11-02-2019, 06:40 PM
The colt's eyes snapped open as soon as he awoke, feeling that he dreamed something dark and couldn't quite grasp it. A soft touch ruffled the top of his head. Mother. Oh yes, that had been the dream. He yawned widely, unhappy with the way the dream has ended. It had been bewildering and sad, and he was glad it was over.
Blinking in the grey pre-dawn light, he lifted his head to see Sabra standing over him. The mare was beautiful, smiling softly down at her youngest son where he lay. She was pale in the half light, so very pale. Doubt nibbled on the back of his mind, a question he wasn't certain needed answering.
He rose on spindly legs, kissing his mother's cheek as he did so. She felt as insubstantial as down, and the question pressed a little harder. He ignored it, simply happy to be with his dam on one of her good days. "Come along now, little bird. It's time to go meet your sister." She prompted, nudging his shoulder with the lightest of touches.
"My sister?" He looked at her questioningly, stepping after her as the winged woman nodded and began walking away. It was so hard to see in the grey light, he didn't know how she could see where she was going. Had a fog fallen in while he dreamed? Not even the trees of their forest home loomed. The teal boy kept close to his mother's side, looking for whatever landmarks she steered by.
It was impossible to tell how far they'd gone when the ground began to change. No longer flat and empty, it rolled with soft hills and dunes, a path cut through that they followed one after the other. It seemed that day was blooming, he could see the landscape as it filled in the edges of his vision. Still, it was hard to tell. The light stayed stubbornly dim, a ghost of what he knew sunlight to be. A ghost...
"Where are we going?" He asked after a while, thoroughly confused with the soft, shifting surface beneath their feet.
"My home." Sabra answered, a nostalgic expression on her face. "Where I grew up, or something like it. We're almost there." She nodded ahead of them, beyond a particularly large dune. He sighed a little, but followed his mother doggedly along the rise. On the other side was a surprise. Trees like nothing he'd ever seen before rose on spindly trunks, sprays of humongous leaves crowning each one.
They wound their way down into the shadowed valley beneath, until the flat sky was obscured by paper cutout foliage. It didn't take long for others to join them.
"Sabra." A masculine voice preceded the entrance of a graceful stallion. He smiled as the pair halted, greeting his mother with a warm embrace. His coat was silvery-bright, standing out from the grey tones surrounding them with elegant starkness. "I was worried when you disappeared. You're alright? And," he paused to smile at the colt who huddled at his mother's hip uncertainly. "Who's this fellow? He's not-"
"No, he's not. And he's my son. My youngest..." Sabra cut him off. She paused then, suddenly looking stricken. Wide eyed, she looked at the boy with regretful realisation. "I never named you, did I?" He shook his head, more. This was getting all very overwhelming. The mare sighed, reproaching herself as she did. "Never mind. We'll fix that before we're through here." She promised, kissing his forehead.
"Is Mia around, Ari?" She asked, the trio now moving deeper into the palms. The little boy followed the adults, knowing if he lost sight of his mother he'd never find her again. They didn't have far to go, however. The palms broke open to reveal a pool of water bubbling from the sand. It was a monochrome oasis they'd come to, the kind of land he'd never even heard of. A small herd gathered around the edge of the water, whispered voices filling the air like the buzzing of insects in summer.
A glittering foal broke away from the crowd, only a little more grown than the teal boy himself. Her wings fluttered excitedly as she neared. "Mama! Who'd you bring back?" She cried out. The two children looked at each other curiously, Sabra watching their interaction with a strange look. This wasn't how she'd ever have imagined her children meeting. But she was happy that that were meeting at all.
"Darling, this is Miela. Your elder sister. She lives here with Ari and myself, and the rest of our family who've passed." The others looked on, but let the small family group do their introductions. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Family. Something the mare had been missing so desperately in life, and had finally found in death.
"But that means... No. No!" He backed away, tears flooding his eyes. In all this time, the boy was the only splash of eye aching color that seemed to exist. And he remembered what he'd been trying so hard to forget. Where he was and how he'd gotten there. "You're dead. I tried to find you, but I went the wrong way. And now you're dead." His voice trembled on the words, the world of shadows blurring around him.
