Winter is cold, and the wind atop the mountain whistles through sheer cliffs and crags: through drops and crevices filled with ice and snow- a labyrinthian maze where bone sticks from the frost and corpses have long littered the forgotten reaches of the caverns. Shrill whistling prevents her from hearing the rustling feathers, and when she turns so suddenly her shaky legs feel as if they will give out- as if the the strength of them was no more and had never been; but there is something in her that remains, some burning feeling of hope that pervades her every thought and fiber with such terrible stubbornness that when she finally hears the sound of a hoof on the mountain- she turns with all the eagerness and energy she has.
A Fairy.
Blue and gold, feathered and furred: a winged Fairy stands, and she is in awe- her eyes wider now than they have ever been and her tiny body locked in place as she observes the golden eyes and their flecks… the bangles bejeweled and glistening. “Fairy!” she blurts out, her small heart pounding in her chest and a sudden feeling of something inexplicably volatile begins to burn and rush through her… a wildfire of hope that encompasses and engulfs.
She listens, Briella’s ears perking and her head nodding excitedly as she considers what this Fairy says with whole hearted attention and she remembers the island- recalls the chill and cold, the anger and rising tension; but most of all she remembers Dovev and Heartfire… Leilan, and Woolf. Taking a deep breath she feels her lungs aching and a wracking cough growing as the instruction comes to an end… shivering and trying her best to staunch and feign health: she nods, agrees and speaks in a quiet voice.
“I can do it. Okay? I help.” had she any doubt it was vanquished- and instead her mind fixated and remained set tot ask; but the Fairy departs and Briella finds herself turning again, staring across the edges and paths of the mountain and unable to recall just which way she had taken.
Easy in her steps she walks to the most obvious, where snow has overwhelmed the trail and she can see the hoof prints she had left behind. Frosted and icy, the baby hairs are gray from the shrill wind and chill of the winter… and her body has only become wetter the longer she has stayed exposed. The dirt is compact and hard, and she leaves the snow patch only to find that there are no more hoof prints to follow- no trail or path familiar: and instead there is only shadows that grow along the rocks.
Inky and looming she trembles at them, shrinks down and tries to slide under or skirt the very rock they painted themselves upon… as if desperate to avoid gnashing jaws and ravenous teeth. Persistent enough she tries and continues, bolts when she can and finds herself springing downward and leaping over rotted and frigid logs- bounding over patches of snow that disguise drops and pitfalls. Winding and endless the remembers the trickling water sound and finds herself staring at the mist blanketed waterfall somewhere on the mountain’s side.
Hunger does not gnaw at her belly, nor does thirst: the sickness has robbed her of those things.
Yet ache, it has no taken away, and her legs do so- pained and sore… exhausted as she stands and stares deep into the clear water and the starlight glimmering on the surface. “I help.” she says to her reflection- to the bellowing and crashing sound of water. Over a log she balances, and over it she walks: guided down and away to the base of the mountain where the the forest is dark and deep across the way of the brackish river. Sand and soil crunch beneath her feet and she feels the wind buffeted by tree and rock, easier to managed; but still: there is a darkness now that had not existed on the mountain.
In absolute black she walks to edge of the water and stares at the inky surface- hesitant and scared: her mind roving with stories of leviathans and krakens, of snakes, and beasts so fearsome that even remembering the tales of them provokes a shrieking cry at the slightest ripple on the surface.
But she is brave, and she has iron in her spine: Briella’s every fear and uncertainty pushed back by the wild blaze of hope- by the need, and the want: the sheer force of will that begins to build inside of her small heart and soul.
Into the water, into the river- her eyes widening at the frigid and biting cold: at the sensation of pressure suddenly all around her. The current forced her sidelong as she paddles and kicks in wild frenzy… even floating she can still feel herself being pulled and dragged, but still, there is progress. Seconds bleed into minutes and her body aches as she feels the first touch of ground on her hooves: she drags herself up to the shore and wobbles.
Blood drips from her nose, the red painting leaves in spattered droplets.
Monolithic trees stand before her, ageless and unafraid of time. The thick brush and tangles of thorns and nettles encompassed by univiting darkness, and she feels… eyes: she feels something watching. Reflective glimmers of yellow and red linger in the brush and from the starlight breaking the canopy she can see shapes and the briefest blurring patterns of movement. Fearless, she had always been that way, and desperate she takes a step into the black woods and their dangerous wilds.
Vines sometimes inhibit her steps and she is forces to kick and step over them, to force herself through brush and warren: nipping at the greenery not for food, but to clear it from her way. Leaf and compact earth guide her steps and silence the trodding sounds of hooves; but its the more pleasant touch of wine-colored light that begins to cascade through the trees. Whispers in the darkness become more evident of their origin and the nightjars and frogmouths that caused them fall to sleep and silence… the shadows themselves banished back and pushed away as morning breaks.
