"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
07-26-2015, 11:07 AM (This post was last modified: 07-27-2015, 11:26 AM by a demon.)
You’re dreaming—yes, yes you are.
At least you think you are.
It feels like years have come and gone since you began your ‘rule,’ there isn’t a creature in existence that seems capable of telling you “no.” They gladly obey your every command, worship the ground you walk on; even the world listens, twisting and bending itself to accommodate anything you declare as fact. You are a god here, wherever ‘here’ is—if ‘here’ exists at all. You are capable of anything and everything. But then, one day, you go a little too far; you change a little too much and everything starts going horribly wrong.
The other animals slowly stop listening to you, gradually becoming less civilized and slipping back into a primal state. They tear apart the things you built, the things you made them build. They even begin to rip one another apart. The world rebels against you; shaking, burning, flooding, drying up, dying—anything you do to try and make it stop seems to speed up the process, it makes it ten times worse. The reality you’ve spent so much time creating and pouring yourself into spirals down into chaos.
Your utopia is no more.
And then you wake up.
Smoke is choking you, it’s filling up your lungs and you struggle to get to your feet; all of Beqanna is on fire, how or why doesn’t really seem to matter, though it’s likely a faerie or magician is to blame. You join the others in trying to get away, and you do, you make it to the outskirts and watch from high up on a mountainside as your home slowly but surely burns to the ground. Everything you know is being erased. And what’s worse, no one you know seems to be among the survivors.
Perhaps your dream was symbolic, a sign of what's to come....
Hello! We're going to be doing a bit of world-building to start things off:
Unbeknownst to them, your character has spent literally years in that dream world creating things and rearranging reality however they saw fit (don't worry, your character doesn't age—they're immortal while all of this is taking place and no time has passed in Beqanna at all); so build, build, build! Be creative. Use your imagination.
Of course, eventually, everything goes to hell so after they build their pretty little world up, have fun tearing it down. Spare none of the filthy details.
Write about what it was like for them to wake up from all of that and then having to make their 'daring' escape; they must have seen some pretty terrible things, right? How were they feeling? What were they seeing, exactly? What was it like to see Beqanna 'burn to the ground'?
Remember, they're (presumably) losing the only home they've ever known. Their entire way of life is being incinerated. Their friends, their family, their kingdoms, everything they've ever known and loved or hated is being taken from them. Imagine that, feel it, use it, write about it.
None of the characters in this quest may interact with one another. Everyone is pretty much dead to everyone else.
Annnd the usual:
This is a roleplay-based quest.
Traits will be genetic.
Defects are possible.
There is no limit on participants.
One character per player.
You have twenty four hours to join.
While each round will be timed, order of response will not always dictate elimination. It will be mentioned at the end of each of my posts how participants are being eliminated each round. A non-participating owner (if any of the owners choose to participate) will be informed of how certain rounds are being judged and their opinion will be sought after if there is any indication that unfairness is suspected. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via PMs, the OOC board, or on the cbox if you see me there. I will be lurking sporadically throughout the day. Have lots of fun!
In dreams, he still has it together. In dreams, he can make the world as it should be. On the outside, he’s nothing remarkable - no trace of the dams that bore him beyond his colouring. The bay has faded grey, which would be more obvious if it weren’t so covered in mud and grime. The body that lay in the needles, too lazy and weary to find a more comfortable spot, was malnourished and filthy. In the right wind, he would wake himself up with the stench off of his flesh and more than once, he had been mistaken by some vultures for a corpse.
But the body in the dreams was all he should have been - strong as those born of magic are. The midnight-blue eyes with flecks of ice around the iris still shine like the stars his birth-mother had fallen from, his dapple grey coat rich like that of his sire-mother. From them he had gained the mantle he currently bore, those queen mothers that had ruled together in this utopia and had helped him shape it with their magic. Together, the three of them had spoken reason to the animals. Together, they had made the earth less harsh and more giving, so that all might share in the bounty it could provide. It was a world where light and dark mingled freely, where the night was just as welcome as the day and shadows were no longer a thing to be feared. For years, Anaxarete the Shadow Queen and Agetta the Star Queen had ruled together, raising their son and bathing the land in their warmth. They balanced fear and love in the land and in each other.
And since their passing, it had been his turn. He had been taught well by his mothers, knew their secrets and held their magic within his heart. He could speak to the shadows and to the animals alike, could reason with them. Long summers stretched for years, followed by long autumns and easy winters. Spring saw the entirety of their world in a burst of colours, some without name. Tersias learned to temper the weather so that it would be less harsh on those that lived here, bring just enough rain for everything to survive and not enough to flood. He learned how much sunlight was needed and how much cloud, which of the animals could be easily reasoned with and which had to be coaxed. On great speckled wings he soared across the sky, bringing good weather and tidings. With a beat of his wings he could change the slope of the coast so that the tide beat softer on the sand and the rocks, cause the grass to grow longer so it would not be cropped so completely by those that grazed on it.
But one spring, the flowers did not come on the trees and the grass did not sprout from the earth where the snow had been. The stress of uncommonly mild winters had started to toll on the plants - without their needed period of dormancy, the signals of the changing seasons were mixed.
They did not respond to his breath of life at first, and then only reluctantly produced the blooms that would later turn to fruit. The grass that grew in the meadows was bitter and without nutrients and the water began to have a sulfurous smell to it. Try as he might, his attempts to fix these problems were futile. The solutions proved onto to be temporary and with each day, the sun became hot and blinding and the night became dark and suffocating. There was no balance now and they all knew it, all of the animals everywhere knew it. The ravens were the first to turn, attacking him in the air as he flew over a forest and tried to breathe into it the leaves that he knew belonged there. The other birds joined in, until his wings were bloodied to the point where they could not carry him any longer.
King Tersias crashed into the woods then, sticks jabbing into him as he went through the branches until he was met not with the soft moss ground that had been there before, but with the hard rock that the mosses had covered. They too, had died, the moisture they required dried up with the intense sunlight. Battered and bruised, the dappled stallion looked around to see a whole host of animals surrounding him - all with gleaming metallic teeth. Even the herbivores - there was a hare with long point viper teeth by his hooves, licking its lips. BEfore they could set in on him, though, a roar to the side caught everyone’s attention.
Out of the shadows they came, a pair of felines - larger than any that existed naturally in nature and without flaw. One was a panther, not black or golden but a rich silver with lighter spots, and to her side was a silk-furred snow leopard. He knew these two. They had raised him, had taught him, and he had destroyed everything they built together. Perhaps now they had returned to help him build it again. They had returned from the dead once, what was another turn?
“Mothers.”
He croaked to them but they did not heed him. Instead, they set about clearing the area of all the other ravenous rodents and creatures - the needle-toothed hares, the snarling squirrels, the ravenous dogs. Only after they had chased away the others to a respectful distance did they turn on him, saliva dripping from their shining canines - their eyes black and blank. Closer and closer they came to him, the fur of their shoulders brushing against each other as they moved. He didn’t believe that they would use those teeth against him. He did not believe it right up until the point that Anaxarete pounced and dug her teeth into the crook of his neck, when Agetta hurried forward to find a spot lower and begin to tear at it. They were his mothers, they would not hurt him....
Screaming, the skin-and-bones version of Tersias jolted awake to find that he was not being eaten alive by his mothers - but he was not altogether sure that what he woke to was any better. He was coughing when he woke but it was not his blood that wa choking him - it was smoke. Beqanna was burning around him after he had already watched one home fall apart, he was not sure he could survive the destruction of another. It took four tries for his weak legs to hold his body weight so that he could stand and get moving, and still he stumbled. Fire licked at his heels and it wondered if it was his sire-mother, with her fire-magic, that had started all of this. Was this revenge for his destruction of their utopia? He had destroyed the home that she loved and now she was taking everything from him. He dared not look behind him, such was the depth of his cowardice, as he half-stumbled, half-cantered as far as he could. Weak and delirious, he got cornered by fire once in his journey and escaped with burns along his belly and legs.
Finally, he was outrunning the worst of it and later, when he was sure that he would die on his feet, he reached an outcrop on the outskirts of Beqanna and managed to look back. Everything was on fire, everything was gone. There was no sight of any one else escaping the flames. Although he had lingered on the edge of Beqanna for most of his life, in the pit of his stomach there was some despair taking root as he watched - at first too much of a coward to look back and now too afraid to look away. He could not mourn the childhood friends he did not have, or the brothers and sisters he did not know exist, but he mourned his mothers - for surely they were there among the flames. In this reality, Anaxarete wielded fire and used it as a weapon against Agetta. Perhaps it had gotten out of control this time, perhaps they had finally managed to kill each other.
His ice-flecked, midnight eyes stared blankly out at Beqanna - knowing that there were things he should be mourning but unable to register the emotions for this land. Instead, he mourned the fact that his dream had been false - that even for a time, his family had not existed peacefully together. The entire sky was filled with dark grey smoke, blotting out the sun and the sky, until their entire world was nothing but fire and ash. There was no more heart or strength left in the dappled stallion to run now, and his legs were weary from the climb and searing from the burns. He collapsed there on the ledge, watching sideways as everything in Beqanna burned. When he closed his eyes, the flame mingled with the flashing of metallic teeth, coming to kiss him goodnight.
Dreams are, to her, perhaps more natural than being awake.
And so it is no wonder that she doesn't question it when she finds herself in a world that seems to exist only for her. This is the world she is used to, where her thoughts become reality. She simply accepts it, embraces it completely, and begins the process with a smile.
It starts with a simple premise. In this world, the plants do not wilt if she stands beside them too long. In this world, she does not lifesuck. A thought, and a riot of plants and trees and flowers burst from the ground for her. She stands in the middle of a beautiful garden: a canopy of trees creates dappled sunshine. Sweet-smelling vines trail from their branches, sometimes dipping low enough to touch her back as she walks between them, surveying her handiwork. The trees are dotted with flowers, sweet-smelling plumeria blossoms that perfume the air. The ground beneath her hooves is a gentle carpet of green grass, as soft as a blanket.
Another thought, and the animals come. Squirrels skitter along the branches of the trees, chattering gently. Partially hidden within the woods, a mother deer and two fawns graze, entirely at their ease. They raise their heads to look at her as she passes, but she does not want them to be afraid and so they are not. She continues along her path, building her world as she goes.
A brook bursts from the ground, its headwater bubbling up softly from beneath a pile of rocks and moss, looking as though it had been there for years. The water that flows from it is clear and cold, and when she bends to drink from the stream it tastes as crisp and fresh as anything she's ever had. The other animals approach it too, curious to see what's in their woods. There are elk and moose, badgers and chipmunks. But something is still missing – what? A pause, a breath, and she realizes. It's the silence. It's too quiet. She blinks, and a rainbow of birds pops into existence. They dot the branches around the water, chirruping a gentle song. They are many and varied in their breeds and the style of their song, but in her creation they are like a sweet chorus, all the disparate elements in harmony.
A small squirrel approaches her, stopping before her like a petitioner before a queen. It watches her with interest, and she offers it a reassuring smile. Could she force it to love her, as she wants it to love her? Yes, she knows anything is within her power here in this world. But that's not what she wants. She wants to earn it, to know that she deserves it. To know that they see her as their mother, that they care for her, not just because she has made them.
The small squirrel sniffs the air, and then scampers up her leg to perch gently on her back.
The others are quick to follow then, birds perching along her crest, rabbits scampering up onto her back, all the creatures of the forest perching on the grey girl like a strange erstwhile Disney Princess. And Aletheia, the girl who doesn't understand emotions, the girl who is stoic, the girl who knows nothing of the world – she is grinning, delighted to have friends at last. In the real world, she doesn't fit in. She lives in the Valley, a largely silent kingdom, and any time she gets too close for too long, her lifesteal starts to tick, sapping away possible friendships as surely as it saps away their energy. But not here, not in this world. Here, lifesteal is less than a memory.
And so the days pass as she frolics with her friends. In this place, sadness comes from the little things – a fawn trips as they dance through a meadow, a bird caught in a vine hurts its wing as it struggles to get free. But all the hardships are easily fixed, because in this world, Aletheia is everything. The small fawn is mended before it can be hurt. The bird's wing knits itself back together with no pain. She uses her power to smooth the world for her friends.