Sabra watched him cry, knowing that there was no way to make this easier on the boy. It was simply the reality, that immorality had limits, and she had at last found that breaking point. It broke her heart to see her son so sad, but she could not change what was. Instead, she took the feather she'd been keeping for him, and tucked it carefully into the dense fluff of his flickering mane.
"There is work for us to do yet, love." She murmured, pulling him close, trying to communicate every future hug that they'd now never have into a single embrace. She held it for a long moment, releasing only when she felt her son begin to pull away.
"I brought you here for two reasons. The first, is so that you could meet your family. Remember us, little bird. As long as you remember us, we will always be with you. But I can't have you see the same fate as Miela. I couldn't save her from the plague. I won't see two of my children dead before their first year is out." She spoke firmly her, and he knew it would be pointless to argue with her.
As much as the boy wanted to stay here, to spend the rest of eternity with the family he hadn't even known he had, it would be an injustice to his mother to do so. She would resent herself for it forever. So he nodded and enjoyed her feathery light touches. They'd be gone soon enough.
"Secondly, is the pool. Look inside it, and you'll see what I mean."
He stepped to the edge of the silver water, his mother and sister on either side. When he looked into the pool, he couldn't help but gasp. His mother and his sister looked back from the deep reflection, as vibrantly colored as they'd been in life. He was the one muted to grey and silver, a boy washed of every sign of life. Ari stepped into view, his mother leaning against his steady winged shoulder.
The young colt looked up and down, back and forth again and again, trying to make sense of what he saw. Brilliant chestnut, blue, pink, violet. Silver, grey, ash, white. They stood together, and so very far apart.
Sabra's tears rippled the surface, breaking their image up into a varigated impression of their damaged family. "You have to go. You have to, before I can't let you." She hiccuped. The rest of their herd targeted closer, warm comfort filling the flat air as they congregated around their errant child.
A lovely mare, as pearly white in the mirror of the spring as she was to look at directly, moved to stand before them. She held the same sadness in her eyes as his mother did, the same delicate lines marked her face. "Child, you must step into the water. It will let you return to the place you belong, and you will live the long life you are meant to. My name is Rani, your grandmother. Remember me."
One by one, the members of his family approached, gave their name, and wished him a long life. Mares and stallions, the young and the old, until he feared he couldn't possibly remember them all. But he must. It was through him that their lives would be preserved.
At last it was Miela who stood to face him. The girl who would have been a beautiful, gentle mare today if life had not been so cruelly taken from her. "I am Miela, your sister. Remember me, little brother. And beware of dragons." She added, with a wry look to their mother. Sabra snorted but said nothing. A mystery then, for him to explore when he returned.
He was growing tired again, and knew that he had things to do before he slept. Surrounded by family, he hesitated at the edge of the water. He was as blank as a plain of fresh snow in his reflection. He looked at his mother one last time, and took heart from the pride that glowed in her eyes. He could do this, and carry his family with him. One step. Two steps. And the water only rippled where the boy had been.
"Go with your the love of your family, Saphris."
His name. It echoed in his mind. The last gift of his mother, and it held on to him as he fell through the dark. When the emptiness faded, he expected to have returned to the world of the living. The sandy shore that had sent him on this journey. He had not expected to find a strange, black gate wrought of iron in his path, or more of the flat grey nothing. Nor the horse who stood on watch before it.
He could not decide if it were a white horse, or only the white bones of one who stood there. To look directly at it was to see the horse, but any sliding of the eyes revealed only bleached bone. The moment he appeared, the Guardian turned its head to look him in the eye. A sound like dry branches rubbing against each other filled the empty space; bone on bone. The horse had no eyes, only empty pits where the glimmer of flame lived deep within.
"Wh-who are you?" Saphris asked, voice barely more than a whisper. But it carried on the empty air, and the white being grinned.