It does not bring warmth, nor an end to her pain; but it soothes the fear of night, or darkness- and Briella finds herself more able to traverse the wilds and depths of the winter-touched forest. Sand becomes more prominent in the ground and she finally catches sight of the agouti patterning of some creature in the thinning greenery: a canid face peering at her with golden eyes and a clover-pink tongue. As if enraged and frightened all at once, she shouts- screams and roars: she legs kicking beyond their exhaustion and she watches the creature backing up slowly… doubling back and circling: falling behind as the trees open.
Loess is all grass and sand, all stretches of greenery that belong to both beach and field: a place where cactus grows above carpets of clover and fern. Wonder breeds itself into her body and mind, and awe forces her to wobble before finding the unstable footing leading to a collapse.
She slides down a small hill, rolling before splaying wide and out along the loose ground. She whines, cries, and wheezes: stares at her scrapped legs and the mussed fur that is caked in patches of dirt and frost. With some discomfort she collects herself, stands and looks about the vast reaches of the wholly unknown expanse; but this is where she has a trick, and she looks to the rolling hills and all the white clouds slowly coming to life in the morning sky. She moves to one, and climbs: burning muscle and heavy breath- her body pushed to limits beyond the comfort she has known and she stands victorious only to find that it is not high enough for her to see.
Briella rests.
Minutes and an hour maybe, her body laying and bedded down in the thick grass as she naps and sleeps- as the sun rises and warmth finds its way to her feverish bones. Blood trickles drop her nose when she wakes and sneezes, the soft velveteen rubbed into the ground and her head lifted wearily as she peers over the grass and plants: as she watches the birds and their endless circles.
She descends the hill with unsteady legs, walking until she sees bedded down grass and areas of earth where trails have been worn into Loess. Those ears perk and she examines them, remembers the trailways she’d taken before and notices something she remembers: the fetish corpse of a predator rotting amidst the green. Bile and blood have been gone from it, and the flesh has pulled back to expose bone and mud-encrusted tissue, stripped mostly; but ravens still pluck and tear.
“Passed that.” she states to herself, plainly aware of the gore and horror of it; but her mind cannot focus on the rotten carcass. She thinks of the Fairy and what her task is- what the blue-gold creature has deigned to her to be done.
Dovev, Heartfire, Leilan, and Woolf- she must do this, she must help them- everyone… help them all.
Slowly she carries on, pawing and walking across rolling hill and the emerald sea of green. Hunger gnaws one but, the contagion is strange: she feels little desire or compulsion to eat. Forcing herself the chews on puffballs and grass- scratches and digs at wild herb and clover, and drinks from springs that glisten and gleam in the sunlight. Hooves go the opposite way, and some the way she treads; but Briella knows that for all her desire to explore, she must go that way: the way she came.
Her coat is not so thick yet, but it is enough to bar some of the chill, to protect her from the gusts of winter and its icy tendrils, and she notes the pale color of frost becoming thicker as slivers of silvery ice form on the hairs and pelt. She nips at the, shakes and realizes it is an inevitable thing; but even then she still tries to brush it all away.
Time does not favor her, and Briella sees the sun setting just as she crosses into the further reaches of Loess. Unwilling to travel for the moment and exhausted, she looks around: her gaze falling onto a mass of rocks that have tumbled and fallen, her body pressing against them and wriggling down into the grasses.
Cold. Chill, and ice- she sleeps, but only for several hours before a wracking cough wakes her and even in her exhaustion- she cannot rest again. Shivering with a bloodied nose she gets up, starved and withering: her body growing inexplicably weaker as she forces herself to eat- to drink… and to keep on beyond the heavy chest and weariness.
Starlight and the vast brilliance of the moon make the area bright, allow her to see the rocky alcoves and places where hills are unfortunately ruined by jagged cliff or rock face. Its that night when she reaches the edge of the territory- when she stares poignantly at the fork of Sylva and the Taiga- differentiated only by the trees. Standing and thinking she remembers passing through the misty Taiga and its endless redwood: through the stump of a fallen tree and across bridges made of vines and rocks.
Sylva is pretty though, and she forgets herself: prepares to bounce in the autumnal land: to run through leafs piles and the endless reaches of a place that seems familiar… but a small voice in her mind stops her and she recalls the brilliant light and rocks: the chaos and madness on the isle.
Heartfire. Dovev.
She recalls bloodied noses and whispers, protective clutches: and all the promises of safety- the strange love she lacked; but had been given so freely.
On hoof she turns, rushes and pours herself into the Taiga.
A land of ghost stories and mist, where fog billows and slithers through the redwoods and the brush, and fortunately light is more accessible here. So much so that she is able to navigate to the place where hooves have worn down trails, where foliage has been eaten and others may’ve once stood. She eats, feeds on wild strawberry and even the mockery of them- on puffballs and brush that she has long known to be tasty- her belly filling as she moves and eyes following the ground as she pauses and considers the world around herself.