Several weeks have passed, and she lies within a bower of grass, surrounded by the gentle press of trees and the warmth of her animal friends, pressed around her so closely that they could be a blanket. Wouldn't it be nice, she thinks, if they could talk to each other? She has always been able to talk to them and they to her, although she thinks that it is not really talking with a voice, but instead a kind of knowing, an unspoken connection, like wires between their various souls. But it's cruel that they can't all enjoy each other's company, she thinks, and at her thought the world twists itself to her whim.
The wordless chatter suddenly has words. There is a collective silence as realization sets in, and then the chatter explodes again. The high, excited voices of the birds mingle with the soft, quick voices of the squirrels. They are comparing notes on the various nuts and seeds of the trees of the forest, deciding which are more delicious. The elk, moose, and deer are having the same conversation about the grass and berries. All around her is laughter and cheer, wordless friends suddenly able to understand each other at last.
They are the best of friends, the dearest of companions, but there is still something missing. There are many who are like her, but none who are exactly like her – no other horses. And her other friends, while sweet, don't fill the void of having none of her own kind. And so she thinks, and they come into being. As is the way of dreams, she pulls them unknowingly from her reality. There is Thorn, a chestnut mare that awake-Aletheia would know in a heartbeat to be Thorrun. There is Infee, a handsome grey stallion, the idealized dream-version of Infection, whose true appearance is too horrific to make its way into this world. There is Rho, younger than all the rest of them, a gold-and-white representation of the real-world Rhonan. And finally, there's another black, but this time a mare. Her eyes are blue and her coat is flecked with blue, like stars. Her name in the dream is Ant, but real-world Aletheia would know her in a moment as Antimony.
In this world, their personalities are so different from how they are in the real world. Thorn is quick to laugh and mischevious. Infee is gallant and caring, almost as close with all the animals of the woodlands as Aletheia herself. Rho loves to run with the deer, to frolic and play. And Ant is gentle, sweet, and innocent.
Almost instantly, their little band is inseparable. They roam together, playing in idyllic fields and meadows, lying down to sleep together at night tucked within copses of trees, warmed by blankets of forest friends. It goes on this way for some months, or perhaps some years, and all is well.
It begins with a desire to make things fair. When she'd given voices, she'd given them to the animals only – how was that fair to the trees and the plants? Surely they deserved to speak just as much as any of the rest. She thinks it, and it is so. But when their voices come through, they are not voices of happiness and harmony.
You see, the world she had created had no violence – at least, not that she could see. The animals did not eat each other, but they still had to eat, and what they ate was the plants. And now, now that those plants were given voice, the animals could hear their screams.
The world is alive with the screaming, as though a million souls are being massacred. The grass beneath their feet screams as they stand on it. The leaves scream where the deer nibble at them. The seed pods bellow as the birds pluck seeds from them. She, and all of her companions, are instantly horrified. She had not meant this, not any of it – she had only wanted them to have a voice; she had never dreamt that that voice could be a scream.
Almost as one, the animals freeze, hoping that if they stop eating, stop moving, the screaming will stop. And it does diminish, but it does not stop, not so long as they stand on the grass, or their tiny talons punch into branches. And so in the next moment, they are moving. But there is nothing coordinated or graceful about it now. This is a mad dash, a desperate flight, something primal and dangerous and entirely outside of Aletheia's wildest imaginations.
They are desperate for a place where there are no plants, for a clearing where the screaming will stop. But there isn't such a place; the closest they can get is to go into the water, to stand in the stream where the water rushes and the plants are not so thick. But as they try to enter the water, there is too many of them, and Aletheia cannot save them all – many are crushed beneath the hooves of others, or pushed beneath the water, drowning.
For her part, the grey mare and her companions can only watch in horror. This had been their world, their playground, their utopia – and now it was falling apart. In desperation, Aletheia begins to think, just as she always had, to fix it, as it had always been fixable, but now it is useless.
Her first reaction is to silence the trees and plants and flowers. But it doesn't work; they feel her intention, and they are angry. Not only are they not silenced, but her thought seems to somehow give them a new kind of life. They are the things of terror now: forests dig up their roots and use them like legs, giving the trees the terrifying capacity to march. The vines have life too, and use it to ensnare the animals who had once eaten them. Angry and hurt and silenced for too long, the vines wrap around necks, snapping and choking and destroying. And the grass is alive too, trying its best to snare and trap the animals that stand upon it, acting like a strange blanket that waves as one, turning itself into a snare, a slide, a hazard to the other animals that stand upon it. Every green, growing thing in the world has suddenly acquired will and initiative of its own, and is bent on destroying every animal that's ever eaten anything green – which is to say, all of them.
The trees reach the deer first, their delicate hooves held in place by the mutinous grass. Their roots wrap around the mother deer, and with a sickening crunch, snaps her skeleton in four places. Her fawns watch in horror for a moment before they too find the same fate. The tree wraps tentacle-like roots around them and pulls them into itself, where they disappear beneath the rippling bark surface.
"Run!" Aletheia speaks to her four friends, and to all the rest of her friends. Her thoughts don't seem to work anymore; nothing seems to work anymore. She is barely able to keep the grass from crawling up her legs, barely able to keep running, although where she hopes to go, she cannot say.
In one last, desperate effort, she thinks of fire. Burn it, she thinks, burn the plants and the trees and the flowers and they can't come for us. And this thought succeeds, but she hasn't thought it all the way out. As the flame sparks into life behind her, the trees and the grass and the flowers do go up in flames, but fire is even more unpredictable than her sentient greenery. Created by Aletheia in the passion of her fear and desperation, the fire is unnaturally powerful and hungry, devouring everything in its path. Still caught in the vines and the grass, animals are roasted alive.
Sweet Rho is the first of her friends to get caught. He trips on a root and snaps a leg as he goes down hard, and Aletheia discovers suddenly that she is no longer able to save him. She can do nothing but watch in horror as the root comes alive, dragging him down, down into the depths of the ground. She is not sure what ultimately kills him, or if he ultimately dies – his screams simply become muffled by the ground.
Cheery Ant is the next to go. Seeing Rho fall, she stops fleeing, turning back to the tree and throwing herself at it. She calls out Rho's name, rearing and beating her hooves against the trunk of the tree, demanding that it release their friend. Thorn, Infy, and Aletheia implore her to step away, to simply accept that he is gone, but it is no use. A branch extends from the trunk of the tree with a terrible swiftness, punching right through Ant's heart before the mare can even react. It stays there, impaling her, leaving her hanging almost like a warning.
All around them, the scent of the fire is hot, and ash and smoke and embers are thick in the air. It is hard to breathe.
They turn a corner in the woods, only to stop short. Before them stands an angry mob of all the forest creatures. Aletheia's heart breaks again then – she can remember so clearly how it had been, back when they'd first come into being. She remembers how they'd all curled up together, warm against the gentle, cool night. How had it all gone so wrong?
Because now their eyes are murder, and the voices she'd given them are accusing her. They blame her, it's her fault, she caused all of this. They hurl every insult they can think of – she's got her new friends now, she didn't need them, she had always been on the side of the trees and the plants - and she can't even start to respond to them. The accusations are too wild, too entirely untrue. How do you begin to engage with an angry mob?
Infee knows. He turns to look at Aletheia and Thorn, and she can see it in his eyes. They need blood, he knows, and he – ever gallant – is willing to sacrifice himself for them. You can still find a way to save this, he says to Aletheia. You can figure it out, but only if you survive. Survive, and bring me back. She doesn't want him to, doesn't want any of them to, doesn't want any of this – but there's no other option, and she knows. Feeling hollow, feeling impotent, feeling hopeless, she nods.
She hears his gallant voice try to calm the crowd as she and Thorn turn and run. As he fades out of sight, the voice rises, and turns to screams.
They don't get very far before Thorn slows, and Aletheia slows too, her heart sinking. Her friend is crying. How could you, she asks. How could you let him give his life for yours? Not for mine, Aletheia counters. Never just for mine. For all of us. But the chestnut isn't willing to listen. Thorn shakes her head. They were right, she says. This was all your fault. And then, Thorn lunges at Aletheia.
It's not hard for the grey girl to dodge, but she's too startled to react at first. How had it all come crashing down? How had their perfect world turned to one of fire and death? Why was it all burning? All she'd wanted was to make the world equal, to give the trees and plants a voice. Why had this all happened?
She steps to the side, and Thorn's blind, angry rush misses her completely. As she watches, Thorn wheels around again. She sidesteps again. But this time, the chestnut Thorn doesn't wheel and recover. This time, she loses her balance, tangled up in her legs and in her anger. The chestnut mare goes down hard, and Aletheia knows before she even sees it that the mare has snapped her neck and cannot get up again. She can feel in her bones the way that Thorn sobs, crying for Infy, for Rho, for Ant, for all of them – and, Aletheia dares to hope, for her too.
She is alone then. There are no more friends for her, not in this world. In a cruel twist of irony, she can still feel them as they die, although she cannot control them, or control the world. The trees and the grass and the flowers seem to have lost their will to fight in the face of the fire and are dormant and tranquil once more. The majority of her animal friends are gone, dead just like Infy, Rho, Ant, and Thorn.
And in just a moment more, there is nothing left to do. She comes upon a cliff, not even aware that she'd created such a thing when she'd initially shaped the world. But she hadn't been paying detailed attention; she'd somewhat allowed it to shape itself, to ripple out from where she'd started, to give her something to explore too.
The forest is thick right up to the edge, and she knows the fire is not far. She can feel the heat, feel the way it presses in on her. The air is thick with embers. She can feel the sharp pain of the occasional incinerated animal, a sharp staccato on top of the constant thrum that is the agony of the burning greenery. There is nowhere she can run. Nowhere she can go. All the sacrifice had been for nothing, she knows that now. She will never regain control of this world; it's become more than she can control, spinning out of her orbit like an uncooperative planetoid. Once something escapes gravity, it never calmly settles back. The only option is to continue spinning out, or to crash and burn. And her world, clearly, is crashing and burning.
All that remains is for her to decide how she will die.
She briefly considers jumping from the cliff. It would be a swift, merciful end, but it would also be the wrong end. She doesn't deserve a swift, merciful end. How many countless innocent animals, how many of her friends had died today because of her? It's the least she can do to honor their memories by dying just as they died. The trees and the flowers are not killing anymore, so she'll simply have to die to the thing she'd created as a last-ditch attempt to save them all.
Stoic, emotionless, determined, she moves forward mechanically. She's made her choice, and there is no point in waiting for it. Death will come for her, waiting will only prolong the inevitable. As she walks willingly toward the fire, she cries for all of them. She cries for her friends, for the animals, for the trees and the flowers, for the paradise that was, and the better paradise it could have been. Silently, stoically, she cries.
She makes no noise until she starts to burn.
She is still screaming when she wakes up. Or, thinks she wakes up, because this place feels too similar to wherever she had just been. She is startled, unsure, her mind still hazy in the immediate aftermath of sleep. But it doesn't last long as the adrenaline already coursing through her system kicks back in, because this world, much like the one she'd just left, is also on fire.
But this world, unlike her dream-world, is a world she knows all too well. She is in the Valley, cradled in her usual sleeping spot. She quickly gets to her feet, and decides that she is in fact awake because the plants that she had been laying on had wilted during the night. Her heart aches for a moment for the world she'd had in the dream, a world where the lifesteal had not existed, a world where she'd been the mother of wonderful things (and a world, she remembers, where the wonderful things had eventually crashed and burned.
Looking out into the kingdom, she can see that it is burning. The brush and the trees are alight, and ashes drift through the air. But at least in this world the plants and the flowers are not trying to attack; the only threat of death comes from the fire. It's threat enough, but it is perhaps a threat she can outrun.
As she runs, she sees the only home she's ever known burning. She hasn't lived here long, and she hasn't met many other horses, but it is devastating nonetheless. The Valley is her home – that is one of only four things that she knows with absolute certainty. And now, that only home is being destroyed, consumed in fire. Perhaps it is the smoke and the soot and the ashes, but tears are streaming down her usually impossibly stoic face.