"Thou art on the wrong side of the Gate to say thou hast not met me, child. All who exist in mine realm know the name of Death." The words filled the boy's mind, but the eerie horse's jaws only produced a clatter when they moved. It's head cocked sideways, an unnatural angle that turned Saphris' empty stomach. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the sky blue edge of the feather his mother had returned to him. Feeling braver, he stepped closer to the Arcane being.
"I came here to-"
"I know why thou art here. Rhys meddles with the way of things, and expects all to go as planned." The jaws clattered their sharp harmony to the silent voice, as ancient as life itself. "But I do not give up so easily. Thou stand on my side of the Gate, and I do not release mine own so easily. Not long before thine heart gives out and thou shalt spend eternity with thine mother after all."
Saphris swallowed hard. He had not considered the possibility that his mother might be wrong, that he would not be able to leave after all. "Please... I need to go. The lady called us, and I only did what she asked. I only wanted to find my mother." He shook where he stood, feeling the distant panic rise in his belly. He could not end the way his sister had, too soon, too soon. Already he could feel his heart stutter in his chest.
Death loomed large, jaws pitched in a gruesome wide smile. He would be swallowed up, and his colors turned to grey. The boy clutched his eyes tight shut, ready for the pain he was sure would come.
"Halt."
A voice like springtime rain broke through, and Saphris opened his eyes to see the source. A child only a little older than himself had appeared in the grey plain. She was beautiful, the sound of laughter and anger and sorrow made real. White in the way a rainbow is white. And she glowed, ephemeral against the backdrop of nothing. Behind her, the iron gate hung ajar. The faintest scent of ocean air made its way inside, a promise of things to come.
"Life."
The word vibrated through the air, and it was not in a friendly way. The filly smiled anyway, and in that one expression Saphris saw a million lives pass by. From stalks of grass, to birds hatching from eggs, to creatures he had no name for. All lived, and all died. One could not exist without the other. Life gave them all to her love, and received the next generation's building blocks in return.
They were opposites, and they stood very close by each other. The very air throbbed with their proximity. The Gate stood between them for a reason. But Life knew when she was needed, and so had stepped through. Just for a moment.
"Let him through."
"Why should I? He knew the risks."
"He knew love for his mother."
"Tis no excuse. He stands on my side, he is mine. Infants are being born now, many more than this one. They are thine from the moment air fills their lungs. Be satisfied."
"Not this time. He is mine as well, as long as he has his life and he does. Take something else."
"What else? The scrap has nothing but his life to give."
How strange it was, to hear his fate being debated, his life a mere trinket for the collecting. These were forces beyond his comprehension, and he made himself interupt their bickering anyway.
"I do. Have something else, I mean..." He said, shaking with the effort. Both beings faced him simultaneously, and he knew what it was to be the focus of primeval powers.
"Well?" Life asked, curious in the way one might be if a dumb beast had suddenly taken up knitting. Death looked on, waiting to see what would be offered for his appeasement.
He didn't trust his voice, not now. Instead he reached around, and lifted the now somewhat bedraggled feather from where it was tangled with his mane. This was all he had of his mother. The last token of her love. But she would not be pleased if she knew he had not at least tried to find his way back into the living realm. The feather dropped from his lips to drift to the floor between all three of them. Death looked as surprised as a phantom could. Life smiled.
"Fitting, wouldn't thou agree, my love?" She hummed. Death nodded, sullen but satisfied. The feather melted into the grey, gone before Saphris could snatch it back.
"A token of thine family, the bond that brought thee here. I accept this as payment for thine passage hence. Now go, before I change my mind."
Life laughed, and it was the most wonderful sound he'd ever heard. "Well met, child, well met." She praised, seeming to not see the pain in the boy's eyes as they stepped toward the Gate. He could glimpse the sky through it, blue as his mother's feather had been. "Step through, Saphris. And do not squander this chance that thou hast been given. It was not given lightly." She smiled again, and disappeared as soon as her hoof passed through the portal.
The teal colt did not hesitate, did not look back to see if Death still glowered after him. He walked through on quivering legs and fell to his knees in warm sand on the other side.
