[ Respond | Andarin: The Mountains ]
Posted by nyota, holden & anatole * on March 5, 2009, 2:06 am
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Where she was, there was nothing. Indeed, she was not even aware that she still existed. Or, for that matter, that anything existed at all. She did not remember how it had ended, or how she had wound up here; nor did she know if there was any chance at returning. It was neither life nor death, warmth nor cold – indeed, it was a vast space (not dark or light) and she hung there, waiting.
Now and again, she could hear them just beyond the borders of wherever she was. She could hear the leaves jigging, she could feel the shudder of the seasons as they shifted. She could feel pieces of her breaking off, pieces reforming. She could sense the tiny worms crawling through her innards greedily. She could feel the squirrels spiraling up her body, taking no heed at all of her presence.
But those were mere flashes. Generally, there was nothing.
And in that nothing, she waited; neither dreaming nor truly conscious.
She simply waited.
It was not until they came to her, black weaving over and under yellow, and white winding around them both, that she truly felt alive. Memories, hazy and mostly forgotten, seeped in with each syllable they spoke beyond her prison and she began to figure out why she was where she was. Wherever that was. She didn’t Know that part yet. But they were here and she knew that she was not dead when they spoke to her and that was enough to make her smile (or... just stand there.)
“Where is she? I don’t understand” the black one bleated. He was a yearling now, sleek and gangly and still too young to really fit in. The buckskin one shot him a withering glance and retorted, “You rarely do.” But there was no mistaking the warmth in his voice. They had left half-brothers and returned wholly loving one another. She listened to them banter easily for a while and with the sounds of their voices, things began to change.
All at once, the wind picked up, dancing playfully through the frost-ridden trees. She thought it was funny that it had all begun in Winter – here, in Wolfrange – and it would end here as well. For the Oracle had a feeling none of them were here to stay for very long.
She – however – would. Always.
“Oh, look!” Holden cried, the precious youth still in him apparent as he bounded towards the tree, wrapping his slender body around it and squealing with delight. Blue-green starlight reflected in his shiny, black eyes as the branches sloped down to the ground and the earth rose in dusty cyclones to meet the leaf-less branches and the starlight shimmering through them. “There she is,” he cried, and three sets of eyes rose to meet the place where light and Earth swirled together, reclaiming Nyota from her oak tree where she’d been all along.
She’d never really left; they’d just claimed her for a while.
For a few moments, she was neither phantom nor flesh and she stood, cinnamon-red and glittering all over and trying to remember what it felt like to breathe and think and move. It was confusing, but as the dust began to settle into skin, she remembered everything that had happened. Anatole had murdered him – they were finally free – and then he’d wanted to leave, and Holden had gone with him and with their departure and the loss of so many, she’d become trapped.
Trapped in a tree. How fitting.
She opened her eyes – the same dark, familiar ones all three of the boys remembered – and Holden laughed. “Mom!” he cried, plunging towards her and momentarily being lost in the blue-green light. “Holden,” she murmured. “Oh, my boys!” she said then, wedging herself between them all so she could touch and laugh and tease all at once.
“I’ve missed you,” she said, smelling foreign places and foreign people on their skin, which was saturated with tales of where they had gone. “You cannot begin to imagine how much…”
And just like that, they were home.
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