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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.
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