It was all too bright, too colorful, too loud. But he had made it. Salt air filled the boy's lungs as he cried for what he'd lost on the Beach.
Blinking in the grey pre-dawn light, he lifted his head to see Sabra standing over him. The mare was beautiful, smiling softly down at her youngest son where he lay. She was pale in the half light, so very pale. Doubt nibbled on the back of his mind, a question he wasn't certain needed answering.
He rose on spindly legs, kissing his mother's cheek as he did so. She felt as insubstantial as down, and the question pressed a little harder. He ignored it, simply happy to be with his dam on one of her good days. "Come along now, little bird. It's time to go meet your sister." She prompted, nudging his shoulder with the lightest of touches.
"My sister?" He looked at her questioningly, stepping after her as the winged woman nodded and began walking away. It was so hard to see in the grey light, he didn't know how she could see where she was going. Had a fog fallen in while he dreamed? Not even the trees of their forest home loomed. The teal boy kept close to his mother's side, looking for whatever landmarks she steered by.
It was impossible to tell how far they'd gone when the ground began to change. No longer flat and empty, it rolled with soft hills and dunes, a path cut through that they followed one after the other. It seemed that day was blooming, he could see the landscape as it filled in the edges of his vision. Still, it was hard to tell. The light stayed stubbornly dim, a ghost of what he knew sunlight to be. A ghost...
"Where are we going?" He asked after a while, thoroughly confused with the soft, shifting surface beneath their feet.
"My home." Sabra answered, a nostalgic expression on her face. "Where I grew up, or something like it. We're almost there." She nodded ahead of them, beyond a particularly large dune. He sighed a little, but followed his mother doggedly along the rise. On the other side was a surprise. Trees like nothing he'd ever seen before rose on spindly trunks, sprays of humongous leaves crowning each one.
They wound their way down into the shadowed valley beneath, until the flat sky was obscured by paper cutout foliage. It didn't take long for others to join them.
"Sabra." A masculine voice preceded the entrance of a graceful stallion. He smiled as the pair halted, greeting his mother with a warm embrace. His coat was silvery-bright, standing out from the grey tones surrounding them with elegant starkness. "I was worried when you disappeared. You're alright? And," he paused to smile at the colt who huddled at his mother's hip uncertainly. "Who's this fellow? He's not-"
"No, he's not. And he's my son. My youngest..." Sabra cut him off. She paused then, suddenly looking stricken. Wide eyed, she looked at the boy with regretful realisation. "I never named you, did I?" He shook his head, more. This was getting all very overwhelming. The mare sighed, reproaching herself as she did. "Never mind. We'll fix that before we're through here." She promised, kissing his forehead.
"Is Mia around, Ari?" She asked, the trio now moving deeper into the palms. The little boy followed the adults, knowing if he lost sight of his mother he'd never find her again. They didn't have far to go, however. The palms broke open to reveal a pool of water bubbling from the sand. It was a monochrome oasis they'd come to, the kind of land he'd never even heard of. A small herd gathered around the edge of the water, whispered voices filling the air like the buzzing of insects in summer.
A glittering foal broke away from the crowd, only a little more grown than the teal boy himself. Her wings fluttered excitedly as she neared. "Mama! Who'd you bring back?" She cried out. The two children looked at each other curiously, Sabra watching their interaction with a strange look. This wasn't how she'd ever have imagined her children meeting. But she was happy that that were meeting at all.
"Darling, this is Miela. Your elder sister. She lives here with Ari and myself, and the rest of our family who've passed." The others looked on, but let the small family group do their introductions. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Family. Something the mare had been missing so desperately in life, and had finally found in death.
"But that means... No. No!" He backed away, tears flooding his eyes. In all this time, the boy was the only splash of eye aching color that seemed to exist. And he remembered what he'd been trying so hard to forget. Where he was and how he'd gotten there. "You're dead. I tried to find you, but I went the wrong way. And now you're dead." His voice trembled on the words, the world of shadows blurring around him.