She stumbles, sharply reminded of the fate of her friends in the all-too-real dream. But unlike her friends, she is able to get up again, and to continue running. As she goes she watches for any other Valley-dwellers who might have survived. Perhaps someone, somewhere is trapped. Perhaps she could help guide someone else to safety (assuming, of course, that she's managed to find a way to safety herself). But she sees no one. There are distant screams, but she never sees anyone.
Well, not anyone alive. It's not long before she finds herself in a charred section of the Valley, and in this charred strip, she finds corpses.
It looks like a mother and a foal, and she hopes to god it isn't Quorra. The mare had just agreed to come to the Valley; how could it be that her time could be cut short so soon? From the positioning of their bodies, she thinks they died quickly, that they didn't struggle. The mare's incinerated body is curled around her foal's, almost like they are sleeping. If they weren't burned beyond recognition, they could be peaceful. The air reeks of burnt, charred flesh.
She had not been scared when Infection had entered the Valley. He had been obviously alive, able to talk and think (and touch her, without the kind of intense reaction that she usually engendered in others). He had smelled different, but Aletheia had lacked the instincts to understand that he smelled downright unnatural. She hadn't feared him because she had not understood that he needed to be feared.
But now, now she can put the pieces together. Now she can see everything, can see that this mare and her foal had burned, and can identify that the scent on their flesh means the scent of charred and burning. It means the scent of a possible future for her. It means the death of her friends. She might not have her natural instincts, but she is no idiot – this is a scent she'll never forget for the rest of her life.
After what feels like an eternity, her lungs are scorched and her throat is raw. She's soaked in sweat and tears, her white coat smudged with soot and dotted with ash. But she is in the mountains, and the fire seems far away from up here. There are other horses who have made it up to here, and she moves among them gingerly, careful not to startle them with a touch. She seeks desperately for someone, anyone that she might know – any horse of the Valley, any horse she'd met in the meadow – hell, even any horse she'd met in the field. But there is no one. It takes her two or three rounds of looking at every face before it really sinks in, but there is no one.
She is alone.
Alone, she walks to the edge, looking down into the Valley. Alone, she watches as all distinguishing features of her home burn away in the wrath of the flames. Alone, she sees one of four key points of her identity slip away.
She is Aletheia. Carnage is her father. Librette is her mother. The Valley had once been her home. But now? Now, she has nothing.
Even as a King, Rhonan is not grand. The world bends to his will, but he seeks little. For a boy with no plans, no goals, no ambitions, being given all this power is useless. Maybe others would find something to do with it. Certainly his brother would. Everyone would bend a knee to Tytos, every mare would bear his children. The world would grovel if Tytos could do what Rhonan can.
But Rhonan? The grandest thing he wanted were the horns that now top his head. Massive, red-tinged horns curl over his head and the tip of the horns point forward. Black rings circle the smooth bone. This is his crown. In his world, there are no other creatures with horns (their horns have all been taken away). But there is no need for such things, because his world is peaceful.
Not because Rhonan has any love for peace. He doesn’t love chaos either. He simply doesn’t care. His world is simply eclectic. His home is a valley. Not a kingdom. There are no horses that serve him, that recruit and steal and challenge. Instead, the animals that he rules are experiments. They come to him willingly.
The very first had been a crow. It appeared out of nowhere. He simply thought of a crow, and then one perched on his back. This one he did not experiment on. This one, he kept as an advisor, as a right hand man. To this day, the boy thinks the crow brought him the animals.
At first, it was smaller animals. Mice and rats and bunnies. They laid themselves at his feet, and he found himself wondering what a bunny would be like with the tail of a rat. And it had simply happened. The bunny, to its credit, did not even seem surprised. Though the fluffy cottontail looked rather strange on the rat.
For that matter, the fluffy bunny tail did nothing to help the rat. It could no longer scurry across small branches. The thing kept overheating as well, and Rhonan often found it lounging in a puddle. One day it tried ever so hard to run across a branch despite it’s precarious balance. It didn’t work out for the rat. Rhonan found it smashed on the ground, though he didn’t care. His crow seemed pleased with the meal.
The bunny adapted though. It learned to use the tail for balance, to help it lose heat. The creature became rather nimble, crawling over small objects and leaving larger predators in the dust. And this discovery, that he could make the animals better, led Rhonan to keep trying.
His successes grew, and larger animals started coming. He grew cleverer in the traits he gave. He gave bears the ability to jump and lions the ability to breath underwater. He gave tigers and pigs both wigs, but the tigers just ate the pigs. He had wondered if they the pigs would be faster with wings. They were not. But such was the nature of his experiments. Only some of them worked.
His failures did not deter the animals from coming. His successful experiments served him, should he need anything. But Rhonan required little, and instead they turned the valley into a paradise for him. The elephants built walls around the valley of trees sharpened to spikes with their sword tails. The groundhogs dug him pools with their shovel feet. He lived like a king without asking, and the animals served without complaint.
Until the day the crow died.
Rhonan doesn’t know why. The crow came everywhere with him. The crow was under his protection. No one could harm the bird. He was not food or a toy. And no one disobeyed their King.
Perhaps it was old age. But nothing aged here, not even Rhonan. Years had gone by and he was still a boy, still slightly gangly and strange. Perhaps it was illness. But nothing died of illness here either. Nothing ever became ill. His animals lived and thrived and only died to serve as food. Nothing unnecessary was ever taken, and nothing wasted. Not that he minded death, but the boy was frugal. He enjoyed watching how is experiments played out.
Except his crow. His crow was his friend. The only one he ever really had: in part because it merely cawed and never spoke; in part because no one had ever paid him as much attention as his quiet companion. His crow came everywhere with him. Until one day, when the bird simply fell from the sky.
He will likely never know why. The world took away the greatest gift it had given him.
What he does know is that the animals stopped building. The beavers didn’t cut down any more trees with their saw teeth. His pools, without the their dams, became floods. The elephants tore down the spikes that protected their home. The sky blackened with dragon birds that blotted out the sun.
Then his right horn split in half.
He screamed, truly screamed, as the bone tore apart. It raked against his skin as it fell, puncturing his shoulder. Blood oozed from the leg, warm and sticky and bright red against his gold and white coat. He liked the red truthfully. Far more than the gold and white coat.
Why hadn’t he changed his coat? He could have changed it. This is what he thinks of. Not the cut, not the blood, but the bright color of his coat.
But his coat doesn’t matter. The smell of blood calls to his predators. He had made them lethal, given them the tools to hunt in the sky, the earth, and the sea. As they draw nearer, he desperately tries to grow wings. To fix his horns. To close the wound. To do something. But without the crow, his thoughts are useless. He cannot channel them as he once did, cannot make a thought into reality.
The world is no longer his. He is no longer King. No, instead his experiments have turned. What happens to the boy who creates an impossible world and yet never thought to make himself impossible as well?
Damn him. He’d been too busy playing with his food to eat it and grow strong.
The growls around him echo like thunder. He’d created so many beasts, and they circle him now. They are beautiful, impossible, and deadly. He is already dead. The blood pools beneath his hooves. He looks in every direction, but they already know where he could run. Every path is blocked. Jaguars with spiked backs prowl around him. Bears sit in the trees above him, light enough to linger in the branches.
One of the lions comes with his crow clamped in its mouth. Rhonan lunges forward, trying to snatch his crow from the mouth. With what, he has no idea. He’s not thinking. The bird is not food. That is all he knows, and that is all he cares about. But the lions simply growls, closes his mouth around the bird, and chews.
The lion is the first to go up in flames. Rhonan actually laughs, despite the sound of screeching. It’s not a roar, not an animal noise at all. It’s simply pain. Pure, burning pain. But the lion should have known better. The crow was his. The crow was magic. The crow was everything, and no one can have everything.
Not even him.
The trees are the next to catch. Flames race up branches and down the trunk, lighting the grass below on fire. A breeze picks up, fanning the flames that flow through the valley in rivers now. The animals panic, trumpeting and screaming and roaring in a deafening cacophony. One by one, they catch on fire, until the valley is ablaze. Rhonan stands still as stone in the middle of the valley, his lungs burning, his eyes watering from the smoke or from the death of his crow. He doesn’t know which. Perhaps both.
The flames are everywhere though. The predators are gone, but there’s still no escape.
He’s coughing, his bodying jerking on the ground. On the ground? No. He’s not on the ground. When did he end up on the ground? He opens his eyes, not knowing when he ever closed them. There are trees everywhere, dense brush and vines and smoke. Everywhere there is smoke. This isn’t a valley. No. This is the Jungle. This is his real life. There are no animal experiments; there is no crow (the loss of which he feels like a punch in his gut).
But there is fire.
The sound here is no different than the dream he’s left behind. The animals scream and choke and sputter. He’s on his feet now. His useless child feet with his useless child legs. They are gangly and long but thankfully he’s old enough to some control of himself, but not enough. He trips over vines and bodies again and again. Landing in dirt, on logs, and in thorns.
He doesn’t look at the things he trips over. Doesn’t think about the blood that covers him that is not his own. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, are the dead eyes of the Jungle Sisters, the intestines that spill onto the earth. Someday, these things will come crawling to the surface. In his daydreams, in his nightmares. But right now, he cannot dwell on any of it. Now, he must run.
There are other horses, and he follows them. He has no idea where he’s going now. He’s lost in the thick of the Jungle. So he follows, hoping they know the way. A wall of fire rears up in front of him, cutting him off from the others. He sees the monkeys above him, hears them cry as branches crack and they go tumbling to the earth with the burning wood. But they are running too. They are running in a direction that isn’t barred by fire.
He follows them, eyes and head craned toward the tree tops to see them. But mostly he follows the screeching. His eyes are so watery, so raw and red from the smoke that he can barely see. He falls again, and the monkeys screech louder as if telling him to get up. He gets up. He runs again, breath coming in gasps, lungs ragged.
He keeps running.
The trees thin. There are no other horses to be seen now, just the sound of screams in the distance. The same sound the lion made when it combusted. The same sound of agony. The sound drives him on, because he refuses to scream. Refuses to cry. He has no tears or breath to waste anyway. It has all been taken by the smoke.
The monkeys are gone now, but he sees a mountain. He keeps running, his legs screaming now too, his young muscles protesting the movement. The incline is steep and eventually he cannot run anymore. But still, he presses on as fast as he can. Slowly, the air clears. Slowly, he crests the top.
Below him, the world burns. Not just the Valley. Maybe not just Beqanna.
He finds that he watches it all without much sorrow. He longs for his crow more. Though there’s a flash of Aletheia, the strange girl in the meadow. He wonders if she will survive. Though he thinks no one will. He finds himself almost as upset about this as he is about the crow. She was like him. At least in some ways, in the ways that mattered.
There’s Tytos as well. His mother. He has no idea where they have gone, what has become of them. He does hope if they are dead, they died quickly. He hopes that their screams were not the screams that drove him on. Though if they were, at least they had not died in vain. But he does not cry for them, or for the strange girl (though almost for her), or for the only home he’s ever known. He cries for the crow.
She was the child forged after the dynasty had bloomed ever so brilliantly across Beqanna and died in the cold just as suddenly.
It was true that her parents had loved each other in their own, twisted way. But she had not been born when her parents were truly living. For one - her father - she meant this in the literal sense. Her father had met his end against the rocks of the beach after taking the life of two beloved monarchs of the Gates. Magnus and Joelle were much beloved in much of Beqanna; the same could not be said for Trashlip. However, finding his body broken along the shore had broken Nadya's mother in a different sense. The woman, Anaxarete, grew cold, heartless, and learned to worship the shadows that swirled in the dark. That day was the end for both of her parents, really. One to death itself; one doomed to live on without the ability to feel anything. That was the day her mother became more machine than equine. A shadow. A monster, some would say.
