06-23-2022, 01:32 PM
Into the storm, the fairy tells them, and Myrna does as she is bid.
The dream of that most terrible night disappears, and the massive clouded thing she goes. She faces the battering winds with the energy of youth, though her confidence is quickly shaken by the wind. Though she has flown through stormy winter nights in her mountain home, she has never faced anything like this. She’s not sure whether to try to fly or just keep her wings close to her body to avoid the risk of hitting something. Perhaps she should become a cloud herself, and see if the wind would carry her forward.
Before she can decide, the first nightmare comes.
Myrna does not remember closing her eyes, but suddenly: she is opening them. Though the chill of the dawn air suggests deep winter, the leaves overhead still wear early autumn’s colors: warm shades of orange and red and gold. The blow to the back of her/not-her head is unexpected and brutal, and Myrna feels herself (or someone’s self?) falling forward. There is the sound of laughter, a pair of voices, and then another strike, this one on her left side. She lives the nightmare that Lepis had so often had, of her captivity in Sylva and the torment she had suffered there.
Then she’s in the storm again, and there are tears on her face both from the memory of pain and the sudden brutal awareness of how very terrible the world is.
Other nightmares follow: being left alone in the darkness, of crawling from the earth after being buried alive, of swallowing a goblet of fire. She flies onward, finding the wind feels almost gentle compared to the nightmares. Is it too late to turn back? To flee from the storm and go back home?
Myrna doesn’t let herself think about it too long, doesn’t have time to think about it too long, because a flash of eerie lightning illuminates a shadowy figure. Before she has time to scream, she is caught by the twisting black tentacles of a pitch-black nightmare with electric eyes. They burn where they touch her, but Myrna doesn’t give in, even when her father’s dream whispers her name - her other name - so quietly in her ear.
‘Viszla. Viiiiszla.’
At that she does scream, nearly as terrified as she is defiant: “No!” before she wrenches herself away and continues onward: ever onward toward the heart of the storm.
The dream of that most terrible night disappears, and the massive clouded thing she goes. She faces the battering winds with the energy of youth, though her confidence is quickly shaken by the wind. Though she has flown through stormy winter nights in her mountain home, she has never faced anything like this. She’s not sure whether to try to fly or just keep her wings close to her body to avoid the risk of hitting something. Perhaps she should become a cloud herself, and see if the wind would carry her forward.
Before she can decide, the first nightmare comes.
Myrna does not remember closing her eyes, but suddenly: she is opening them. Though the chill of the dawn air suggests deep winter, the leaves overhead still wear early autumn’s colors: warm shades of orange and red and gold. The blow to the back of her/not-her head is unexpected and brutal, and Myrna feels herself (or someone’s self?) falling forward. There is the sound of laughter, a pair of voices, and then another strike, this one on her left side. She lives the nightmare that Lepis had so often had, of her captivity in Sylva and the torment she had suffered there.
Then she’s in the storm again, and there are tears on her face both from the memory of pain and the sudden brutal awareness of how very terrible the world is.
Other nightmares follow: being left alone in the darkness, of crawling from the earth after being buried alive, of swallowing a goblet of fire. She flies onward, finding the wind feels almost gentle compared to the nightmares. Is it too late to turn back? To flee from the storm and go back home?
Myrna doesn’t let herself think about it too long, doesn’t have time to think about it too long, because a flash of eerie lightning illuminates a shadowy figure. Before she has time to scream, she is caught by the twisting black tentacles of a pitch-black nightmare with electric eyes. They burn where they touch her, but Myrna doesn’t give in, even when her father’s dream whispers her name - her other name - so quietly in her ear.
‘Viszla. Viiiiszla.’
At that she does scream, nearly as terrified as she is defiant: “No!” before she wrenches herself away and continues onward: ever onward toward the heart of the storm.