I am a lover hater. I am an instigator.
What is this new devilry?
It approaches. This feeling of dread that settles in Iasan’s stomach as his eyes survey the Pict circle once more. The imposing stone structures with the runes of the Druids carved into their sides, of stone figurines standing on their heads. They seemed to dance around him in a circle, though they did not move. The fog thickens again, shutting the man-child inside. He exhales his irritation. The calls still sound, but they are not coming from this place. Where is he?
What is this place?
The silence is disturbed by the sound of feet scraping along the stone floor of the pict circle, and Iasan’s black ears filter to their direction, his head following them to settle upon a most curious looking creature. He casts a shadow that is not familiar to Iasan, and instinctively he takes a step backward. He blinks, and wordlessly gestures downward. A river shimmers out of nowhere, carving its way silently through the center of the stone temple. Iasan looks up again, his head tilting as he sees the man
This was not normal.
Always of two minds.
Too many minds.
Be here. Be of one mind. Be present.
Drink it says, and Iasan keeps his mind focused on his current circumstance. The past is forgotten. What he has to remember them by are the wounds he carries from the tunnel—nothing more. The sooty black appaloosa is skeptical and keeps his eyes on the creature before him. But he lowers his head to the water and takes his fill. When he finishes—“Thank you, but can you tell me..”
He cannot complete his sentence. The dancing figurines have turned on their heads, and the whole place begins to shake. The tremors cause the stone floor to crack, creating a massive divide in the floor. Iasan leaps to one side to avoid falling into the resulting hole—or from being ripped in twain—and with a resounding crash, the pillars that make up the circle come slamming to the earth in an unceremonious pile about them both—much like dominos
Iasan stumbles forward into a kneeling position as the pict circle collapses. The river disappears underneath a pile of rubble—the dust is carried up into the air. He notices that the man god thing has approached, and he looks up. From his place in the dirt, Iasan’s eyes pin back against the sides of his head. Something is not quite right here.
I promise this is the quicker route…
There is always a price to pay for the shorter path…
Iasan gets up, hearing the rest of the bargain. More creatures. More dark. Shorter path.
What am I even doing here?
The doors materialize, and the head on the god thing spins again, giving one last warning that he could turn back.
If the price is too steep to pay…
Fuck it.
He nods, his face taking on an expression that was very much older than his rather young age, and he says nothing as the being disappears as quickly as he came, sliding back through the mist as even the stone pict circle begins to fade into nothingness.
Two shimmering doors. Griffin or Giant. Animal or Biped.
He would take his chance with Animal.
The door slams shut and Iasan winces, lowering his head to shelter himself from the sound. When it dissipates, he looks behind him, and sees that the door is gone. Choice made. There is no going back now.
Once more, back to the blackness and the uncertainty. There was one major difference this time—there was no cold. Iasan takes refuge that for once this journey was without the frigid feeling that winter brings. He is limping still—he had not spent nearly enough time in the stone circle to be able to heal in any measurable value, and his body reeks with the stench of sweat and salt and blood. He knows he is the prey in this tunnel, backed against dark and nothingness.
But Iasan has much to live for still. He still has to save her.
For whatever purpose the man being had done him a favor—to warn Iasan of what lay ahead, and allowing him a path that would perhaps require a heavy toll, but that was not so cold.
He would pay his pound of flesh if it meant not being frozen to death for once.
The inkstain son of Ruan has gone through the majority of the tunnel; the darkness fading to a dull grey as the white light of the exit grants a promise of reprieve from the suffocating closeness of the tunnel walls. Having been alone within his own thoughts for hours, the images, the dancing skeletons of the mount come back to haunt him. Shadows of a life long bereft of glory—the children he’s buried; the faces he’s forgotten.
And yet, they threatened to drown him once more.
A child of Ruan and Reagan… yet the images of Ashling and Eol threatened to fog his memory. The faces spin once more, and Jason continues to go down into the world; to remember why he was born great. To remember why the beach spat him up from the depths and allowed the clock to wind its way backwards… for Time to allow him his due. To allow him time of a new life to save her.
I have a new reason for being. All the promises of death, and yet I find that I have time once again.
Two powerful sons, the scions of two houses, forged in one body. The eagle and the lion.
Jason closes his eyes and flexes—the muscles rippling with health under the guise of a youthful body reborn into the life of another. He is not as he was—and he finds that he feels guilty. He is wounded, and he sees this, and then the dancing of the corpses remind him once again. Head spin.
Iasan snarls, his green eyes pushing forward towards the exit, the floor now littered liberally with fur. And feathers. He steps over the remains of a previous meal, and the bones shift—making just the barest of sounds.
It is enough.
A battle cry sounds, and the forged creature appears—body of a lion; head, wings, and talons of an eagle. He is flying low, the tips of his wings spanning both sides of the tunnel; but oh, is he fast.
Jason and Iasan; they want to live through this experience. Two schools of thought in one body. The old, and the mystic. The young and powerful. He would have to learn to be at one with himself, lest he be lost in the clamor of his own thought. His headspace was very crowded, and he figured he had two options—battle himself until there was disharmony that would rip them both apart, or learn the harmony that comes in the power of experience greater than oneself.
The griffin lands, standing tall, placing his wings on his back and peering down at him. The inkstain flicks his tail, his thoughts pulsating. The young one has learned much, and when the beast reaches down to lunge at him, he moves, spinning with experience that is not his own. Black hooves dodge the beak, and kick back at the griffin’s massive paws.
A dangerous move, going for the business end. Iasan groans aloud as his back legs take a gash from the talons, but the sensitive paws of the cat are too much for the eagle to handle—it screeches, falling over as its tail whips around to try and knock Jason off balance. He moves again, rushing the exit. A final snap! of a beak catches the stunned horse by the tail. The lion pulls back with his paws, and the eagle pumps his wings, unable to take flight. Irritated, the griffin finds his parts at odds with each other, and in his lust for meal, becomes clumsy. He falls on his own pile of fur and feathers—all while Iasan flails about in the eagle’s mouth, landing to the floor of the narrowing tunnel with a thud.
The sooty black man child seizes this opportunity of a distracted griffin. He kicks back again, landing a weaker blow right to the griffin’s beak—pushing off, his tail frays, the hair ripping apart as he makes for the light at the end of the tunnel.
Freedom.
Bobbed tail, gashed flank, and blood openly flowing, Iasan finds himself coming to grips with his unbidden memories, and Jason finds himself learning to be at peace with his existence. They are tormented; haunted.
But they are one.
The darkness is gone, but there is no apparent exit to this room that is full of nothing of white light. He looks around. It cannot be this easy.
Your move.
Iasan