11-12-2019, 07:15 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Amatic+SC" rel="stylesheet"><div align="center"><div style="border-left:#273a40 3px solid;border-right:#273a40 3px solid;background:#99a3a4;padding:16px 16px 12px 16px;width:500px;"><img src="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a4/05/47/a40547754bbee4421bf6eea84ca20509.jpg" style="max-width:100%;border:1px solid #000;"><div style="width:500px;line-height:24px;font-family:amatic sc;font-size:50px;margin-left:-4px;text-shadow:#000 2px 0px 2px;color:#273a40;letter-spacing:1px;text-transform:lowercase;text-align:center;">take my soul & make it undone</div><div style="width:450px;padding:12px 4px 12px 4px;font-family:arial;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:9px;line-height:8px;letter-spacing:1px;text-align:center;color:#33454f;">be the one, be the one to take me home and show me the sun. i know, i know you can bring the fire, i can bring the bones. i know, i know you'll make the fire, my bones will make it grow.</div><div style="font-family:times;font-size:13px;line-height:100%;text-align:justify;color:#273a40;">She wasn’t quite sure what she expected on the other side.
She’s positive it wasn’t this.
The sound of the water is the first to meet her ears and it sinks a sharp instinctual knife of fear into her belly. While this water is rushing from an angry river, it isn’t too far off from the hungry flood of ocean water she’d heard in the final moments while she faded away. As Wishbone opens her eyes and scans the shoreline, she finds herself aware of the absence of her beating heart (a heart that would normally be thumping in response to the fear that just swept her away for a moment). So, she is still dead. The roughened faces of strangers are clumped around her and, in the far distance, the hazy shapes of other strangers too. These must be other Dead; their expressions of mingled confusion and expectation are mirrored in her own amber eyes.
Frustration boils along empty vessels.
Wishbone would <i>kill</i> to be alive right now.
The mahogany hadn’t noticed the shape of another in the water until her form splits in two. The mare’s coloring blends easily with the quick currents of the water, shades of gray and deep blue. Beneath the surface, Wishbone notices flickering patterns of silver and pale pink — perhaps fish or an undead monster ready to swallow them whole. The world of the Dead is strange and twisted. Wishbone finds herself unsurprised at most things at this point.
<i>“If you can get across the river to your person, you can both go home. To life.”</i>
Her person?
<i>“It’s just like summiting Tephra, daughter.”</i>
His voice shouldn’t carry this far, across the angry river and roar of the waterfall. Yet her father’s voice awakens nostalgia Wishbone wasn’t aware existed. Memories pass through her mind so quickly she feels nauseous and lightheaded — climbing the volcano’s rocky face, covered in scratches with her thin baby-mane clinging to her sweaty neck; the smell of feather and wind against the smokiness of lava and freshness of tropics; a thousand stars illuminating the angles of his cheeks as he tips his face up toward the night sky.
How had Warrick, her brave and confident father, died and she not known it? Had it been in the days of her traveling? Or in the months of her own death? Why had she not seen him among the Dead, weaving between gray shapes and cloudy faces? None of it matters anymore. Wishbone was going to bring both herself and Warrick back to the land of the Living. <b>“I’m going to save us, Dad.”</b> She hadn’t used that word in so long. So long, in fact, that a slender flame of light warms a corner of her iron-clad soul.
She doesn’t spring into the heavy currents like some of the other war-torn souls along her shore. Wishbone knows the sensation of water bubbling in the lungs and struggling for air that no longer exists. She doesn’t plan on reliving those memories. After watching with a calculated expression for a moment, the mahogany mare turns away from the rest and begins walking upstream. She hopes that something else will present a way to get across. They would have been all been placed in a place with disparities in order to make the crossing a challenge. If she traveled in an unsuspecting direction, perhaps a resource would reveal itself.
It starts with a thickening of the air. It feels more difficult to breathe and Wishbone’s lungs heave with the same effort as if she were at the summit of the volcano, though that air had been thin and this air is the opposite. She continues to walk with caution, wondering if this world of the Dead has limits that she is beginning to stray out of. Just as she considers turning back, the world becomes cloudy in her vision. The haze takes a shape as the mahogany comes to a halt among the darkening fog. It gathers as though a hand manipulates it, strands tossing and turning in midair until the form of a tigress appears.
