Andarin: The Mountains: michabou; --

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.

- T. S. Eliot

Had someone asked her – which, of course, they would not, as they never did – she would have said peace doesn’t exist; true, absolute peace comes only with death and release – from the world, from the elements, from the thoughts, from the flesh she can feel prickling and squirming.

Even now as she stands absolutely still – in a way she has practised for weeks that melted into months and would, inevitably, lead to an almost full year – she is not at peace. Sure, the aura around her beats like the wings of a lost moth, caught in artificial lights and slowly drying to its death.

Rush and rush it went and rush again, pulsing to the rhythm of her heart

(very quiet)

and her mind

(very clear)

and her soul, whatever mythical beast that was. But the Stormreaver – for Stormreaver she is, though she doesn’t know it yet – does not know it or even feel it. It breaks around her and eddies as the lake at the Hare’s feet; it spreads peace and quiet and calm and warm fuzzy feelings like a cloak she spreads over the world just by existing. By proxy.

Had she known – and she doesn’t – she would have smiled.

Because peace doesn’t exist even as she breathes it in and out and slicks it like butter over unsuspecting minds, she remains still and stiller still – and watches the Hare with eyes gray like silver and blindness and dying werewolves.

“You know,” she says, and silence shatters and shrapnels around them, “you would be prettier if you didn’t pine.”

Well. She would.

***
jörmungandr
of night and light and half-light;