[private] let our walls cave in; memorie

[lumos]

i  feel hope deep in my bones; tomorrow will be beautiful

The world is becoming more turbulent. The dark seems somehow more malicious, the weather violent. Even the monsters seem to have grown and multiplied, and it is like they are everywhere now, vicious and hungry and hunting. He wonders if they know something he does not, a secret, an imminence, something vital.

Where once he had loved the dark, he feels uneasy now, like something important lingers beyond his perception. Gradually this unease builds into fear, and the fear is a weight in the quiet of his chest that keeps him closer to the safety of the only place that had ever been any kind of home. It is not home, there is nothing that keeps him here except for familiarity. But in a world of violent change, that familiarity is enough.

Wind races through the trees, the crack of thunder like a rending in the sky somewhere overhead. If there is lightning he cannot see it through the clouds or the treetops, can see nothing in this dark except the nearest looming trunks. It is eerie though because he can feel the ground shift beneath his feet, the dirt moving above the vast network of roots as the giant redwoods sway. It is disorienting, and he would like to leave the forest, but when he tried before the wind nearly ripped his gossamer wings free of his withers.

So he stays and he hopes that the monsters have all found safer places than this to weather the storm, that when the rain stops and the wind exhausts itself, he will still be around to take comfort in the quiet. But something catches in his periphery, and it’s gone so fast that he cannot tell if it was light or shape or sound that had caught his attention. It is gone when he turns to face it though, or perhaps he is just disoriented by this storm and the blind spot of his single blue eye.

He frowns and tries to scan the dark, but his forelock is a tangle of impossible dark and it blinds him as much as any day. So he turns deeper into the forest, finding a place where the trees are so thick they might be a wall, where he will be cornered if monsters find him, but safe if they don’t. It is a kind of gamble he doesn’t often make, but he is exhausted and without his senses, and it feels as though his wings have more bruises than there were ever stars in the sky.

It is either this or the storm, and so he chooses the violence that has not yet found him over the one that tears at him outside the forest.

Lumos

@[Memorie]

[Memorie]

one lives in hope of becoming a memory

Things have been quiet in Taiga, more quiet than I am comfortable with. It is not a peaceful kind of quiet, or the kind of quiet that one could hear a pin drop a mile away, but something more empty, more lonely. I had expected that some day the land would be left to our generation, but that time should not have been now, not when we were still young and just coming into our own, just starting to explore the greater world and learning how to live in it. Yet here we are, the generation left to fend for ourselves, left to keep Taiga secure. And I can’t help but feel like a lot of that responsibility had been thrown on my shoulders, considering I was the only one left to revive the grasses that continue to sustain us through this darkness.

I listen to the winds howling through the trees above me. It does nothing to dull the ache of the silence that comes with feeling alone. If anything, it makes me feel more anxious and insecure. I find myself unable to sit still. I had found myself a hull in a long dead redwood tree that blocks me from the worst of the weather around me. In this hull, I divide my time between pacing, trying to lay down to rest, and getting up to pace once more. None of this does anything to calm my nerves.

Periodically, I cast my thoughts into the world around me, searching for the tell-tale signatures of others nearby. It is minimal comfort when monsters roam the shadows, and perhaps even a little disconcerting to find only emptiness out there.

With this last time, however, I touch on a hint of fear. I lift my head and look out into the shadows, not that it does much good. Fear isn’t unusual in the world we live in now. There was once a time, when the sunlight filtered through the tops of the trees, when I would be worried about any fear that I could sense, but it’s something I have grown accustomed to, now. Even still, the signature is unfamiliar–unfamiliar enough for me to shift my weight uncomfortably before stepping from the small shelter that brought about a small amount of comfort in this storm.

The wind rips right through me. Literally. I am nothing more than a ghost, now that I had failed the quest to save Beqanna. Despite my incorporeal nature, I can feel everything, every breath of air that violently tears through me, every ounce of cold that it brings with it. A shiver runs down my spine, and in response, I push forward, always mindful of that small signature of fear that lingers nearby.

It is easy to find the source of the fear. I no longer had to mind my steps through the forest, and I could pass straight through the trees. So I am able to make my way straight for him. I slip through the trees silently. It’s hard to make noise when you’re intangible. I hope that this doesn’t frighten the other anymore when I do finally appear from between the trees, my faint glow obvious against the dark background around me. “Hello,” I say softly as I draw closer. I’m not sure of what else to say, though, so I stop a few feet from him, waiting to gauge his reaction to my sudden appearance before I do or say anything else.

Image by Calcifer

@[lumos]