Ea
02-23-2023, 07:26 PM
She had thought it would be more painful, to be reborn.
Instead, she slips past the door to Afterlife and finds nothing much has changed within her. There is no punishment, no torture to bring her back into the world the way she left it. She wishes she felt different; whole, or renewed, somehow.
Wishful thinking, that she could become changed so easily.
She pauses, kicks at the dirt to feel it move beneath her, to make sure this is real, turns, and watches the Afterlife begin to close: her choice solidified.
She lived so much of her first life being strong but malleable — the iron to her mother’s fire, which bent and molded her as a child into someone that would make her family proud. Then, as an adult and even in death, she found herself a planet to Ramiel’s sun. She flourished in his presence, his warmth, but it only left her colder in his eclipse. She hadn’t realized it then, that she had been living her life for others, but she knew now.
She needs a new metaphor.
Perhaps, then, this life would be different. She can only hope so.
Her second life goes by so quietly at first. She tries to find her footing, avoiding her island, avoiding everyone. Even through an earthquake and a tornado, Ea stays by herself. She lives amongst the Ruins for a while, hidden between the rocks, the eerie silence. It feels fitting: a ghost in a ghostland, she thinks with a smile.
It had once been unlike her to be paralyzed by uncertainty, but here she is, once again, walking in the dark. Pacing. She barely registers the brightening moonlight, the night aglow in silver. It’s only when the stench of death floods her nostrils that she is broken out of her trance — she slows her pace, but follows the smell, only a few steps before she reaches a lake. The rhythmic, gentle lapping of the lake should soothe her, but instead, she can only think of the bodies before her.
She doesn’t quite know why she moves closer, but she does.
She expects to feel nothing for these strangers, but as she drops her head to inspect the bodies — the blood, the two-headed, tentacled mare twisted next to a feathered, dark purple and white stallion — a sadness rises in her chest. It makes no sense — she had seen her own share of death, had died herself, brutally — and yet, she mourns them. She allows it to wash over her as the waves wash over them; allows herself to feel it for just a moment before pushing it back down again.
It’s only then she notices the sprites that had been flitting around them, bright and silver and quick. She raises her head, entranced as they spin and spin until a portal appears beneath them, a haze of clouds.
She needs no encouragement, this time.
No thoughts, only impulse, as Ea steps through the portal, to the other side.
Instead, she slips past the door to Afterlife and finds nothing much has changed within her. There is no punishment, no torture to bring her back into the world the way she left it. She wishes she felt different; whole, or renewed, somehow.
Wishful thinking, that she could become changed so easily.
She pauses, kicks at the dirt to feel it move beneath her, to make sure this is real, turns, and watches the Afterlife begin to close: her choice solidified.
She lived so much of her first life being strong but malleable — the iron to her mother’s fire, which bent and molded her as a child into someone that would make her family proud. Then, as an adult and even in death, she found herself a planet to Ramiel’s sun. She flourished in his presence, his warmth, but it only left her colder in his eclipse. She hadn’t realized it then, that she had been living her life for others, but she knew now.
She needs a new metaphor.
Perhaps, then, this life would be different. She can only hope so.
Her second life goes by so quietly at first. She tries to find her footing, avoiding her island, avoiding everyone. Even through an earthquake and a tornado, Ea stays by herself. She lives amongst the Ruins for a while, hidden between the rocks, the eerie silence. It feels fitting: a ghost in a ghostland, she thinks with a smile.
It had once been unlike her to be paralyzed by uncertainty, but here she is, once again, walking in the dark. Pacing. She barely registers the brightening moonlight, the night aglow in silver. It’s only when the stench of death floods her nostrils that she is broken out of her trance — she slows her pace, but follows the smell, only a few steps before she reaches a lake. The rhythmic, gentle lapping of the lake should soothe her, but instead, she can only think of the bodies before her.
She doesn’t quite know why she moves closer, but she does.
She expects to feel nothing for these strangers, but as she drops her head to inspect the bodies — the blood, the two-headed, tentacled mare twisted next to a feathered, dark purple and white stallion — a sadness rises in her chest. It makes no sense — she had seen her own share of death, had died herself, brutally — and yet, she mourns them. She allows it to wash over her as the waves wash over them; allows herself to feel it for just a moment before pushing it back down again.
It’s only then she notices the sprites that had been flitting around them, bright and silver and quick. She raises her head, entranced as they spin and spin until a portal appears beneath them, a haze of clouds.
She needs no encouragement, this time.
No thoughts, only impulse, as Ea steps through the portal, to the other side.
you get dragged down, down to the same spot enough times in a row
the bottom begins to feel like the only safe place that you know