open and welcoming to his death. The monster chooses instead to go in with its mouth first. Ramiel flinches as the shell creature draws in close (the end isn’t near, it’s now and what do I have to show for it?) He closes his eyes at the last second, unwilling to watch the degrading finale. But its mouth closes around the armor he’s almost forgotten. It bites down on the metal, lifting him from his once-tomb with a loud sucking sound into the ashy air. Ramiel is almost too shocked at his current state of aliveness to move, but he does once the tentacles begin to thrash at him. He bucks, a wild movement that manages to dislodge him from the alien’s mouth. The yearling lands, hard but alive, onto firmer dirt just beyond the trap.
Oorn isn’t finished with him yet. The shell-creature reaches out with its tentacles, but even it seems to know it is a rather desperate move. One catches his left hind leg, but he kicks out with his right, hitting the thicker part of the tentacle and causing it to release its hold. He hears the monster chatter its pain and anger; he is grateful to still hear such sounds. Where it held him is raw and imprinted with sucker marks, a painful reminder to watch where he’s stepping the next time. Once he’s well and away, he smiles at the thrill of it all. Of having narrowly escaped death to possibly fall into the same pattern again, once he’s reached the beach. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Life. Death. Repeat. For the love of a god, he risks everything. And secretly, it thrills him.
The beach is there stretching in front of the dark colt. It smells of death and rot, of salt and brimstone. He is so close that he can taste all of it, as well as the tepid promise of more adventure, on his tongue. A large herd of strange deer-like creatures graze on the briny, sparse plants along the shoreline. It’s an odd sight for its normalcy, and Ramiel moves in for a closer look in spite of himself, knowing they probably wouldn’t be much help (knowing that this close to the end of the world, they couldn’t be much help for very longer, anyway). As soon as he takes a step in their direction, the furthest one sputters and coughs and drops dead. Hastalyk moves through the herd, a silent but effective killer. From one alien-deer to the next, it spreads through their saliva in the tiny particulates they pass in their wheezing, brief coughs. Immediate respiratory system collapse. Ramiel recognizes that his armor is no match for this beast. He flees into the surf long before the last deer drops. It scalds his ankles, reaches up to singe his legs, but there is the wormhole! It comes with the next wave, glimmering and accepting. The boy dives for it. Hastalyk misses his chance to spread that final plague by a single black hair of a lucky colt.
r a m i e l
what a day to begin again