Grey-brown and cloven footed the deer are something of a mystery and before she can investigate they bolt, run and flee. Time passes uneasily as she walks through the mist, shivering and panicking silently as shades stir and their dark claws threaten to grab and cut- take take her. She forces herself into a stream of moonlight, stands and peers around, Briella’s whole body frozen and the heart pounds in her chest. She aches, yearns to sleep- to rest and to know peace from the cough and sneezing… from the heaviness and pressure in her chest.
To herself she thinks of the fact that, through the lands she has gone- there is no one, not a single other like herself that has been seen. She dreads this, whines and wails: begs the spirits and whatever else that will listen to make it so that all the world is not gone. She pleads in the night, prays to the stars, and she can hear her own echoes in the Taiga.
“Please, I am going to help! Please. Be okay? Okay! I go… I can do this. I help, yeah!” though there is exuberance she is tired, and she is only a child- Briella’s hope still burning and yet even in that stubbornness she cannot understand how hard this is on her body.
Cold and fevered she keeps on until the sun rises again, until the morning fog is accompanied by birds and squirrels: her eyes glued to the floor and following the hoofprints she knows will take her somewhere: somewhere familiar. Echoes of birds become things and cries of mystery, and she dreadfs the monsters that could be lurking in the shadows of the tall trees: even the howling of wolves unsettles her and Briella breaks into a panicked run when a branch snaps in the distance.
She can only the echo, but it is close enough.
“Dovev!” she screams, panicked and adrenaline fueled. Her small legs beating down on hard earth the detritus littering the ground. “No! I have to help!” she wails, the sound of nothing but her own steps filling the air: her own crying- and when she realizes it? She stops.
Swallowing the lump in her throat she pauses entirely and pants so heavily that her chest feels impossibly sore and full. At the edges of her vision there is a blackness, a threatening darkness that seeks to encompass her: and she cannot allow it, so she wobbles: walks and sways, staggering forward until she collapses across the border and spills onto the grounds of Nerine.
Amidst tall grass and dense patches of dandelions and baby’s breath she lays: breathing heavily and choking, cough. Blood drips from her nose and she feels the warmth of the coppery… metallic liquid, feels the pressure as mucus and watery fluid choke out on the grass.
For a moment, she doesn’t know if she’s dying: and fear clutches her in a way that all the hope in her fragile body cannot burn away. She stares, wide eyed and tearing up, crying and thinking about the others: about how she won’t be able to help- how she’ll disappoint the Fairy and all her loved ones.
She thinks about how she abandoned them, how she’d run when Heartfire had shot that awful beam of light: the madness of screaming and panic, of rocks and debris flying. She’d left them, run and climbed to the mountain…
“I’m sorry.” she wheezes, her eyes drifting to close, and exhaustion takes hold.
Darkness, and nothing.
Had it been hours or day, minutes even- she does not remember. Only recalls the sensation of another cough shaking her body and how she stirs from what must’ve been slumber. Her legs kick, the dark coloration contrasting the greenery and the silvery-blonde mane and tail, and she pushes herself up to look around. Feverish and shiver, she still feels the illness: the contagion, but, with rest there is some relief and she stares out along the reaches of Nerine.
It is not home, but, it is familiar enough.
Dovev had brought her here- the bony stallion and his bloodied body, the dark colors that made it night impossible the see him in the shadows, and she looks for him again: staring over grass and rock- looking around to see if perhaps he has returned to Nerine; but another part of her looks for a different person.
Blue and dark, spattered gray and beautiful- she opens her mouth to say a name, to call out; but Heartfire is not here and she knows it. Instead she sees the shadows of what is left of Nerine, the distance patrols of the hairless woman and what must be her daughter, the few here and there still wandering the cliffs. She does not approach them, and neither do they come near her; but she appreciates this, and she continues onward until she can see the curves and hooked shaped edges: the snow that blankets the northernmost reaches of the reaches.
Quick and without hesitation she dives into frost and into snow, the biting chill waking her and the ice dangerously reflective of the sun as she wades through it and finds a cliffside with a slope. Down the rocky edges she moves, and down she keeps going until the sand stretches and broken seashells line the shore. Foamy waves buffet the sand and she hears the ebb and flow, looks at the shadowy green-grey water and sees the island in the distance.
The swim is something she knows, something she recalls.
Gone is the hesitation and Briella breaks the waves: dives into the water and immediately feels the icy- salty chill, her body surrounded and frigid: shivering as she kicks and paddles, stretches her neck and drives herself towards it. Without ground beneath her she feels herself sinking and yet, she does not fall beneath the water entirely, rather she breathes heavily and snorts as her neck sinks little by little and then rises again. Muscles working overtime and her whole body in pain as Briella feels the coughing beginning and the trickles of warmth on her nose. She carries on with dedication and hope: with a sense of urgency and need as she thinks of her family and how desperately she needs to help them.