Sabra watched him cry, knowing that there was no way to make this easier on the boy. It was simply the reality, that immorality had limits, and she had at last found that breaking point. It broke her heart to see her son so sad, but she could not change what was. Instead, she took the feather she'd been keeping for him, and tucked it carefully into the dense fluff of his flickering mane.
"There is work for us to do yet, love." She murmured, pulling him close, trying to communicate every future hug that they'd now never have into a single embrace. She held it for a long moment, releasing only when she felt her son begin to pull away.
"I brought you here for two reasons. The first, is so that you could meet your family. Remember us, little bird. As long as you remember us, we will always be with you. But I can't have you see the same fate as Miela. I couldn't save her from the plague. I won't see two of my children dead before their first year is out." She spoke firmly her, and he knew it would be pointless to argue with her.
As much as the boy wanted to stay here, to spend the rest of eternity with the family he hadn't even known he had, it would be an injustice to his mother to do so. She would resent herself for it forever. So he nodded and enjoyed her feathery light touches. They'd be gone soon enough.
"Secondly, is the pool. Look inside it, and you'll see what I mean."
He stepped to the edge of the silver water, his mother and sister on either side. When he looked into the pool, he couldn't help but gasp. His mother and his sister looked back from the deep reflection, as vibrantly colored as they'd been in life. He was the one muted to grey and silver, a boy washed of every sign of life. Ari stepped into view, his mother leaning against his steady winged shoulder.
The young colt looked up and down, back and forth again and again, trying to make sense of what he saw. Brilliant chestnut, blue, pink, violet. Silver, grey, ash, white. They stood together, and so very far apart.
Sabra's tears rippled the surface, breaking their image up into a varigated impression of their damaged family. "You have to go. You have to, before I can't let you." She hiccuped. The rest of their herd targeted closer, warm comfort filling the flat air as they congregated around their errant child.
A lovely mare, as pearly white in the mirror of the spring as she was to look at directly, moved to stand before them. She held the same sadness in her eyes as his mother did, the same delicate lines marked her face. "Child, you must step into the water. It will let you return to the place you belong, and you will live the long life you are meant to. My name is Rani, your grandmother. Remember me."
One by one, the members of his family approached, gave their name, and wished him a long life. Mares and stallions, the young and the old, until he feared he couldn't possibly remember them all. But he must. It was through him that their lives would be preserved.
At last it was Miela who stood to face him. The girl who would have been a beautiful, gentle mare today if life had not been so cruelly taken from her. "I am Miela, your sister. Remember me, little brother. And beware of dragons." She added, with a wry look to their mother. Sabra snorted but said nothing. A mystery then, for him to explore when he returned.
He was growing tired again, and knew that he had things to do before he slept. Surrounded by family, he hesitated at the edge of the water. He was as blank as a plain of fresh snow in his reflection. He looked at his mother one last time, and took heart from the pride that glowed in her eyes. He could do this, and carry his family with him. One step. Two steps. And the water only rippled where the boy had been.
"Go with your the love of your family, Saphris."
His name. It echoed in his mind. The last gift of his mother, and it held on to him as he fell through the dark. When the emptiness faded, he expected to have returned to the world of the living. The sandy shore that had sent him on this journey. He had not expected to find a strange, black gate wrought of iron in his path, or more of the flat grey nothing. Nor the horse who stood on watch before it.
He could not decide if it were a white horse, or only the white bones of one who stood there. To look directly at it was to see the horse, but any sliding of the eyes revealed only bleached bone. The moment he appeared, the Guardian turned its head to look him in the eye. A sound like dry branches rubbing against each other filled the empty space; bone on bone. The horse had no eyes, only empty pits where the glimmer of flame lived deep within.
"Wh-who are you?" Saphris asked, voice barely more than a whisper. But it carried on the empty air, and the white being grinned.
"Thou art on the wrong side of the Gate to say thou hast not met me, child. All who exist in mine realm know the name of Death." The words filled the boy's mind, but the eerie horse's jaws only produced a clatter when they moved. It's head cocked sideways, an unnatural angle that turned Saphris' empty stomach. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the sky blue edge of the feather his mother had returned to him. Feeling braver, he stepped closer to the Arcane being.
