01-02-2019, 03:51 PM
In the moment that follows Noori’s question, a cough rattles from her friend’s lungs, reverberating through her entire body despite its feebleness. The reality of Glassheart’s sickness hits Noori then, causing her to momentarily lift her porcelain head to look closely at the other. By the way her fever-glassed eyes trail to the burbling river, Noori takes it that she wishes not to discuss the details of her illness; a strange, alien sympathy flows through the babe.
“I know how you feel,” she whispers, lips brushing against the mare’s sweat-ridden cheek. From here, she smells the death and decay as it ripens the other’s flesh, and becomes sick as she remembers that exact scent marking her previous body. Swallowing back bile, Noori presses her lips to the other, a gesture of unfeigned pain and understanding. Death’s kiss, though she knows not how true that saying may very well be for her companion. “It’s going to be okay.”
She knows deep down that this mare will not revive as she has; but for all finite beings, the release of death would always bring peace, even if it is in the shape of pure, unadulterated nothingness.
The moment passes, however, as Glassheart’s jaw begins gnawing around words. She offers no insight into her character, except perhaps that its foundation is innately cracked, unstable, and uncertain. Alone, she offers next, the word a reflection broad enough to encapsulate all that could possibly have come to pass in this grown mare’s life; I’m alone. In the wake of silence following this statement, Noori suddenly hears the world around them more keenly; her magician’s fingertips run swiftly across the singing birds, the jumping squirrels, and the rooting pigs; she feels also the sway of the grass in the wind, the blood-like coursing of the river, and the swift movement of the wind far above.
Mother Spring never feels lonesome the way other mortals do; but when she strains and remembers her first childhood, emancipated from her parents and her elder sister, she thinks she can imagine what loneliness feels like.
Noori pauses a while longer, listening to her friend breathe and wondering if she could say anything at all to help her feel better.
“You’ve got me,” she begins quietly. “And I could find you a healer to rid you of this disease, if you’d like.” But something tells the child that she would not make it back in time; whether because of death or because of Glassheart’s abandonment of this place in the name of being alone, Noori will never know.
“I’m Noori, by the way. I hope you don’t die. I don’t have many friends, and those I had, I fear have forgotten me…”
“I know how you feel,” she whispers, lips brushing against the mare’s sweat-ridden cheek. From here, she smells the death and decay as it ripens the other’s flesh, and becomes sick as she remembers that exact scent marking her previous body. Swallowing back bile, Noori presses her lips to the other, a gesture of unfeigned pain and understanding. Death’s kiss, though she knows not how true that saying may very well be for her companion. “It’s going to be okay.”
She knows deep down that this mare will not revive as she has; but for all finite beings, the release of death would always bring peace, even if it is in the shape of pure, unadulterated nothingness.
The moment passes, however, as Glassheart’s jaw begins gnawing around words. She offers no insight into her character, except perhaps that its foundation is innately cracked, unstable, and uncertain. Alone, she offers next, the word a reflection broad enough to encapsulate all that could possibly have come to pass in this grown mare’s life; I’m alone. In the wake of silence following this statement, Noori suddenly hears the world around them more keenly; her magician’s fingertips run swiftly across the singing birds, the jumping squirrels, and the rooting pigs; she feels also the sway of the grass in the wind, the blood-like coursing of the river, and the swift movement of the wind far above.
Mother Spring never feels lonesome the way other mortals do; but when she strains and remembers her first childhood, emancipated from her parents and her elder sister, she thinks she can imagine what loneliness feels like.
Noori pauses a while longer, listening to her friend breathe and wondering if she could say anything at all to help her feel better.
“You’ve got me,” she begins quietly. “And I could find you a healer to rid you of this disease, if you’d like.” But something tells the child that she would not make it back in time; whether because of death or because of Glassheart’s abandonment of this place in the name of being alone, Noori will never know.
“I’m Noori, by the way. I hope you don’t die. I don’t have many friends, and those I had, I fear have forgotten me…”