Everything changed years later. Circumstances drew her mother from the shadow and magic drew her father back from the dead. He wasn't alive, not really, but it didn't matter. They were drawn together like insects to vibrant light. Nadya's conception was nothing more than an attempt to fuse together something that was already dead, gone, and buried. It was a feeble attempt to fix something far beyond repair. It did not work. After her birth, the world returned to the natural way of things. The dead returned to the grave and the shadows retreated to the darkness.
Nadya was all that remained.
Nadya had been born nearly two decades too late to have a family. She had been born long after her family's legacy had been lost to the cruel hands of time. Now her mother had forged her own dynasty - one fused with monsters and magic with no place for the past. For her.
(Too late, Nadya.)
Is it any wonder that such a child was lost to a world of dreams?
It would make sense that the girl who longed to belong - who longed for nothing more than a family - would be lost to her own dreams. Nadya's dreams were not normal dreams. Perhaps at first - they were the simply fantasies of children. That she had been born when her full-blooded siblings had been born. That she could have stood next to Cronus, her parent's chosen heir, the twins Ossetia and Aurore, and the mind-reading Panzer who was a near clone of her father. She had lost all of her siblings to time. She had lost her opportunity to be known as part of her bloodline to time. She had lost everything she wanted before she had ever been born.
It wasn't vanity that drove her. She didn't want to inherit the Chamber like her parents or her eldest brother. She simply wanted to be able to stand among them. Instead, she was forgotten.
Always forgotten.
It made her feel like her existence was a mistake.
So instead, she dreamt.
As she grew, her dreams grew more vibrant. Eventually, she stopped growing altogether. She began to wonder if there was a possibility that she had inherited some of her mother's abilities because she began to lose grips on what was real and what was not. She pushed the lines and this lines began to blur.
So she bent them, and they bent willfully beneath her guidance. The Chamber of old grew up around her - at least how it looked in her mind. She only had stories to craft the image, for she had not been there. She built herself a grand Army led by her brother Cronus and her sister Ossetia. She had diplomats too, under the change of Panzer, the second son, and Aurore, the only soft-spoken member of the family. Nadya ruled all of them, with both her parents standing as regents. They had all chosen her - the youngest - to carry on the dynasty. Together the family operated as one. Without all of them the system that Nadya had developed would fail. But it was perfect, everything was perfect. Everyone was perfect. There was power. There was respect. There was love. There was strength. Nadya belonged here, she knew it to be true. The pine forests told her so. The crows circling overhead repeated such sentiments.
She had rewritten history and had done it for the better. The Chamber was thriving. Beqanna was thriving. It was all because of her. For the first time in her life, Nadya was happy. For the first time in her life she was a part of something. Her family knew her. They were proud of her. She had something to contribute to their legacy.
There was magic in this incantation of the Chamber. Messages were carried between individuals by crows. Kingdom borders were protected by only the strongest of stags. The grasses were impermeable to frost and snow. The pine forest could not be burned. It was all as it should be, at least in her mind.
Perfection.
Utopia.
If only it were real.
She wasn't sure where the doubt came from. It had been all but extinguished as she built this perfect place - this haven for herself and her family. But the doubt rippled through the Chamber like an invisible shockwave.
It is the beginning of something terrible. The opening bell to a sort of apocalypse that Nadya could have never imagined.
It began with a whisper.
Whispered words between her parents. A fleeting glance from her warrior-sister. A look of concern from her diplomat-brother. The crows had gone. As had the stag-guardians. The river had run dry. The eyes of her people grew hard. She looked to her family for assistance but there was no assistance to be had, only cold shoulders and empty words.
The night came and the sun failed to rise the next morning. The world had been draped in shadow. Her mother's shadow. Fear crawled its way into her heart. Her thoughts ran wild but she knew her thoughts were not safe. Every single thought she had was filtering into the mind of her father, her mother, and her brother.
The forest around her suddenly burst into flames and Nadya staggered back into the center of the kingdom. The forest is littered with glowing eyes. Eerie yellow eyes. Equine eyes. The flames do not harm those hidden in the trees but she can feel the heat against her skin. The ashes that fell from the sky burned the flesh against her back. She knew that she is not immune from this fire like this…this army! It is then that she understands. It is an army.
Her army. The one she and her siblings built. They are not here under her command. The understanding dawns as Cronus and Ossetia stepped from the forest inferno, untouched by the flames. There is no emotion in their eyes. Nadya turned to flee only to find the rest of her family stepping from the treeline opposite, also untouched by the fire. Sweat poured down her body. Ash turned her blue-grey coat a into a sticky ashy black. No one spoke a word, but she can clearly understand what is happening.
She has failed. She has failed her family! It's a coup! "I'm sorry!" she screamed, over the crackling flames, "I'm sorry I failed you all. I'll leave. I know I wasn't meant to be here." she tried to control her voice, but it broke at the end.
Her family gave no reply, but her mother smiled. It sent a shot of fear through Nadya's heart. The ground rumbled beneath her feet. Nadya whirled to find the army advancing on her - lead by her siblings. She scrambled back a few steps before looking back to find the rest of her family advancing from behind. Frozen in fear, she simply stops and waits to meet her end. All the while the heat around becomes more and more unbearable.
The heat rises. She takes a breath. The hoofbeats thundered in her ears. Another breath.
And then she is falling, knocked off her feet by the unseen wall of horseflesh.
Before she hits the ground, she wakes. Confusion rolls through her. The oppressive heat is not gone. It is worse. She blinked a few times, trying to orient herself.
Reality. This was reality. I'm back…but something is very wrong. Acrid smoke filled her lungs and she coughs violently as she staggered to her feet. Nadya can hardly see but she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. A fox, tearing through the underbrush, fleeing the fire. Nadya trusted the creature's eyesight far more than her own. She followed best she can, the smoke seeming to lighten somewhat with each step. She seemed to be climbing, but she did not stop to question her direction. Everything hurt. Her muscles ached. Her lungs burned. Her legs were singed from the heat and the flames, with some spots oozing from where the flames found skin. Yet she lived. It was only then that she stopped to survey the damage below.
Beqanna was an inferno.
She watched, impassively, for a moment. Emptiness - it was all she could feel. Hollow. Vacant. Her eyes reflected the emotion (or lack thereof) as she stared listlessly at the fire as it greedily consumed everything it touched. She was alone again. Back in the world where she had no one but a mother who abandoned her for the company of shadows and monsters. Everything was being washed away by the flames. Cleansed by fire. Then came the wave of sorrow because everything was gone and with it came the realization that she had so little to lose in this world.
Then there was the voice in her head. The timing. The dream. How long had she been playing God in her own world? How long had she been bending the lines of time. Then the horrible realization tore through her like the fires that were tearing through Beqanna below. Had she bent the lines until they had broken causing this destruction? Terror seized her and her breathing began to come in shallow pants. Her eyes grew wide and her pupils grew small.
"Have I done this? she wondered allowed, in a broken whisper. "Oh god what have I done?"
In dreams she loses her hooves and becomes the jungle predator she had always been born to be. In dreams, she succeeds where in the real world she had totally failed. The jaguar cat, gleaming gold and black, is muscular and strong and always certain off her choices because if she wasn’t it would mean certain death. As the jaguar, she is stronger than she has ever been. The true version of Tantalize released without any fear of repercussions. And in this strange jungle, with flowers and animals and other foliage that one has never seen in the “real” world, she rules just as she had before. Yet she is in her element here. None question her, everyone respects her. She is the top of the food chain but is not a creature that is beyond wisdom or simple killing. She heals, she listens, she cares for her kingdom. The monkeys come to her to perfect their jokes and she roars with laughter in approval. The tapir asks for her best advice on camouflage and she whispers her best secrets on how to remain hidden from even the most prying of eyes. The yacans, a creature that does not exist in her old world but looks much like a purple coated lemur in this one, find time to groom her beautiful shiny coat and coo to her how beautiful and intelligent she is. Giving tidbits of knowledge like trusted advisors while flattering her at the same time. The macaws flutter their feathers, debating who has the prettiest colors… Them or her. They spend hours gossiping about the others while each preens and fluffs over themselves, as if they are enjoying a day at the spa… Pampering themselves. Most of all, they all look to her when they need protection and she gives it fiercely and freely. This is her home, her kingdom. Her people. Regardless if she likes them all, she loves them dearly. Every piranha in the river, every boa hanging from the tree. All of them, her children.
Some of her choices, both then and now, had been influenced by these dreams although they seemed to be grabbed from mid air. And so it seems for years, the same dream that she never seems to recall in the light of day, succeeding as her role as Queen of the Jungle long after she has lost her crown in the Amazons. Then one day, someone new. A face almost like hers. He is tan and slim, he prowls her kingdom and she waits for the day that she will meet this interloper who refuses to acknowledge her or her power. She hears it through the vines, how he is giving advice to the tapir, is laughing with her monkey friends. Slowly pushing his way in, slowly pushing her out. She summons him and he denies her requests. Her rage builds but she says nothing, reveals nothing. Then one day she sees him. They share a predators body and the same golden eyes but he is tan where she is yellow with her flattering black spots and smaller than she. While she may be more muscle, he gives off an air of pure cunning. A cougar. It almost makes sense, for if her dream land influences her real world choices, it’s not surprising that somehow Beqanna’s life influences this sacred kingdom as well. A lion. Here to destroy her world.
She’s not aware at first just what he’s doing, how hard he is trying to ruin her. Until the day he sets her up, an unforgivable crime, that she takes the fall for. It’s just another day, she’s prowling the banks of the river which has become swollen with last nights rain storm. The waters are murky and rough, the rapids racing towards the south where a large waterfall can be heard thundering in the distance. She is searching for fish that might have been washed up from the storm, her paws sucking into the mud and leaving large tracks behind her. It’s as she searches, so oblivious to everything else in her hunt, that she fails to notice the sliminess beneath her pads. It isn’t until she hears a crunch and feels something explode beneath her claws that she finally looks down. She is standing in a caiman’s nest, a nest of eggs that are completely destroyed all around her. What makes it worse, as the scent catches her nostrils and realization hits, is who's nest this is. Sagacity, a beautiful elder white crocodile who is not only one of the most beloved and wisest animals in this jungle… But one of her closest friends.
Vomit rises in her throat as her stomach churns, looking at the horror around her. How could this be? Who could have done this? Eggs have been thrown everywhere, brutalized. The babies, so close to their birthing day, lay limp with dead eyes in the debris of their shells. She lowers her head, whiskers gently tickling one of the still bodies in hopes of arousing it even though she knows there is no hope. That’s when she hears the cry of shock and dismay and she quickly looks up, seeing Sagacity looking upon her with none other than the cougar by her side. They both stare at her, one in pain and the other with a gleam in his eye. “I told you.” He says, shaking his head. A paw in comfort on her back. “I’m so sorry.” The jaguar is confused, her eyes narrow as she opens her mouth to speak. ”Don’t. Just don’t. He warned me of your jealousy but I never would have thought you capable of such cruelty, never would have believed it until now. After all I’ve done for you…” There is no anger in the old crocodile, just such grief which makes it worse. And she, the jaguar, is so confused and then it clicks. ”You think I did this?” Her words, raw and hoarse with the disbelief that Sagacity could think her this much a monster, that she would ever do such a thing. She was a killer, they both were. They both killed to live, for necessity. There was no reason for her to do this. Her lips part as she tries to speak again, tries to explain but the reptile immediately stops her with a strong snap of her jaws and whip of her tail. There is coldness in her and her friend refuses to even look at her. ”You have disgraced this jungle. Disgraced me. Disgraced your people. This is no longer your home, jaguar. Leave now.” The croc has hardened and become vicious, her back turned on her friend, pupil, and Queen. ”You will pay for this.”
