The world had changed.
And with it, she had changed as well. After the dust had settled she finds herself atop a mountain that she has never seen before. Down below she can see the lands below - the meadow, field, forest… but there is little else. No jungle, no tundra, no forest frontiers even. She has lived through such events before, so there is little shock.
But as she descends the mountain’s slopes she watches in awe as her talons transform back into hooves, her feathers disappear. She feels her wings shrink into nothingness. Her eyesight dulls. She feels her blood begin to pump slower in her veins. As if her many, many years are coming to her now all at once.
She is normal. Her strange features are no more. What had once made her a valuable warrior, and more lately a lonely oddity, was gone. Her thoughts drift to Fart - his grand plan, his herd, his silly smile. It’s all gone now. She thinks of the sisterhood, all homeless now as she had been upon her return. She no longer needs to fear the jungle’s rejection. She recalls the land of her birth; her siblings and their many descendants. Her own children, many of whom have lost their short lives during her indefinite one.
Maybe… maybe she should not go into this new age. She has rebuilt herself so many times, did she really want to do it again? Was it the sudden weight of her years bearing down on her that made her feel so tired, so defeated? Or was it the tallying up of all of life’s disappointments? She hears the fairy whispering to her to choose a trait, choose immortality. “Live on” the fairy says; but she can only think of the strange look in Fart’s eyes when he speaks of fairies. Maybe it was time to stop listening to them.
Ignoring the imp’s commands, the bay mare hobbles down the steep and rocky slopes. She knows her destination well, for she has chosen to avoid it for so long. It is a long trek to the sands of the beach from the mountain, and her age only increases exponentially as she goes. It is as if the fairy is tormenting her now, trying to get her to change her mind.
Still she ignores it, a smile on her face which grows increasingly wrinkled and dry as she marches onwards. She worries, a little, about leaving Fart without saying goodbye. But she simply can’t. She doesn’t know how she feels about the green man, but it is too different from what she has ever known and it frightens her. She cannot face him because it would mean facing whatever lurks inside herself. She wishes him the best, though, in this new world. A few tears fall down her withered cheeks.
After what seems like an eternity her strangely normal hooves find the sand she has sought. It is unchanged from the last time she has visited so many years ago. She takes a moment to think of them now, her mother, her father. They had loved one another so. Perhaps they waited for her now, she had no way of knowing. Her tired eyes watch the waves lap at the shore, her vision deteriorated so that the world was a blur. She can still hear the fairy, pestering her to reconsider, to come back, to help rebuild. But she had done so before - it was time for the new generation to make this world what they wanted it to be. She knew they would, but she would not be a part of it.
Exhausted from her journey, she crumples onto the soft sand, the smile still etched on her lips. She feels light, as if the years were floating away from her. She rests her head on the ground and sighs. With her breath, her body transforms into a cloud of tawny feathers and is carried off with the breeze of the sea.
Seraphina
RIP Seraphina