"I came here to-"
"I know why thou art here. Rhys meddles with the way of things, and expects all to go as planned." The jaws clattered their sharp harmony to the silent voice, as ancient as life itself. "But I do not give up so easily. Thou stand on my side of the Gate, and I do not release mine own so easily. Not long before thine heart gives out and thou shalt spend eternity with thine mother after all."
Saphris swallowed hard. He had not considered the possibility that his mother might be wrong, that he would not be able to leave after all. "Please... I need to go. The lady called us, and I only did what she asked. I only wanted to find my mother." He shook where he stood, feeling the distant panic rise in his belly. He could not end the way his sister had, too soon, too soon. Already he could feel his heart stutter in his chest.
Death loomed large, jaws pitched in a gruesome wide smile. He would be swallowed up, and his colors turned to grey. The boy clutched his eyes tight shut, ready for the pain he was sure would come.
"Halt."
A voice like springtime rain broke through, and Saphris opened his eyes to see the source. A child only a little older than himself had appeared in the grey plain. She was beautiful, the sound of laughter and anger and sorrow made real. White in the way a rainbow is white. And she glowed, ephemeral against the backdrop of nothing. Behind her, the iron gate hung ajar. The faintest scent of ocean air made its way inside, a promise of things to come.
"Life."
The word vibrated through the air, and it was not in a friendly way. The filly smiled anyway, and in that one expression Saphris saw a million lives pass by. From stalks of grass, to birds hatching from eggs, to creatures he had no name for. All lived, and all died. One could not exist without the other. Life gave them all to her love, and received the next generation's building blocks in return.
They were opposites, and they stood very close by each other. The very air throbbed with their proximity. The Gate stood between them for a reason. But Life knew when she was needed, and so had stepped through. Just for a moment.
"Let him through."
"Why should I? He knew the risks."
"He knew love for his mother."
"Tis no excuse. He stands on my side, he is mine. Infants are being born now, many more than this one. They are thine from the moment air fills their lungs. Be satisfied."
"Not this time. He is mine as well, as long as he has his life and he does. Take something else."
"What else? The scrap has nothing but his life to give."
How strange it was, to hear his fate being debated, his life a mere trinket for the collecting. These were forces beyond his comprehension, and he made himself interupt their bickering anyway.
"I do. Have something else, I mean..." He said, shaking with the effort. Both beings faced him simultaneously, and he knew what it was to be the focus of primeval powers.
"Well?" Life asked, curious in the way one might be if a dumb beast had suddenly taken up knitting. Death looked on, waiting to see what would be offered for his appeasement.
He didn't trust his voice, not now. Instead he reached around, and lifted the now somewhat bedraggled feather from where it was tangled with his mane. This was all he had of his mother. The last token of her love. But she would not be pleased if she knew he had not at least tried to find his way back into the living realm. The feather dropped from his lips to drift to the floor between all three of them. Death looked as surprised as a phantom could. Life smiled.
"Fitting, wouldn't thou agree, my love?" She hummed. Death nodded, sullen but satisfied. The feather melted into the grey, gone before Saphris could snatch it back.
"A token of thine family, the bond that brought thee here. I accept this as payment for thine passage hence. Now go, before I change my mind."
Life laughed, and it was the most wonderful sound he'd ever heard. "Well met, child, well met." She praised, seeming to not see the pain in the boy's eyes as they stepped toward the Gate. He could glimpse the sky through it, blue as his mother's feather had been. "Step through, Saphris. And do not squander this chance that thou hast been given. It was not given lightly." She smiled again, and disappeared as soon as her hoof passed through the portal.
The teal colt did not hesitate, did not look back to see if Death still glowered after him. He walked through on quivering legs and fell to his knees in warm sand on the other side.
It was all too bright, too colorful, too loud. But he had made it. Salt air filled the boy's lungs as he cried for what he'd lost on the Beach.