She has forgotten the cougar is standing there, the rushing water seeming to grow louder and beat on her eardrums as she slowly turns away and makes her retreat back the way she has come. Disbelief at what has happened. She walks slowly, her tail slashing back and forth behind her in her agitated state. She will let her friend cool off and come back later and explain. Everything would be fixed and they would find the murderer together. A slight shake of her head, grabbing hold to this idea with new hope. Everything would be fine. She exhales slowly, feeling a sense of relief that quickly evaporates. For she has just noticed the howling. Looking up, she sees the trees are lined with howler monkeys. They look angry and every single one of them is pointing at her, pounding their chests, and howling. Trying her best to ignore it, she slinks forward and picks up her pace. She needs a place to lay low, to sort everything out and clear her head. There is no escape, an anaconda has left the cool water of the river and is making it’s way up the beach, it’s beady eyes locked on her with pure hatred. She leaps, turning her agile body towards the coolness of the forest. She starts to run but is quickly ensnared by the vines that reach down and wrap themselves around her body. A leafy chain, making her trapped.
It happens so fast, one minute she is moving and the next she is face down in the dirt. Her green shackles pull back and lift her up till she is hovering above the ground, just enough that her paws can’t touch. She feels something coming down the vines, hears it before she realizes what they are. Soft croaking almost like chirping. She turns her head to the side, the only thing she can move, to see her body covered with little frogs. They aren’t any frogs. They are brightly colored with black markings mixed in. Poison dart frogs. Her whole body tenses as they sit along her back, croaking their little song and looking out into the distance. Waiting for a signal. That’s when he comes, padding up to her from the undergrowth. A dangerous smile on his face. ”You must wonder why I did all this. So simple really. I wanted what you had, wanted your life. Wanted you. So I took it.” She shudders, not liking what he is implying. Knowing now that he was behind all this. The yacans follow him, some perched on his shoulder and whispering in his ear. His now, his advisors. ”I’ll let you go Tantalize. I can make this all better. Under one condition. You become mine.” At this she starts to struggle and as he comes closer to her, her claws unsheathe and she tries to swat at him, hissing at him as her ears flatten to her thick head. ”Wrong answer.” He replies, shaking his head. The frogs start secreting poison from their skin, making contact with hers as it pushes past her fur. There are many of them and while it won’t kill her yet, it’s enough to paralyze her within a few minutes. It doesn’t take long and the vines suddenly unfurl, dropping her like a sack of rice. She falls hard to the ground, can’t even feel herself make contact with the dirt. Her sight begins to double, something is off. Everything is off. Her world spins and the trees change color and the frogs have turned into many versions of the cougar, surrounding her. And the main lion is grabbing her neck with his teeth, pulling her through the forest. His fangs are sharp and she would cry out in pain, maybe she has, she can’t tell. Reality is lost to her. Part of her is trying to fight, trying to get past the hallucinogens caused by the frog’s poison but is not succeeding. She sees so many things as he pulls her towards the river. Mice attack her paws, monkeys are throwing things at her. All the animals that were once her friends are now her enemies. Even the land itself has turned it’s back to her, wishing her death. She growls softly, painfully. The cougar has dropped her in the mud and now slashes at her side, ruining her beautiful coat and she cries out again. Trying so hard to fight back but can only twist about feebly. He bites at her, tearing her open. Snakes crowd around her, hissing and spitting and she tries to lift her paws to defend herself and finds she cannot. She can’t move. The impostor, the murderer, the lion is tearing at her side and all she can do is scream in her head as the pain explodes around her. Her sight dims now and then, she can’t hold on for much longer. The snakes are coiling around her throat now, squeezing, as some start to crawl inside her, inside the hole the cougar has opened up for them. She’s living a nightmare, she can feel them slithering inside her very flesh and just as she’s about to let go forever…. The lion drags her into the river. He drags her as far as he can before he would be caught in the current and then lets go, pushing her out with his paws. The snakes flee but she still can’t move, her throat burning as it fills up with water. Choking. She is drowning. She is dying. The jungle is on fire and somehow, beneath the water, she smells smoke.
As she dies in the dream, she awakens coughing up water. She tries to inhale deeply but ends up choking more. The jaguar mare lunges to her hooves, horse again, completely disoriented and unable to breathe. It takes her a moment to realize she is no longer drowning…. She is choking on smoke. Smoke? Golden eyes look wildly around her and she realizes she has awoken now to another living nightmare. The jungle has been engulfed by flames, the Amazons are burning. With a shrill whinny, she tries to see through the smoke, coughing and turning in tight circles as she searches desperately for escape. There is none. The flames are coming closer and she is left with no alternative. She is gasping for breath but leaps through the flames, having no other choice left to her. The fire reaches out and grabs at her, singing her beautiful black mane and tail, licking at her lovely jaguar dappled coat. She doesn’t stop even though she can barely breathe. She just keeps running, running through the flames. The heat fades quickly, smoldering ash churning beneath her hooves. She had thrown herself in the right spot, by accident. Anywhere else would have led to her burning alive. She is gasping for breath, her eyes streaming with tears as the smoke stings at her nostrils and her lungs contract as they search for oxygen. Still she gallops, unable to stop. Her legs give out beneath her when she reaches the shore of the beach. Death surrounds her, her death still lingering in her head. The sound of the water lapping at the sand and the burning of the smoke in her nostrils tricking her to think she may be drowning once more. Lifting her head slowly as she inhales deeply, coughing and sputtering, her golden eyes reluctantly look at what she has left behind. Her home. The jungle. Beqanna. All of it burning.
Looking around her, she sees a few stragglers that have escaped like she has. None of them are familiar to her but then again, she has just recently returned. Barely anyone registers to her. She had been a stranger in her homecoming and is still a stranger now. The fear that grips her doesn’t make sense considering how she had been alone to begin with. Yet now…. Now there was no chance of finding those of her past. She had wondered if her children were still here and now wonders if they were exploding into ash before her very eyes. She had wondered what had happened to her old friends, to Landon….. Even to Lion. Lion. The cougar appears briefly in her head and suddenly Lion and her dream adversary melt into one and she begins to scream. She screams and screams and Beqanna burns and the jaguar mare falls to the earth, trembling violently. Her home is lost. All is lost.
It was all like a dream.
The first day still fresh in her mind.
The summer heat pounding on her golden skin, the ocean breeze weaving around her freshly soaked mane. The salt water still rolling droplets off a clipped coat. Humans were no where in sight and her black knight had thus far kept his word of a peaceful retreat safe from the horrors that had haunted her. Old injuries magically eased with salt water. She was at peace. A glittering youth that flowed into nature. She felt light as a bird yet as one with the earth as a tree, roots digging deep into soil with branches spiraled out in welcome to the sun.
Days like these should last forever.
Blue eyes closed as she licked her lips of salt and body turned to inland to find fresh water to drink. The annoyance with bathing in the ocean was one was always left thirsty and fresh water that actually nourished the body was a mile out.
Hooves, though, plunged into water after two paces. First: heart beat raced. Second: body froze; one hoof hovering over the ground. Third: fear raged forward, a thunder of adrenaline dictating something was amiss. Fourth: eyes flashed open.
A dancing river had transformed before her.
Blink.
It curtained up away from her, into the continent and floated into the ocean at peace. It mirrored her state of bliss entirely. It belonged there. It was at peace. It flowed gentle and without rush. The soft tune of Frank Sinatra seeming to coo gently up into the afternoon day, and with it her fear and confusion glided off and away. A small cloud quickly forgotten in the summer’s sky.
This new world had so many mysteries and she had since chosen to take it in stride. Besides, who could complain about such a picture perfect landscape. Flicking her head back she whinnied merrily along with the bliss of a love song and trotted upstream, down a bank of soft sand and sponged up the crisp water.
Then a figure came floating into the view of the corner of her eye. A beautiful creature with wisdom in her eyes. Her coat shone like the sun, it seeming to throw light beams from within. She was breathtaking, captivating, a mare that could clutch the fibers of every male’s heart with a simple smile.
“Mother!”
Hermia squealed with delight, rearing up and beating at the air with the drums of joy. Passion forgetting any sort of realism or doubt. Her mother had since died in a far away land of humans, barns and fences. How she had longed to race the wide open space of soft sand beaches with her mother and she ran into her embrace.
-
How stupid she had been not to question it. It was months before she paused to reflect on that day. There had been signs all over.
How did my injuries simply disappeared? A river magically appear right when I willed it? My deceased mother brought to life a trillion miles away from the home we had shared?
Stop it! Who cares. It is what it is!
Don't go ruining things for yourself.
Weirder things have happened.
You deserve it.
From that moment on she never thought about why it was happening but rejoiced in her world of perfection. Thus she built a kingdom.
A forest grew, that grew into a jungle, that grew into a rain forest. Trees grew the size of skyscrapers. Their branches molding into roads of bark in the sky, allowing the herd of the Great Hermia to live above land, within the shelter of branches. A whole society of horses that flowed from one tree to the next. Hooves never having to touch ground to get to one home to the next. They lived above ground in the canopy of the trees.
Her tree was the greatest of all. Most eastward and the tallest. It aged beside a cliff where The First River plunged from its drop and swelled at the base of The Great Tree. Her home curled in behind the water’s curtain and smelt of fresh mountain and youthful pine. The branches pressed against limestone. Flowers of bright yellow and delicate pink decorating the walls of stone. While the wood from the branch making up her floor was elastic that created zero impact on joints allowing one to feel like walking on air.
I am free.
If jealousy was an emotion capable in her paradise the birds would tweet envious gossip.
To the north rose mountains, majestic and strong that bred the likes of dragons and yetis, fierce packs of wolves and capable mountain lions. All of which kept from her throne of rainforest but allowed sport for the brave stallions that needed thrill and adventure. The constant snow encrusted tops shimmer in the distance. The rocky ledges underneath allowing a training field of endurance and strength and a shelter of safe solitude for the less social creatures of her kingdom.
To the east lay grass meadows that could feed trillions for decades. The long stalks rising to tickle hungry bellies. Apple trees spotting the rolls of land. Rich red globes growing abundantly in their arms. As years had passed powerful trees had begun to sprout wielding the pop of orange carrots that hung from branch allowing easy access to indulged horses.
To the south flourished the land where it had all began. Soft, white beaches that fell into a ocean the color of tropics. Palm trees dotted the land scape and fresh coconut juice filled rounded bowls of root at their bases providing shaded watering holes.
Everything was perfect. Love songs hummed in the treetops. Her children frolicked in ocean waves while her eldest child, a bold stallion of Hamlet bounced about the mountain tops with a squad of 4.
God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherit the earth.............
Chaos.
The day it all began to end she woke with tendons that swelled and pounded against too tight of skin. The same pain from over exertion in her flight to Beqanna had long been forgotten from all those years before. She didn’t even recognize the return of the old injury for the significance of the beginning of the end.
As the years progressed her herd came more and more to her for help. Jealousy, envy, hatred, conflict began to create turmoil amongst the herd. A squad of police were set in place to govern the masses as her time was soon narrowing.
Mutations were a common sight first within the fellow inhabitants. Birds with two heads. Rabbits with fangs of wolves that preyed on the foals. Her powers kept her herd safe and thus began a weekly meeting where the sick and wounded would come to her and she with a simple touch would erase the abnormalities, the pain. Yet, she grew weak over time and soon these meetings were reduced to once a month, to just that of higher ranked members then to once a year for only the most extreme cases. Years later those she had healed for minor injuries became blind, disabled, and insane.
Her eldest daughter was killed by a disgruntled old mare, while the same month she labored for 12 hours to birth a still born colt. Thus, a part of her was ripped from her. A vital organ, a part of the soul, or something all together unnamed that held the body and soul together was missing. Time stopped, yet time barely moved. Everything was work. A headache swelled. Pulsed against her skull. Pounding to be felt. Hammering her pain.
So she stayed in her room behind the waterfall while the world began to crumble. The roads in the air crumbling, becoming hazards and forcing many to leave. Once beautiful, abundant plant life growing fangs and consuming the unobservant. Apples trees of the east died and seemed to plan collapse on the still healthy. The palm trees to the south grew poisonous and the waters dangerous with sharks and rip tides that pulled the unexpected down, to be lost in the dark blue.
Screams. Yelling. Cries of death. Cries of pain. Burning.
It chilled her bones, woke her from the state of isolation and she raced from her home. Up and up, spiraling higher and higher to the peak of the rainforest. Dragons. Ripping the trees from the roots, setting them ablaze then bombing down onto the rainforest. Onto her home.
STOP!