<i>“You wish to cross?”</i> The fog-tigress’s voice is grating and clicking, like a hundred voices all speaking at once. Wishbone intends to answer, but she doesn’t have a chance before the fog speaks again. <i>“Trust my shape to cross the river.”</i> The fog morphs again, an invisible hand forming shapes out of shapelessness. It becomes a hovering mass of waves, shifting and rolling like the tides that lap upon Ischia’s shore (tides she has drowned in). It’s a peculiar sight — deep blue river angrily rushing below while thick gray waves swoon and fade above.
Wishbone wavers for a moment, but the sight of Warrick on the other side of the river dampens nausea accompanying the thought of being among water again. When she steps into the fog-waves, she finds herself floating. At first, the fog remains in place, hovering above the river. Should she swim? Wishbone moves her legs in the rhythmic motion of swimming — a skill that Tephra and Nerine taught her well — and the waves propel her forward.
<i>“Stay very still.”</i> The fog is a stern hiss in her ear as they reach the halfway point of the river’s width. <i>“I am here, daughter,”</i> Warrick calls from the other side. She can see him through the fog-waves, the edges of his body shifting and fading like a fever dream. A platform of the fog keeps her away from the harm of the river while the rest morphs into the familiar face of Tephra’s volcano. <i>“Ascend me to reach the end.”</i>
She is wordless in her determination. By the time Wishbone reaches the pinnacle of the mountain face, she is soaked in sweat and panting hard. Yet the descent is before her, looming and steep. Warrick’s shape is more visible now and it taunts her closer. She can almost smell him now and the scent is crisp from autumn air and warm from his comfort. Her sinewy muscles are exhausted from the climb and it is when she is halfway down the face of the volcano that her legs give out beneath her.
<b>“Oh, shit.”</b> It’s the only thing she’s said so far since seeing her father. Wishbone fears it’s the last thing she might say (and this adventure feels so tantalizingly real that she forgets she is dead). Her feet can’t catch on the fog as she slides on the slippery surface. The river rears up toward her with a mouth so full of hunger she can almost hear the screams of those lost from its teeth before her. At the last moment, as the mist disappears beneath her feet, Wishbone pushes off with as big a jump as she can muster. All she can hope is that she will land on dry ground.</div></div><center><font style="font-family:times;font-size:10px;color:#000;">credit to <i>eliza</i> of adoxography.</font></center>
She’s positive it wasn’t this.
The sound of the water is the first to meet her ears and it sinks a sharp instinctual knife of fear into her belly. While this water is rushing from an angry river, it isn’t too far off from the hungry flood of ocean water she’d heard in the final moments while she faded away. As Wishbone opens her eyes and scans the shoreline, she finds herself aware of the absence of her beating heart (a heart that would normally be thumping in response to the fear that just swept her away for a moment). So, she is still dead. The roughened faces of strangers are clumped around her and, in the far distance, the hazy shapes of other strangers too. These must be other Dead; their expressions of mingled confusion and expectation are mirrored in her own amber eyes.
Frustration boils along empty vessels.
Wishbone would <i>kill</i> to be alive right now.
The mahogany hadn’t noticed the shape of another in the water until her form splits in two. The mare’s coloring blends easily with the quick currents of the water, shades of gray and deep blue. Beneath the surface, Wishbone notices flickering patterns of silver and pale pink — perhaps fish or an undead monster ready to swallow them whole. The world of the Dead is strange and twisted. Wishbone finds herself unsurprised at most things at this point.
<i>“If you can get across the river to your person, you can both go home. To life.”</i>
Her person?
<i>“It’s just like summiting Tephra, daughter.”</i>
His voice shouldn’t carry this far, across the angry river and roar of the waterfall. Yet her father’s voice awakens nostalgia Wishbone wasn’t aware existed. Memories pass through her mind so quickly she feels nauseous and lightheaded — climbing the volcano’s rocky face, covered in scratches with her thin baby-mane clinging to her sweaty neck; the smell of feather and wind against the smokiness of lava and freshness of tropics; a thousand stars illuminating the angles of his cheeks as he tips his face up toward the night sky.
