Andarin: The Mountains: "beware the storm that gathers here," --

“Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.”
- Blade Runner

####, that was good.

The earth beneath my feet, the impact rising through my fetlocks, nearly shattering them, the sharp spike of pain up my limbs and curling – curdling – deep in my stomach, riding my spine and unbraiding as it neared the tips of my hairs. There’s nothing quite so wild as feeling like this – tethering near death, like a scream that wants to erupt but can’t, not really. The moment of free-fall, the sheer lack of control –

Yeah, I know now what would lead some to suicide.

But today is not the day.

(do you think the elements would be there to catch us?)

The shadows still pool around my feet when I stand again, sound and safe (of course I am). The gentle snowfall is very real. The even gentler touch of the wind, half-terrified, if winds could feel anything, is even more real. Everything is, everything in this wild beautiful world of mine. That moment, I could have died and died in the splendor of knowing true freedom, knowing every net and every force unbound.

But not today. Not today.

Their eyes are like burning holes in the back of my skull, however, and I tip my head at them – these strangers borne of mountains, whose names were only lightly spoken by my daughter in a passing comment. In truth they aren’t older than the twins, even the oldest of them.

When I was her age (for it is a she, I can tell), I was already pregnant. The twins grew in my womb then, though I didn’t know; a pact made in blood and in blood ended.

I miss you, Wraith. Not because you were great, or even a friend, but you sparkled so beautifully then.

Alas; right now, I can’t give a damn.

This feels too good.

It’s easy, then – with the dark singing around me so sweetly – to walk in shadows, into that nothingness that I so adore, and reapper behind them.

I didn’t know I had an audience, I say – the winds do – but I’ll be damned if I care. Enjoyed the show, did you?

That voice. That lovely voice, that is anyone’s and everyone’s, if you only stopped to listen.

Why do I have a feeling that it will be gone, someday?

fenrisulfr
some there be that shadows kiss,
such have but a shadow’s bliss