She couldn’t stop it. Usually a simple will of the mind was all that was needed. She cried out at the beasts, but the language was lost to them. Revenge waged war on the Land of Shakespeare. The eyes of her herd looked at her with disgust, hatred.
“You did this to us.”
-
The smell of burning finally pulled her out from the glare of a thousand eyes. She lay flat out on the soft sands of her home. Her coat was drenched wet from sweat. Her legs thrashed vertically still in the dream state of the flee. Eyes met blue sky, such a contrast from the dark that had been tormenting her only moments before. She rested still just a moment. A moments sigh of relief.
A dream.
The smell of smoke still blew strong, began to invade her lungs and choke her with invisible hands.
Not a dream.
She could feel the heat and the roar from the blaze. It’s power looming overtop of her, growing into a massive demon of fire that reached out with hooked fingers towards her. A moment of hesitation, the depression urging her to stay still, to join her children, her family, to finally rest and fully let the pain in her heart consume her. To stop fighting.
I don’t want to die.
The flight instinct once more kicked into high gear. From that moment it was as if there suddenly was a thousand hands pushing on her. Pushing her up. Pushing her off the ground. Pushing her forward. Faster. Faster.
Leaping over flames, bubbling creeks, crashing through saplings that tore at her skin. Her tail singed. Hind quarters sizzling, shooting flashes of pain. The flames having just began to lick at her flesh before flight. Vision blurred. The race was anything but a fairytale. She crashed through brush, and tore the side of her shoulder open upon attempting to dodge trees.
By the time she reached safety she was on last legs. Stumbling and coughing, vision having closed into just slits she fumbled to the ground and overlooked the disaster. The beauty of the light show. The beauty of the raw power of fire.
All was numb.
I exhale deeply, relaxed on a level previously unknown. I open my eyes to find myself in a chamber, dressed in shades of blue and black, and stretch luxuriously. I examine my surroundings curiously, though everything that I see is somehow nothing I haven’t seen before. I slide from the silky sheets and on to the pleasantly cool stone floor. A moth flutters from the bedpost and I watch lazily as it flies to the curtains on the window and thumps softly against the fabric. I cross the room and draw them back, fully intending to watch him fly off into the dawn air, but my gaze is drawn without distraction to the flawless sky above. To my left, a stunning red sunrise greets the new day, while the moon hangs heavy in a star-studded sky to my right with no intention of setting. Of course, I think to myself, for in just a few hours the same sides would be bright cerulean and a stunning starry black, respectively. Clouds drift gently across the seam dividing the two halves, illuminated half-red and half-silver. I look to the city below, eyes moving slowly over little homes and hovels, over the streets beginning to awaken with life and fervor. The walls stretch higher than all of them, nearly as high as my castle itself, painted in the most brilliant hues with murals of heroes of war and domestic bliss. (Because even in her wildest dreams, she never ventures beyond the wall.) I sigh happily, satisfied with my greatest work, and turn to leave the bedchamber.
As I descend the stairs, servants of varying species appear to me with bright smiles and kind words. A nagging thought at the back of my mind wonders how much of this behavior is contrived, but I push this bitter idea aside in favor of partaking in their gifts. “A morning carrot for her majesty?” asks an opossum on the railing, holding her offering in her pink tail. Graciously, I accept the gift, though I wonder briefly where that tail has been. A little flock of songbirds appear and offer to arrange my hair, braiding it into a most intricate pattern and adding beautiful wildflowers throughout. I reach the throne room in short time, and take my place in the throne on the right, a beautiful black velvet with a moon carved into the back. I am pleased to find a silver platter of alfalfa awaiting me, and take my seat with eyes fixed on the throne paired to mine. It was embarrassing, really, for as my eyes traced the golden gild and the jeweled sun adorning the throne, I somehow could not remember who was to seat themselves there. I dare not ask the bustling court around me, for what queen does not know her own king?! I munched nervously on the soft green forage while pondering this particular problem.
And there you were.
I have never seen your face, but I know exactly who you are. My beautiful sun, my son, dressed in flawless gold and white. No more a boy but my handsome young man, all radiant smile and golden hair. It’s abundantly clear that you somehow are not the child of the wolf-boy (Gryffen, I think his name was?) but the seed of my beloved, my hated, my god, my Sol. And I have never seen someone so absolutely perfect. “Oh, Sullis. This is all for you.” He smiles softly then, and I knew that it was a stupid thing to say. He must think I’m demented, because now that I think about it, I say it to him each morning, and each morning his response remains the same. “I know, mother, and I thank you.” His clipped tone makes me slightly uncomfortable, but I brush the feelings aside. Surely, he’s just tired of hearing his mother remind him each day of the perfect world she made for him. I longed to apologize, but simply turned my head in the interest of retaining pride and prepared to deal with the business of the day. A raven glides into the room, eerily intelligent eyes watching each of us as he swooped down to perch beside me. ”Your majesties,” he crows, inclining his head to myself and Sullis, who was currently seating himself. ”Trouble stirs in the Night-lands. Food supplies are diminished and the waters continue to rise. In the Day-lands, the rivers continue to dry and the grasses have also begun to die.” I look at him blankly, fractured thoughts swirling through my mind, but Sullis is quick to respond. “Can they not move more inland?” The crow tilts his head in a mildly condescending fashion, looking at the boy through one eye. “They are further inland.” “And what do you propose?” Suddenly impatient with the bird’s impudence, my tone is cold and sharp. He looks at me, first with a split second of surprise, and then with a malicious grin. ”Your majesty… I think you know exactly what must be done.” Understanding dawns on me as I look at him, followed by fury. “OUT!” I roared, livid that anyone would suggest such a terrible thing. Compliant, he takes wing, but not without a look of arrogance that makes my blood boil.
I realize that I’m shaking as I address a now-silent court. “Bring him to me.” The zebra guards oblige, exchanging subtle looks of disbelief as they went. They return to me with a broken man, flanked by a pair of great golden lions. Your beautiful white mane is matted and covered in blood and filth, your golden fur unrecognizable under the muck and stretched thin over jutting hipbones. The golden shackles around your fetlocks only add to your appeal. Your golden eyes look to me pleadingly, and I return no warmth. You don’t look like a real man, much less the god of the sun. “Can you fix it, Sol?” I had hoped that the trembling would not be evident in my voice, but I could see in your glassy eyes my own flaws. ”Well,” and you grin, that horrible, haughty grin, “that would depend on what ‘it’ is.” My eyes narrow in disgust. “You know exactly what I want from you. I want to know if you are capable.” You simply shrugged, then glanced down at your shackles and back to me with faux innocence. Through gritted teeth I issued the command, turning away as I did so in attempt to hide the angry tears that threatened to escape my eyes. “Free him.” The court gasped collectively, and even Sullis looked to me with disbelieving eyes. I slid from my throne in my own personal disbelief, escaping to my bedchamber with all the day ahead of us.
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but when I woke, I immediately knew that something was wrong. An eerie blue light filtered in my open windowpane, curtains gently fluttering in the breeze. The sounds of the outside world were wrong, and I could smell smoke. I race to the window only to nearly fall to my knees in despair, for the world outside was completely unrecognizable. In disbelief, my eyes fall to the streets below, teeming with life only hours before. I could see the blood from here, it was in such great volume, interrupted only by the piles of bodies rapidly building in the streets. I could hear mothers crying for their children, children for mothers, fathers screaming tones of war as they destroyed one another. Fire was rising over several of the buildings, and a distant thudding noise carved a rhythm in the air. None of this could compare, however, when one looked up to the bizarre sky above, a sight that made me sick to my stomach with loathing. No sun, no moon, no stars, only a strange dark blue light that made the world below feel cold and lifeless. With a further sickening sensation, I realize that the thudding noise is a battering ram at the walls, and I slide to the floor, helpless. What have I done? The outlands must have rebelled over the lack of food, as if I could do a damn thing to help it. What confuses me is that the people of the city seemed not to be fighting them back, but attempting to aid them as they sought to ransack the city. This reflection is only temporary, however, as I think to the throne room below. I don’t recall the next few moments, until I find my sweet songbirds scattered along the stairs, each of them bearing the marks of some feline. The opossum hangs lifeless by her tail, blood dripping from a mouth frozen open upon her last words. I can feel my heart slamming against my throat, hoping against hope against hope that I wouldn’t find you here, among bodies littering the halls, that you were somewhere safe and sound and far from this wretched place. I stumble in the dark room over the bodies of zebras, nick a fetlock on the bared fangs of a dead lion. I can hear groans and begging in the room around me, but I cannot attend to these creatures until I find you. I turn a corner and nearly run into a large white wolf with blood on his lips, his glowing gold eyes immediately seeking my throat. I spin and send hooves crashing into his body, and hear him whimper once before fading into nothing. Faster and faster I seek you, needing for you to be alive and well more than anything else in this world.
And there you were.
Sullis lay slumped in his throne, motionless. I felt the coldness spread from my face to my legs, enveloping me, suffocating me, freezing me in place. I try to scream, but there’s something stuck in my throat. Gargling noises escape me, and I finally break free, each running step taking an eternity to reach your side. I can see blood drying on your beautiful golden hide, blood diluting as my tears fall on you. I reach to caress you, and to my surprise, your beautiful blue eyes open wide.
Except they were wrong.
Bright gold shines out, even in this world of blue illumination, and I realize instantly, foolishly, that you were never mine. Always a child of the sun, and who could expect less from his only son? You laugh, coldly, not a trace of mercy in your hateful body. All of this that I give you, Sullis… only to wield the knife at my throat. I can feel the cold metal the second I imagine it, pressed into the soft tissue at my throat like your father taught me all those years ago with his teeth. You pause, expectantly, waiting for me to cry out and beg for my life, but I won’t give you the pleasure. For too long now, I have yielded these kinds of gifts to cruel men, but you won’t. I won’t. Not here. It is time for me to leave this world in your arms. (It’s the only place I’ve ever wanted to be.)
Who knew the gates of hell were only a little sacrifice away?
I close my eyes in anticipation, but the moment that I expect to feel my own blood, sticky sweet and warm, I feel a heat cover my entire body. For a second, the feeling is pleasurable, before rapidly becoming a burning sensation. My eyes snap open to find a world suffocating, to find me suffocating. I gasp for breath, moisture already running from my eyes in response to the smoke, and realize I have not tried to breathe since I lay helpless in your arms. The world around me casts a veil too thick to see through, and I cannot tell whether night or day stretches above this world of black. Disoriented, I call out, only to choke and sputter on a mouthful of the acrid air. Instinctively, I look back to check my swelling stomach, only to find that my body is lean, tattered, totally devoid of the life that should be within. I cough, shudder, and cry to the womb that should be bearing my child. As I stumble to my feet I am surprised to find that weakness plagues me, muscles tired from disuse and bones aching in ways I am totally unaccustomed to. A numbness spreads, induced by everything utter disbelief in the recent events, to fear of this dark and burning world, to oxygen deprivation, to the most painful of all, the loss of Sullis. Whether he is dead or in his father’s command matters not, for all I desire is my golden sun and all I attain is, at best, a literal world of fire.
I collapse, tears cutting lines through the heavy layer of soot formed on my face, though gain some semblance of fresh air nearer the forest floor. I resign to my fate: I will die here, pointless and alone, dreaming of youth and riches and traitorous brats. Suddenly, golden eyes appear in the void, and I can see the laughter in them. “No…” It’s soft at first, hazy and uncertain. I close my eyes a moment, muzzle lowering to the earth, before they snap wide open. (If only to defy you.) “NO!” The roar sounds foreign from my own throat, escaping as little more than a rasp, disconnected from my clouded brain and thick with smoke. With monumental effort, I stumble to uncertain feet and totter forward. It’s only a few frail steps later that I feel my front hooves lose touch with the earth below and my body lurch forward, tumbling helplessly and rapidly down the edge of what I assume is a ravine. Stones slice into my dry skin as I fall, rolling for what felt like an eternity before I came to rest with my muzzle dipped in what I can only call a miracle: water. I appear to be close to its hidden source, for the stream is only mildly tainted with soot and ash. Down low in this valley, the smoke is a little lighter and the heat ever-so-slightly dissipated. Without rising, I drink heartily, feeling some strength return to me. My entire existence reduces to that one seemingly unattainable goal, survival. By the greatest display of willpower I have ever experienced, I rise again, muzzle low as I have now ascertained that fresher air is nearer the ground.
