Titanya is her father’s fire.
She burns long after his flame has been snuffed out, the residual sparked-kindling building towards an inferno. She is young and green, her legs still long and her body lean. Already, though, pain has flooded her system. Already, she has lost a father and misplaced a brother. Already, she’s been homeless and hopeless – a seed planted too early and washed out before roots could take hold.
Her mother’s hand had been an unsteady throughout her tending of the girl. She couldn’t nurture her like her twin (she looked just like father, his spitting image down to the blaze). She couldn’t tell her everything would be all right (it wouldn’t ever be again for Talulah; even the love of her children couldn’t replace what she’d lost). She couldn’t look to the future when all she ever wanted was now in the past.
Titanya did not understand at first. All she knew was that her mother’s love was an unequal gift, heaped upon her damaged brother (who ate everything, edible and non-edible, much to his misfortune) and given to her in the leftover scraps. But it was all right, for a while. Even if she’d been shallowly planted, ready to be swept away at any point, she had managed to dig in. Instead of succumbing to the tide, she pushed against it. She had grown stronger and more independent. Pleas to watch her stricken brother grew more and more distant the further she traveled away from the pair. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her brother – she did, more than anything – it was that she couldn’t take her mother’s sad, sad eyes anymore. The days spent away became more numerous than her days with her remaining family.
One day, this day, she simply can’t find her way back to them.
She goes to the wind-swept stretch of mountainside her mother had been fond of. She finds the little hollow that she and Terran had curled up in when they’d been much smaller. Now, tiny paw-prints mark the dusty earth outside of the scoop. A badger or a weasel, she thinks to herself, smiling at the idea of a complete family finding use of their once-home. But it’s not the scratching of a small mammal she hears deep from within. A faint tinkling sound like the bubbling creeks on the way to the Falls echoes within the chamber. Titanya cocks her head. That can’t be right, can it? But as she strains to listen to the alien sound (metallic, almost like her mother but altogether different, melodic) everything changes.
She blinks and the world is different. Stillness settles across the scene before her. The wild grasses stand erect and untouched, no longer bent by the whipping winds of the high hills. She’s not sure how or why, and startles when the voice sounds in her head. Come…You must come now. The black sabino shakes her head, tries to rid herself of the voice in vain. What is happening? White-hot anger rises just below the surface of her skin, threatening to boil over. If the world is in danger, than surely her brother is out there, helpless in the thick of it. She’s heard the stories, of course. Their world is a tumultuous, shifting landscape where nearly anything can happen. But why did it have to happen now, when she’s never been more vulnerable and alone? Fueled by her barely contained heat, Titanya moves to follow the voice – if only to escape from the bells.
The chiming increases in volume with every step she takes. She thinks it will drive her to violence long before she can locate her family. The dulled, almost monochromatic land seems to stretch into eternity, and all the while, the bells are there, the soundtrack to her misery. But just as she’s given up hope of inhabiting a world with anyone else in it, she sees them. It’s not a large group, but they are horses and it is enough. “What is happening?” Wonder alters the anger in her voice to a more acceptable level, but hardly so. She catches the eye of the older ones among the gathered, a strangely marked grey mare and a black stallion with curling, wild horns. Titanya doesn’t necessarily have more respect for anyone older than her based on their age alone, but she does expect them to have the answers.
When none do, seemingly shocked into a silence at war with the clanking bells, she looks away. A young lamb with the most peculiar accoutrements (too many horns and certainly far too many eyes) sits in the corner of her gaze. The young mare turns to look more closely at it, but when she blinks, there is nothing there. Only the voice and the clanging of the bells remain, sounding into the otherwise paused air. Behold! The end of the world is nigh! Titanya seethes at the thought. The end of the world and they are all standing around to watch it? Why aren’t they doing something about it? You are the chosen ones. Will you accept your fate? She listens as each of the others accept – as if they have a choice – before doing so herself. If there is any chance they can preserve their home, to bring the color back into Beqanna and save its people, she has been in long before the question has been asked. “Yes, of course. Now can we get on with it already?”
Titanya