10-02-2021, 08:50 PM
A powder keg in a prison cell
How strange that sleep does not feel quite like sleep in this strange land. He awakes sometime in the night, roused by a voice that does not belong to him.
It seems to live in his head, but the words skate across his consciousness without him thinking them and he lifts his head from the cold meadow floor, searching the darkness for the source.
But he is alone, just as alone as he has been for as long as he can remember. (Strange because sleep did not feel like sleep and company did not feel like company and everything seemed to exist in a kind of haze.) He draws in a breath, grimacing as the bitter cold slides down his throat and pools in his lungs.
He hauls himself to his feet and follows. Follows the invisible path the voice draws out for him, as if he is being pulled along by a string, a hook in his belly. And perhaps he will find the answers he has sought since he first landed on the shores of Beqanna wherever the voice is pulling him.
The fire on his horns glows something spectacular in the dark, illuminating the darkness just in front of him. But he does not have to travel far before he encounters the trees from which things are hung. Things because he does not know what else to call them.
Things because he is a horse and this land is stranger than any place he has ever been. Perhaps this is why he does not question the things he finds in the trees. For all he knows, these things are perfectly ordinary to the inhabitants of Beqanna.
He understands inherently that he is to wear one of these things. He glances at each thing in turn before he selects a sheet painted with a pattern that resembles water. There is a neck hole that he puts his head through and the sheet drags along at his feet. He is a monster, though he does not know it. A great green monster that lurks in water so many thousands of miles away, perhaps an entire universe away.
With his costume selected, he turns to the edge of the forest. The voice does not explicitly tell him what to do, but it beckons still. He draws in a long breath and prepares himself to plunge into the darkness.
It seems to live in his head, but the words skate across his consciousness without him thinking them and he lifts his head from the cold meadow floor, searching the darkness for the source.
But he is alone, just as alone as he has been for as long as he can remember. (Strange because sleep did not feel like sleep and company did not feel like company and everything seemed to exist in a kind of haze.) He draws in a breath, grimacing as the bitter cold slides down his throat and pools in his lungs.
He hauls himself to his feet and follows. Follows the invisible path the voice draws out for him, as if he is being pulled along by a string, a hook in his belly. And perhaps he will find the answers he has sought since he first landed on the shores of Beqanna wherever the voice is pulling him.
The fire on his horns glows something spectacular in the dark, illuminating the darkness just in front of him. But he does not have to travel far before he encounters the trees from which things are hung. Things because he does not know what else to call them.
Things because he is a horse and this land is stranger than any place he has ever been. Perhaps this is why he does not question the things he finds in the trees. For all he knows, these things are perfectly ordinary to the inhabitants of Beqanna.
He understands inherently that he is to wear one of these things. He glances at each thing in turn before he selects a sheet painted with a pattern that resembles water. There is a neck hole that he puts his head through and the sheet drags along at his feet. He is a monster, though he does not know it. A great green monster that lurks in water so many thousands of miles away, perhaps an entire universe away.
With his costume selected, he turns to the edge of the forest. The voice does not explicitly tell him what to do, but it beckons still. He draws in a long breath and prepares himself to plunge into the darkness.