And I run.
Along the banks of the little river as quickly as I can manage, I flee for my life. (If only to defy you.) Golden eyes drive me, raw instinct guides me. I am no longer a creature of flesh and blood and broken wings, but a machine capable of only one command. Run. I stumble and fall on multiple occasions, but each time manage to re-arise and continue. At one point, a burning tree falls in my path, blocking my way, but by some feat of agility (and quite a few burns along my legs and stomach), I manage to clear it and continue on. Finally, wheezing and gasping and feeling as though every aspect of my existence is on fire, I enter a meadow that has already burnt and has ceased to do little more than smolder. For how long I travel through this wasteland, I could not tell you. Darkness falls over the ruined land and serves to further remove any recognition from my eyes, for even whatever moon and stars exist above are concealed by thick black smoke. These wanderings become more aimless as my final purpose dissipates; for what good is it now? For such a brief period of time, this land had been my home, and now all was broken. Every fleeting aspect of a place I had been growing to know as my home, the place I wished to raise my son, was gone. Finally, I see that I was right all along, and that he was waiting until the perfect moment to tear my paper world into a million shreds- or set fire to it, as the case appears to be. Internally, I apologize to those that made this place their home, for it is truly my fault that this entire world now lay in ruin. I ran, and he followed. He designed a punishment for me, and all the innocents paid the same price. (I never said he wasn’t a cruel god.) As I walk, each step becomes more difficult, each breath rattling not only with the terrible inflammation of smoke inhalation but the weight of an entire world pressing down on my shoulders, a thousand lives lost in flames thanks to my greed. How fitting, really, that my broken body should come to rest in the land that I destroyed.
But the problem is, I'd die a thousand times and burn a thousand worlds, just to see you smile again.
“Sullis…” I cry softly, and the world goes black.
If this is to end in fire then we should all burn together
The dark swallowed up Noellen’s blank face, swallowed up the sadistic glee on the face of the iron mountain, swallowed up the knives and the blood and the agony of a dying limb, and the last thing Drow heard as consciousness faded was “Let’s leave this little nothing to his misery.” Nothing. It had been so long since he had called himself Nothing. Since he had believed it, all the way down to the marrow of his bones. So long since he’d thought…since he’d thought his mother believed it. Not the Sun, fierce and ferocious and radiating her love to everyone she deemed worthy, and all of her children were inherently worthy. No, the Moon was the one who had left, and it had taken him years and the crossing of worlds to realize he wasn’t the one she’d been running from. He wasn’t the one she’d hated. He wasn’t the one she thought was Nothing. The iron mountain’s words would have hurt that long ago man-child. Now?
Lights sparkled behind Drow’s eyelids, dancing fireflies he almost remembered, long-forgotten dreams resurfacing as they recurred. “Drodro, you have to listen. You have to remember. It’s important. I know you hate the dream time, I know it hurts, but it’s important! Please, Drodro, remember the times you tried to push me out of your head, remember the other world and the way it was built. Remember the dreams you didn’t want to have. And remember we love you. Always and forever.” Strange. Dancing fireflies and Strangelet’s voice, and dreams, always the dreams. The fog that had closed over the missing years, however long he’d been away, it started to clear. And he remembered, because he was dreaming again.
Wasn’t he?
Strange had always said there was very little difference between dreaming and walking between worlds. She’d said a lot of things, most of which hadn’t made a damn bit of sense to Drow, love her though he did. But one thing stuck out, as he walked along the blank canvas of an empty world. “It’s all the same, Drodro. Momma Sol’s shape-changing, Fireball’s healing, my getting in people’s heads. It’s all the same thing, just running through the body in different channels. And sometimes new channels get unlocked, and the magic flows differently, and you can suddenly hear thoughts you couldn’t before, or make the light dance, or take a different shape. Thing is, all those channels exist in all of us, if we can find a way to unlock them. And outside the body, if you can see it right, you can do anything.”
He’d never believed it, not for himself. For Momma Sol, for Strange? Maybe. They had eyes that saw…saw something beyond the world he knew. But Drow was no healer, no ghost whisperer, no shaper of worlds or even of his own body. He was ordinary, aside from his inexplicable ability to survive what should by all rights have killed him. And most of that was Mom and Gendry anyhow. Drow was his body, and at one time he’d been the twisted little voice in his head calling him precious and eviscerating him with his words. Nothing more.
He had been, anyhow. Until he woke from fog and mist and iron knives dripping blood, and he suddenly understood everything his sapphire-eyed baby sister had said. The world around him was a dream, and he was the dreamer. A tug on the tip of a hill, and the land around him became mountains, jagged and unyielding and covered in snow. A knock of his hoof on hard stone, and a spring appeared, flowing so cool and clear and sweet he had never tasted its equal. He followed the flowing water as it became a stream, as it joined up with another newly forming stream and widened and became a river, as it cascaded down a sheer rock face and became a waterfall. He bathed in the falling water as it pooled at the cliff’s base before flowing ever farther down the mountainside.
If it was a dream, he could change his shape into whatever he wanted—so he did. He became a fish in the pool, immersed in water he had summoned forth, and swam down the stream until he tasted salt in the water, until it opened up into the ocean. And then he swam to shore and became a wolf, and he howled at the full moon that hung low in the sky. He sang his mother’s jungle songs, the lullabies and the dirges alike, in an eerily beautiful wolf’s voice instead of his own rough, gravelly bass. The song echoed through the hills – and was answered.
He was not alone.
He knew somehow, knew in his bones that the lonely wolfsong that matched his own was not his blood. The singer was not mother or brother or sister. They were not here. No one he knew was dreaming this dream with him. But the song twined around his own, vibrating in the air together with unexpected intensity, beckoning him forward. Who was he, to resist such sweet invitation?
He ran, his body changing back to its old shape as he did, leaping trickling streams and fallen trees until he crashed into someone racing toward him. Fire, heat pouring across every inch of his skin where their bodies had touched. Flashes, impressions, knowledge out of nowhere – he wasn’t alone. He would never be alone again. Not while they walked this dream world together, he and his Jay. Gentle touches of lips to his neck, warm breath on his skin, the press of two bodies together. Running his teeth down the creamy skin of Jay’s spine, love under the stars washing away all the dark places inside him.
With Jay at his side, the whole world flourished. They played together, growing forests as they frolicked across the plains, leaving life in their wake. Trees sprang up to shade them, flowers burst from the ground and stretched their vibrant, colorful faces toward the two of them as they got tangled up in one another, sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four. The heated touch of skin on skin, the sounds Jay made, the way he sighed and pressed himself against Drow’s side after, just settled into him as if there were nowhere else in the whole of their shiny new world he’d rather be…it didn’t take long before Drow was lost. And for once, he didn’t fight it. He dove head first into love the way he only could in dreams, where it couldn’t break hearts and ruin lives, and leave people he cared about shattered on the ground.
All it could do was light him up from the inside out. Just like it had done for his moms, during those brief times when they were actually together. He finally understood what kept them coming back to each other, even through all the pain. Even through the horrors life threw at them, through the desolation of loss, through the hurt that should have drowned them. Because those moments where skin touched skin, where eyes met and lightning danced in their veins, where just a soft content sigh was enough to set the whole world right? Those moments were everything, and they were worth every bit of the pain that had come before.
For the first time in his life, he knew peace.
They built paradise together, he and his Jay, pieced it together from memories and dreams the way his moms had made their heaven. And they filled it with life, all manner of plants and animals. Some they had seen, and others they only imagined. Trees with a thousand trunks, a forest contained in one organism. A rainbow of birds to fill the trees, and to fill the air with his mother’s familiar songs. And they filled it with people, drawing them up out of the dust. Drow ached for his family, his mom and his brothers and sisters, and for someone he could almost remember, a little girl with golden eyes full of mischief and love. Blood. Sister? Niece? But she slipped through his grasp if he thought about her too hard, the one thing that eluded him in this world that bowed to his will. Whoever she was, she was out of reach, just like the rest of his family.
“Remember.”
The familiar voice set his skin to shivering, made the hair along his spine stand on end, and he brushed it away like a pesky firefly, barely feeling the twinge of hurt as the speaker withdrew. Instead, he threw himself into Jay, into their new-made friends, something he’d never really had before outside of his family. And if there was something off in the way they nodded and smiled and agreed with him, in the way they shaped themselves to his will, in the way their eyes sometimes made him shudder, well he shrugged it off to a quirk of the dreamscape and built more.
But he had never been one to be so social. Everyone he made wanted to bask in his presence, wanted to love him and be near him and never let him go. The way he’d felt about the Moon, each living thing felt about him. They were too much, too many, and he couldn’t breathe with them all so close, so persistent, smothering him. Was this how she’d—no. No, it wasn’t how the Moon had felt about him. You sure, precious? It wasn’t. But they pressed against him, pushed each other around to get closer to him, and he couldn’t take it. It needed to stop, they needed to go away, there were too many and it was too much and—
No warning roar heralded the bear’s arrival. Not a growl, not a snarl, not a peep before blood was being shed and screams were tearing apart the air. The first blood shed in his new world, and it was the blood of his friends, the blood of his own, the blood of those he had made from the dirt. A sacrifice made in exchange for a moment of silence, and as sick as it made him, he was glad. So the bears stayed, and were joined by other large predators, free to thin the sycophantic herd as their numbers grew of their own accord, now that Drow had finally stopped making them himself.
The balance was uneasy, so-called friends watching him with newfound suspicion and keeping a safer distance even as they fucked like rabbits and maintained their population despite the unexpected danger of predation. They pulled away, their adoration slowly twisting into fear with each death to the predators that kept them from drowning him. “Remember,” the voice tried again every time he felt doubt or discontent, every time he wondered what was wrong with the shape of his world, or why he was still dreaming. And every time, he brushed it away, ignoring the sting of rejection that trickled through before the connection was broken. Until the day when he wanted to forget the world he’d built, wanted to burn it all to the ground, wanted to please just finally wake up. Until the day he found his Jay’s body half-eaten by the bears he had created.
Horror surged through him as he rushed to his lover’s torn-open side. He tried to put the pieces back together, tried to patch him up like the Sun and the Firebrand had patched him over and over, and nothing worked. “NO!” he screamed, falling to his knees and shaking Jay’s tattered body. “Please, no, no, you can’t do this,” he begged, frantically reaching for anything, anything that could help him fix what was already…already gone. “Please, baby, don’t leave me,” he sobbed, dragging his lover’s corpse close and pressing himself against the body that would never press back again. “Please?”
Silence.
And he finally broke.
The mountains they had danced upon erupted, lava and ash blowing the snowcaps off the top and flowing down the sides, rushing toward the meadow and murdering everything in its path. Lava devoured the forest, the birds, the happy little flowers. It wiped out friend and foe alike, predator and prey becoming one in their screams as the volcano claimed them as its own. He felt the bear who had claimed his Jay’s life, reached out and touched him the way someone had tried to teach him once upon another dream, and he held the fucker in place as liquid rock flowed closer. Closer. Singed fur with its heat, flowed over claws and toes and feet. He held the bear as it shrieked and screamed and writhed and begged, held it as lava burned it alive.
Until he remembered an iron mountain holding him in place, torturing him and draining him to the edge of death before leaving him broken and bleeding out in meadow not unlike this one. Bile rose in his throat, and he snapped the bear’s neck, killing it instantly. What have I done? He looked around at the world he’d made, being destroyed by lava and the ash that rained down from above. He was just as much of a monster as the iron bastard who had stolen the light from Noellen’s eyes. Worse, even, for punishing innocents for one rogue bear who had defied his only order.
