06-27-2015, 11:42 PM
what is dead may never die;
The first thing she feels is cold.
She's never been cold before. In fact, she's never really been anything before – at least, not uncomfortably so. She's simply been, existing in spite of all normal conventions, defying all expectations of what should be felt, what should be thought.
But here, in this place, the cold soaks into her bones and she shivers. It is an unfamiliar reflex.
Opening her eyes, she looks around. This place is both familiar and distant, like something she's seen in a dream, like a set viewed in a movie but never actually experienced. How had she come to be here? Where was her family? They were all she'd known – and she knows, somehow, that here in this place they are either missing or scattered.
Even now, the memory of them is fading. As though it had all been a dream, the memories start to float away into the scattered, snowy, familiar-unfamiliar landscape. She grits her teeth.
She remembers only two things with absolute certainty: the names of her mother and her father, and the land that both of them would call home, assuming either of them were alive in Beqanna. Carnage, she knows, is her father. Librette, she knows, is her mother. The Valley, she knows, is the place that they would both be found. And yet, somehow, she feels in her bones that neither of them are to be found there at all.
She rises slowly, suddenly aware that she's been lying down. Snow falls from her, having obviously settled around her like a blanket while she had been...what? Asleep? Unconscious? Dreaming? The ground is cold beneath her, and everything nearby seems withered and grey. It matches her perfectly: she too is grey, although she is not withered. How old is she? She wonders idly, but has no good answer. She doesn't look old, but she is distrustful of her own appearance. She is distrustful of everything but those three facts: mother, father, home.
Finally on her feet, she finds herself steadier than she'd hoped and expected. Where she had come from there hadn't been much in the way of walking. It had been a different world, an entirely different way of being. And thus far, she prefers that to this. Out there, it hadn't been cold. Not like this, anyway.
But that is then, and this is here, now. And if she's here, she will continue to be here, at least until she is yanked away. And if she's going to be here, she's just going to have to get used to it.
She grits her teeth, and gains a fourth certainty: her name. Aletheia. She is Aletheia, and always has been.
And, perhaps, always will be.
She's never been cold before. In fact, she's never really been anything before – at least, not uncomfortably so. She's simply been, existing in spite of all normal conventions, defying all expectations of what should be felt, what should be thought.
But here, in this place, the cold soaks into her bones and she shivers. It is an unfamiliar reflex.
Opening her eyes, she looks around. This place is both familiar and distant, like something she's seen in a dream, like a set viewed in a movie but never actually experienced. How had she come to be here? Where was her family? They were all she'd known – and she knows, somehow, that here in this place they are either missing or scattered.
Even now, the memory of them is fading. As though it had all been a dream, the memories start to float away into the scattered, snowy, familiar-unfamiliar landscape. She grits her teeth.
She remembers only two things with absolute certainty: the names of her mother and her father, and the land that both of them would call home, assuming either of them were alive in Beqanna. Carnage, she knows, is her father. Librette, she knows, is her mother. The Valley, she knows, is the place that they would both be found. And yet, somehow, she feels in her bones that neither of them are to be found there at all.
She rises slowly, suddenly aware that she's been lying down. Snow falls from her, having obviously settled around her like a blanket while she had been...what? Asleep? Unconscious? Dreaming? The ground is cold beneath her, and everything nearby seems withered and grey. It matches her perfectly: she too is grey, although she is not withered. How old is she? She wonders idly, but has no good answer. She doesn't look old, but she is distrustful of her own appearance. She is distrustful of everything but those three facts: mother, father, home.
Finally on her feet, she finds herself steadier than she'd hoped and expected. Where she had come from there hadn't been much in the way of walking. It had been a different world, an entirely different way of being. And thus far, she prefers that to this. Out there, it hadn't been cold. Not like this, anyway.
But that is then, and this is here, now. And if she's here, she will continue to be here, at least until she is yanked away. And if she's going to be here, she's just going to have to get used to it.
She grits her teeth, and gains a fourth certainty: her name. Aletheia. She is Aletheia, and always has been.
And, perhaps, always will be.
but rises again
Aletheia
harder and stronger