11-12-2019, 08:36 PM
To be a spirit is a rather inexplicable feeling unless you’ve been a spirit before. Faulkor still feels. He still blinks as if he has eyes and breathes as if he has lungs. He can still hear the rush of the river even though his physical ears are rotting in a cave somewhere in the land of the living. Somehow, despite the separation of his body and his spirit, he still <i>is</i>.
He lands along the wet bank of a raging river - broken from the obscurity of his dreaming and placed here. There are others on his side of the shore. He did not know them in life. He does not know them now. He does not know that they had died violent deaths like himself, and he doesn’t care.
The river is wide and swift. His eyes track the current until the water plummets into oblivion. He wonders what it would feel like to let the river take him. He blinks - more aware now than he has been since death had taken him, though the edges of his vision are still foggy and dream-like. There is a mare in the middle of the river, standing perfectly still despite the power of the current. Strange, yes, but perhaps not the strangest dream he has dreamed. That is, until the stone gray mare is suddenly engulfed by the white water and reemerges as two - divided yet somehow the same.
Now transfixed on the scene before him, he watches as the two figures turn away from the river, each in a different direction. But, he does not watch the figure that approaches his side of the shore. Rather his eyes follow the other figure to a scene that nearly mirrors the bank he stands on. There, amidst the mud, mire, and strange faces he finds a familiar white figure. Despite the gaping width of the river that separates them, Faulkor feels as if he could reach out and touch her.
For a moment he wonders if he has fallen again into those dreams that have kept him here in death’s tender grasp. Perhaps it is a dream, but this one is different. This one feels more real.
“Sider.” he whispers against the roar of the river.
Nikkai’s voice pulls his attention to her, but he is reluctant to lose sight of the white apparition that stands on the far bank, and so he does not dare spare more than a glance or two at the grulla mare.
“If you can get across the river to your person, you can both go home. To life.” She says, and before her voice has died away, Faulkor charges into the river.
He had killed her. Yet, his pale spectre had not died violently. He had killed her, but he didn’t have to touch her to do it. He had killed her, but she shouldn’t have died for him. Her heart shouldn’t have been his, but he broke it anyways. He had killed her, and all he had to do was leave.
The river swallows him whole. The current forces its way into his chest and he feels as if his lungs will burst from the pressure. Perhaps they would if he wasn’t already dead. He succumbs to the will of the water - allowing it to take him further and further down.
He sees things down there along the river bottom. Tangled in the weeds he sees the faces of their children. He hears their beating of the hearts. He feels the love and the hate that had simultaneously kept them together and torn them apart in the life they lived so long ago. He feels Sider’s pain at his betrayal as if it were his own. He feels her heartbreak flooding through him - pinning him against the rocks below. Everything that kept them apart in life - their pride, their unwillingness to forgive, their inability to forget - rages against him now.
Trapped by the current, Faulkor has no choice but to watch as the water passes over him, carrying memories of his life through his vision. He sees himself disappearing into the depths of his cavernous home - never to be seen again by the ones he left behind.
“Forgive me, Sider.” he chokes.
He almost hopes to drown there, but he cannot. He almost wants the raging water to crush him into dust (for his spirit to nurture the river’s plants like his physical body feeds the cave creatures where he left it), but it does not.
Then, she comes. She is a specter of white against the darkness of the river. Her mane and tail flow lazily despite the current. She is the embodiment of peace - the kind of peace that comes with letting go - the kind of peace that comes with forgiveness.
“Forgive me, my love.” he says, and even though they are underwater his voice is perfectly audible.
She takes him gently by the nape of his neck and lifts him up. Together they rise to the surface somewhere in the midst of the river, but perfectly at peace. At least for the moment death allows them.
He lands along the wet bank of a raging river - broken from the obscurity of his dreaming and placed here. There are others on his side of the shore. He did not know them in life. He does not know them now. He does not know that they had died violent deaths like himself, and he doesn’t care.
The river is wide and swift. His eyes track the current until the water plummets into oblivion. He wonders what it would feel like to let the river take him. He blinks - more aware now than he has been since death had taken him, though the edges of his vision are still foggy and dream-like. There is a mare in the middle of the river, standing perfectly still despite the power of the current. Strange, yes, but perhaps not the strangest dream he has dreamed. That is, until the stone gray mare is suddenly engulfed by the white water and reemerges as two - divided yet somehow the same.
Now transfixed on the scene before him, he watches as the two figures turn away from the river, each in a different direction. But, he does not watch the figure that approaches his side of the shore. Rather his eyes follow the other figure to a scene that nearly mirrors the bank he stands on. There, amidst the mud, mire, and strange faces he finds a familiar white figure. Despite the gaping width of the river that separates them, Faulkor feels as if he could reach out and touch her.
For a moment he wonders if he has fallen again into those dreams that have kept him here in death’s tender grasp. Perhaps it is a dream, but this one is different. This one feels more real.
“Sider.” he whispers against the roar of the river.
Nikkai’s voice pulls his attention to her, but he is reluctant to lose sight of the white apparition that stands on the far bank, and so he does not dare spare more than a glance or two at the grulla mare.
“If you can get across the river to your person, you can both go home. To life.” She says, and before her voice has died away, Faulkor charges into the river.
He had killed her. Yet, his pale spectre had not died violently. He had killed her, but he didn’t have to touch her to do it. He had killed her, but she shouldn’t have died for him. Her heart shouldn’t have been his, but he broke it anyways. He had killed her, and all he had to do was leave.
The river swallows him whole. The current forces its way into his chest and he feels as if his lungs will burst from the pressure. Perhaps they would if he wasn’t already dead. He succumbs to the will of the water - allowing it to take him further and further down.
He sees things down there along the river bottom. Tangled in the weeds he sees the faces of their children. He hears their beating of the hearts. He feels the love and the hate that had simultaneously kept them together and torn them apart in the life they lived so long ago. He feels Sider’s pain at his betrayal as if it were his own. He feels her heartbreak flooding through him - pinning him against the rocks below. Everything that kept them apart in life - their pride, their unwillingness to forgive, their inability to forget - rages against him now.
Trapped by the current, Faulkor has no choice but to watch as the water passes over him, carrying memories of his life through his vision. He sees himself disappearing into the depths of his cavernous home - never to be seen again by the ones he left behind.
“Forgive me, Sider.” he chokes.
He almost hopes to drown there, but he cannot. He almost wants the raging water to crush him into dust (for his spirit to nurture the river’s plants like his physical body feeds the cave creatures where he left it), but it does not.
Then, she comes. She is a specter of white against the darkness of the river. Her mane and tail flow lazily despite the current. She is the embodiment of peace - the kind of peace that comes with letting go - the kind of peace that comes with forgiveness.
“Forgive me, my love.” he says, and even though they are underwater his voice is perfectly audible.
She takes him gently by the nape of his neck and lifts him up. Together they rise to the surface somewhere in the midst of the river, but perfectly at peace. At least for the moment death allows them.