She has to help them all, even the ones who wanted to chase them away: to hurt them.
Weight and water, buoyancy: she sinks and floats in the ebb and flow- in the tumbling of waves that rhythmically rock her. Drifting between paddling she feels things brushing her legs: feels the scales and fins- the tickling of fish as they drift near the warm sun glimmering on the surface of the water. Rarely she sees the edges of greenery: tangles of kelp and sea-plants that stretch to the surface and amidst them she can see the edges of fins and fish: of breaching dolphins that fall back into the depths.
Her gaze remains locked on the island: on home, the place where Dovev and Heartfire are; but she isn’t returning for them and fear strikes her tiny heart as she sees patches of ice drifting. Clustered and too thin to climb on, the pack ice slides and cracks and she sees what might be dolphins; but without fins… the seals and sea lions are creatures she does not recognize: the same with the black and white birds that waddle and swim.
Closer and closer, heavy legged and tired: her fragile form barely managing to stay afloat and when she feels herself sinking: a break happens.
Her hooves meet ice, hard and dark blue- and she finds that it supports her weight. Clamoring and climbing atop the ice she breaths and notes the large spotted seal pop its head up. Almost like a wolf the massive creature flashes teeth: jaws and fangs- the threat of a predator. She springs, leaps and watches as it sinks back below the water: the small hooves digging into the ice as she leaps the distance to a nearby panel and feels the ice sink and bend; but for now it retains shape. Through the blinding white she looks to the island and the shore, looks to where cliffs rise and trailways make themselves known.
The closer she gets to the shore… the more she sees it, a worn and tread path- a strange anomaly where snow is packed down and the frosted ridges for an almost perfectly snug tunnel for herself; but she recalls the Fairy- the words and her instruction.
If but for a moment there is a small rage, and anger and confusion as she feels the biting cold and sheer wind on her wet fur: make her own path; but at the moment she didn’t know if she had the strength to do it. “Why…” she mumbles, questions and thinks: it would be easier- better, and probably quicker to follow the trail. Her legs might be spared the stiffness and the cold- her muscles freed from overexertion; but most of all- she wouldn’t know the weight and pressure of her chest and fragile body forcing itself through the snow and ice.
Yet?
She is obedient.
Her hazel-green eyes looking sidelong away from the trail and towards a rock- clamoring and spindly she stands atop it: balances and looks around the vast expanse of white. The air is like razors in her throat and her chest hurts so badly that she almost misses it, almost doesn’t see the glint of sun on silver- the water… and the heart shape. A single tree looms, and she notices how the trail leads towards it- how the easy path would be optimal; but she cannot and she springs from the rock: her body landing in the snow.
Wind bellows and picks up, a howling in the air alarming and the sudden wetness of her fur turning to ice as she carries across the stretch of land and finds herself climbing rock and hills- even sinking into a dune of snow as she coughs and sputters: chews and swallows the snow out of thirst. Springing as she can distance granted her the ability to reach the top of the icy stones: and when she goes back to the ground there is nothing that can hide the way it grows deeper: how it starts at her knees and begins to touch the skinny belly.
“Gonna do it.” she mouths. “Burrrr.” chattering teeth and shivers, she feverish and cold: bloodied and coughing: the muscles worked so badly that as Briella breaks through a snow drift she feels her legs give way and she tumbles.
On the ground and in the snow she kicks, struggles and strives: she imagines Dovev and how quickly he’d rushed to come and save them… how strong Heartfire had been in standing up to the monsters: she struggles because she cannot fail them, because she has to do this.
Like her fever, hope burns, and when Briella pulls herself up- she wails at the pain and anguish, at the realization that she’s cut her leg on a rock beneath the ice. Red and warm she stares at how it contrasts her fur: how it colors the snow. Pained and agonized from exhaustion, she struggles again, pulling herself up and walking through the deadly snow and its vast, blinding white expanse.
Heart shaped and silver, glistening with ice and a single tree- she stares at the pond, remains on its bank with her skinned leg and shivering body. She looks to the trail, the easy path- her eyes narrowing as she glances back at her own.
Circles and wrong turns, patches where rocks had to be climbed and leapt from- snow so deep it threatened to swallow her. “I found it,” she says, stammering and quiet- shivering as she looks back- turns and stares at the path she made. “I am going to help.” she states, looking to the pale gray sky and its cloud: to encroaching darkness and the night that threatens to take over.
“I found it,” she whispers again, exhaling. “Okay, Fairy? I come back now.” and with that, she knows she has yet another journey to make: ragged and tired, hungry… and yet? Hopeful.
@[freaking awesome fairy]