How had Warrick, her brave and confident father, died and she not known it? Had it been in the days of her traveling? Or in the months of her own death? Why had she not seen him among the Dead, weaving between gray shapes and cloudy faces? None of it matters anymore. Wishbone was going to bring both herself and Warrick back to the land of the Living. <b>“I’m going to save us, Dad.”</b> She hadn’t used that word in so long. So long, in fact, that a slender flame of light warms a corner of her iron-clad soul.
She doesn’t spring into the heavy currents like some of the other war-torn souls along her shore. Wishbone knows the sensation of water bubbling in the lungs and struggling for air that no longer exists. She doesn’t plan on reliving those memories. After watching with a calculated expression for a moment, the mahogany mare turns away from the rest and begins walking upstream. She hopes that something else will present a way to get across. They would have been all been placed in a place with disparities in order to make the crossing a challenge. If she traveled in an unsuspecting direction, perhaps a resource would reveal itself.
It starts with a thickening of the air. It feels more difficult to breathe and Wishbone’s lungs heave with the same effort as if she were at the summit of the volcano, though that air had been thin and this air is the opposite. She continues to walk with caution, wondering if this world of the Dead has limits that she is beginning to stray out of. Just as she considers turning back, the world becomes cloudy in her vision. The haze takes a shape as the mahogany comes to a halt among the darkening fog. It gathers as though a hand manipulates it, strands tossing and turning in midair until the form of a tigress appears.
<i>“You wish to cross?”</i> The fog-tigress’s voice is grating and clicking, like a hundred voices all speaking at once. Wishbone intends to answer, but she doesn’t have a chance before the fog speaks again. <i>“Trust my shape to cross the river.”</i> The fog morphs again, an invisible hand forming shapes out of shapelessness. It becomes a hovering mass of waves, shifting and rolling like the tides that lap upon Ischia’s shore (tides she has drowned in). It’s a peculiar sight — deep blue river angrily rushing below while thick gray waves swoon and fade above.
Wishbone wavers for a moment, but the sight of Warrick on the other side of the river dampens nausea accompanying the thought of being among water again. When she steps into the fog-waves, she finds herself floating. At first, the fog remains in place, hovering above the river. Should she swim? Wishbone moves her legs in the rhythmic motion of swimming — a skill that Tephra and Nerine taught her well — and the waves propel her forward.
<i>“Stay very still.”</i> The fog is a stern hiss in her ear as they reach the halfway point of the river’s width. <i>“I am here, daughter,”</i> Warrick calls from the other side. She can see him through the fog-waves, the edges of his body shifting and fading like a fever dream. A platform of the fog keeps her away from the harm of the river while the rest morphs into the familiar face of Tephra’s volcano. <i>“Ascend me to reach the end.”</i>
She is wordless in her determination. By the time Wishbone reaches the pinnacle of the mountain face, she is soaked in sweat and panting hard. Yet the descent is before her, looming and steep. Warrick’s shape is more visible now and it taunts her closer. She can almost smell him now and the scent is crisp from autumn air and warm from his comfort. Her sinewy muscles are exhausted from the climb and it is when she is halfway down the face of the volcano that her legs give out beneath her.
<b>“Oh, shit.”</b> It’s the only thing she’s said so far since seeing her father. Wishbone fears it’s the last thing she might say (and this adventure feels so tantalizingly real that she forgets she is dead). Her feet can’t catch on the fog as she slides on the slippery surface. The river rears up toward her with a mouth so full of hunger she can almost hear the screams of those lost from its teeth before her. At the last moment, as the mist disappears beneath her feet, Wishbone pushes off with as big a jump as she can muster. All she can hope is that she will land on dry ground.</div></div><center><font style="font-family:times;font-size:10px;color:#000;">credit to <i>eliza</i> of adoxography.</font></center>