Drow tried. He tried to stop the lava, but once the volcano blew there was no stopping it. He tried to divert the flow, but the woods caught fire and the mountains became a giant inferno. He could feel horses turning on each other, desperate to survive. Tearing each other apart trying to escape the wildfire and the lava flows. Everyone he had made, everyone he knew, they were all dying around him, bodies incinerating amidst screams of agony, and all he could hear was that voice, screaming this time. “Drodro! Remember!”
He couldn’t remember what she wanted him to, couldn’t remember the words or what message she’d been urgently shoving into his head, but the desperation in her voice finally broke through his dream as the world burned to the ground and the last life ended. As his creation fell to ruin, he snapped awake, frantically drawing fresh air into smoke-filled…lungs…
The smoke was still there. The world was still burning, the fire he'd started still raged, but this was the world of the body, and he had no magic to reshape it, no power to put out the fire or to reach anyone he loved who needed him. He ran for the only home he’d ever known, barreling through hordes of horses running at him with panicked eyes and no fucks given for anyone else’s safety. Too many, too frantic, and he couldn’t get through. He tried, god how he tried, desperate to reach the jungle and--“No one’s there, Drodro, just get out. Just go!” There was something off in the shape of her voice, something quieter, a whisper-like quality where she’d always been lilting and dreamy. He ignored her and fought the crowd, pushing past stampeding masses. He tripped over a flailing body, a young boy who had been trampled and was beyond saving without the healing power he hadn’t inherited from the Sun. A leg snapped to the point where it dangled uselessly, hoof-sized gouges, bruised, the yearling didn’t have a chance. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. As he was getting to his feet, another surge of terrified horses rushed over, and the boy screamed again as he was pounded beneath countless more hooves, until the screaming finally stopped. Still Drow fought his way against the crowd, trying so fucking hard to get to the jungle and see if anyone he knew, anyone he loved was waiting by a little waterfall beside a quiet circle of trees that marked their family’s cemetery.
The fire was coming closer, though. More of the horses that pushed against him were burned, singed, one was even on fire, throwing ice at the flames to try to put them out, and Drow finally understood. This was no ordinary fire, no fire of the physical world. This was his fire, spilling over into the real world and devouring it, taking revenge for the world he'd destroyed. “Just go, Drodro. We’re already gone,” the voice whispered, fading. Fading. He reached for it, but that power was gone to him now, and all he felt was the empty echo of his own mind. Strange was gone. He had lost her.
He finally gave in and let the crowd carry him away, limbs moving along with theirs. The fire chased them out, out, out. Away from the only home he’d known, far up a mountain, until it fell back and devoured the world below. Drow watched fire burn the world to the ground for the second time in a day, and just let the exhaustion and the horror wash over him, staring hopelessly at the inferno. He heard sobs all around, the wails of those who had lost loved ones and the whimpers and agonized moans of the wounded. And as the flames slowly started to die down he picked his way through the crowd. Searching. Listening. Listening. Desperate for any sign of anyone he’d loved even as the knowledge settled into his bones that they were gone, gone, all of them gone.
No matter how he searched, there was no sign of any of them. Not his mother, who should have been there. She should have felt this coming, should have acted. She’d promised. She’d sworn she’d always be there for him, always come when he needed her. Maybe somehow the fire had claimed her. She’d wanted the fire to claim her for a long time now. Maybe…maybe it finally had. There was no sign of Hallows or Rakka or Wex, of Gendry or his Arrya, of Xero, of…of Dröm. No sign of Dare or Nish or Strange. He was alone in the ruins of his old life. He’d fucking failed them. Somehow the whole world had burned to the ground, and he hadn’t been able to protect them. Good work, honey. Still think you’re not Nothing anymore? Oh, but he was. He’d failed his family. He’d lost them. He'd set their world on fire, burned them all to ash, and now he was alone. He'd killed them all, and without them he was Nothing.
She dreams that the world belongs to her. No, that’s not right, she thinks, the world’s been entrusted to me.
She doesn’t rule so much as collaborate.
She doesn’t demand obedience from her subjects so much as receive it freely.
Even now, after all of these years (years of endless analyzations and attempts at recollection) she doesn’t know how it came about. She doesn’t know how she has become a healer and a protector, all-powerful and wholly revered. As Jaide walks through the hot Jungle, she decides that it’s how it’s always been. She thinks that maybe she’s just forgotten, that the years without aging have left her without a bookmark to mark progression in the story of her life.
It’s possible, of course, considering she is unchanged herself. She’s still a young girl on the cusp of becoming a woman physically. She still wears her speckled coat of blue, still peers out at the world with wide, silver eyes like moons. Her mind is sharp and her heart open – in every other way, however, Jaide is not herself anymore. She can do things she can’t explain; she can perform impossible feats and also incredibly ordinary ones all at once. Sometimes her will dictates it (she’d bent a circle of young kapok trees so that their canopies intertwined, making a rising platform as they grew for the monkeys to cavort around on). But other times, the impossible occurs without her intending it. She’s had the thought every time it happens, of course, but it is a deep and buried thought, not meant to be unleashed from its locked place. It happens anyway, unwittingly. Sometimes it seems as if the world itself is made just for her, the way it bends to her will.
The Jungle is her first and foremost Domain. She takes care of it first because it has always done the same for her. It had raised her all those years ago (how many now? she always wonders and never knows) with her father away in the Tundra and her mother an old, old woman. “You are beautiful and I will help you,” she tells the sick and diseased plants and animals. She kisses their roots and brows and makes them better, every one she finds (and she finds them all, because this is her world and it’s what she wants more than anything, to help). “Your life has meaning and I want to learn from it, from you,” she croons to the predated animals she finds languishing after a hunt. She lets the predators feed – they’ve earned it and have to live themselves – but she steps in when they’ve finished. In her perfect universe, everyone lives. She creates new life in the glassy, faded eyes of a brocket deer poached by a jaguar. She stirs the limbs and lungs of an unlucky tapir squeezed by an anaconda. She heals all who need it and spares none, from the broken-winged eagle to the damaged roots of the walking palm.
Life blossoms all around her, and it is good for a long while.
The blue girl borrows their skins, sometimes. She becomes the pygmy tyrant, flitting through the branches, overseeing the growth and checking for signs of parasites or disease in her trees. It’s fun but also infinitely useful to be so quick and tiny. She drinks in the oxygen as a dart frog through her skin, making certain it is as clean as it can be. And she slips into the water as a river dolphin, her skin pink and her eyes beady black. Jaide tests the water as a dolphin (its pH and temperature analyzed as feeling either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ to the playful cetacean’s instincts) but moreso, she revels in its body. She rejoices in the way that she seems to fly under the water, makes friends with the other dolphins who only see her as in equal in this form. Not like the goddess she actually is. Not like the creator she never asked to be, but is.
She works hard to maintain her own paradise, but she finds that it isn’t work. Not really.
The young mare giggles as a spider monkey leaps upon her back and tugs playfully at her mane. Soon after, its little fingers weave the strands with more care. It pats her neck with a nimble hand in a few moments, and she knows this means she is sporting yet another plait, courtesy of the Amazon’s stylist. She’s had many such monkey-stylists, but this one is her favorite. He’s grey-brown with a white mask and the smallest, most curious gaze she’s seen. His tail bends at an awkward angle (she’d named him Crook at first sight) and though she knew she could fix it, Jaide didn’t interfere. Crook has always seemed happy and healthy enough – it isn’t her desire to change aesthetics, unlike her fashion-forward primate friend. Now, he jumps off of her and away with an overly dramatic shriek, running for the dark forest beyond. The monkey looks back once, waggling his eyebrows and baring his teeth before disappearing into the undergrowth.
A cold stab of uncertainty slices her gut at this brief show of aggression. Such instances have become increasingly common as of late, and she doesn’t know what to make of it. Why aren’t the animals completely, totally, overwhelmingly happy? Hasn’t she given them everything; hasn’t she given herself – body and soul - and her powers all for them? She shakes her head, trying to think of something. She racks her brains, searches her mind, and comes up with nothing. Oh! But there was that thing, that one tiny incident…
Its eyes were soft and round and irresistible. The baby capybara drew her in, but it also drew in a hungry jaguar. She should have left it alone; she should have let the predator hunt like she always did. The baby was made wrong, though, it didn’t have a chance. Its back legs twisted underneath of it so that it only bleated as the cat approached, and could not run away. Jaide thought quickly, and in a breath, she stole the wings from a macaw and gifted them to the young rodent. She knew the consequences of her actions (she knew that she’d doomed a bird for a baby capybara) but it had worked. In another breath, she created a breeze that lifted the animal up up and up, away from the snapping jaws of the jaguar.
It wasn’t right, and a small part of the utopia she’d built crumbled out from under her feet that day. She’d felt the shifting of the earth then but had ignored it at first. Only now, staring at the empty space where the spider monkey had been only a moment ago, did she wonder. The roan steps into the forest with slightly less confidence than she’d had before her realization. And as soon as her hoof sinks into the damp earth, she knows she had been right.
The birds wheel angrily above her head, a tornado of blue and red and gold spinning towards her. One falls in the middle of the vortex, a dropping anchor that lands with a sickening thud. She rushes forward, but hope dies in her chest when she sees its twisted neck and its lack of wings. Monkeys and apes tear from the dense underbrush, waging a new war with each other. Their muscles ripple under their pelts and the aggressive language of their bodies says that it will not be an easily decided battle. Some pull the parrots from the sky, ripping them apart in pre-war hostility. They climb the fort she had built for them, use the platform of kapok trees to wreak more havoc on her paradise. The apes press forward first and gain the higher reaches. One reaches down to catch at an advancing monkey. Its strong arm grasps the smaller primate and it squeezes. Jaide sees its eyes bulge, sees the life fading too fast, too fast, too fast for her to do anything. She sees the tail go limb and sees that it’s not a perfectly straight tail to begin with…
Jaide begins to run even as the animals see her. A sob catches in her throat, an unspoken plea for them to stop. She does stop then, remembers suddenly that she is their goddess. And though she’s been benevolent and removed as much as possible thus far, she has the power within her to be otherwise. STOP, she thinks and maybe says (though upon recollection, she can’t remember). But it falls on deaf ears. A jaguar jumps in front of her on the path. Saliva drips from its jaws. She should be safe in the light of day (should be safe for being their queen, but that seems not to matter now) but its posture says differently. It says that she is its intended prey. A burning smell fills her nostrils, and she wonders if it is what impending death smells like.
The jaguar leaps and when she tries to move away, it tears her throat out.
She dies. I loved them all. I did my best, she thinks in the space of oblivion.
She dies but she comes back to life, it seems. Her eyes open but already she knows she is looking at a different world. It smells the same, though. She expects her neck to burn with pain, but instead, the land around her is aflame. Wood that has been soaked with daily rainfall somehow catches. How, when I’ve been so careful? How, when I’ve pulled clouds over the forest, when I’ve monitored it all? Jaide has no time to ponder, because the fire will soon overtake her. She sees her Sisters – Sisters she hasn’t seen in eons – fleeing the jungle and she follows just behind. They thread expertly through the jutting roots, leaving the only home they know. Suddenly, a loud crack sounds ahead. A kapok tree splinters and falls, crushing a paint mare she’d known since she was a child. There’s no time to stop, but as she passes, the mare heaves out a final, smoky breath before she stills.
An engulfed vine falls across her back, scorching it before she can escape the rainforest. She bucks it off, but not before it leaves a blistering line in its wake. The Amazons die all around her (a howler monkey yodels as its hair is singed off, an anaconda crisps like a line of lit gunpowder as she runs by) and she cries as she leaves her homeland long behind. She ascends a mountain outside of the kingdom, climbs it without the company of the other women she’d followed. They had taken a different path and she’d lost them. She imagines they are below now, realizing the mistake of their choice. She wonders where her mother is, wonders if her father is safe in the frozen Tundra caves. It’s doubtful, because there is smoke and ash as far as she can see. For Beqanna burns everywhere but right here. Flames lick every one of the kingdoms, every herdland and place between. She watches the world die and she cries for the victims. From the fire ants to the Sisterhood, she cries for them all.
![[Image: tumblr_lpbkpvixgG1qefrmxo1_500.jpg]](http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpbkpvixgG1qefrmxo1_500.jpg)
