Andarin: The Mountains: II - my sin, my soul...

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
 He looked upon the garish day 
With such a wistful eye;
 The man had killed the thing he loved, 
And so he had to die.
--

Awake.

The world is silent, no lonesome bird to go poo-tee-weet, and abruptly she thinks, this is the end.

It isn’t, of course it isn’t. The sky is still bright, the grass a sluggish green where winter melts into spring and her only thought is that it feels strangely sick. But it isn’t the end, not yet, and she turns back into the moss and lichen she has adopted as home, her only home, and sighs contently against a tree’s rough bark.

There are no premonitions, no warnings. The end would not come like that, with trumpets, with blood and vanishings -- no, the end is subtler, a lot subtler, if there is an end at all. Maybe it is just a cycle, just a gire across the great wheel, the endless turn of the samsara.

The empty solace of nirvana was not for the likes of her, though. How could it be? There was still the memory of pale white fur, stretched languid and smiling

(melting together, fusing, becoming, oh --)

through bloodstained tears, the flash of a swollen side and the glimmer of diamond-antlers in the dark…

No, it wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be.

But the end didn’t come with trumpets or prophecies or the darkness of a swallowed moon.

A whisper, not a scream.

Ah, how foolish. How naïve…

Some love too little, some too long,
 Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
--

The fire crept, it always did, and slush turned to dry earth. The fire danced, as fire always did, unheeding, unaware.

Fire is mindless, and creeps where it pleases; it feeds on what it can get.

He did not know his birth was fire and fire his end; but stirred nonetheless, stirred as the fire danced and crept.
And as all things do, so does the fire, with the first drops of him.

The sky was dark, bleak and black, but still he stirred, and fire crept no more.

And strange it was to see him pass
With a step so light and gay,
 And strange it was to see him look 
So wistfully at the day,
 And strange it was to think that he
Had such a debt to pay.
--

Her voice had long since silenced and perhaps that was a sign of the end; that fire crept and danced this time, as it always did, slouching over her back and dripping down her heels. It was a beautiful sight, perhaps, the mare of all black, her tempered steel eyes, a glint like a knife’s edge --

It didn’t matter, as there was no premonition, no sigh, no sign. She’d moved lightly as always, with the slow grace she practiced after her trial of fire -- fire dancing free and gay down her back -- the grace more fit for wolves, and cats, and deers. But she was no wolf or deer or cat; she would have thought no such thing as she turned a wistful eye to the day.
It was time. She knew that in her bones. They say twins are bonded, but she could feel no pain, she could feel nothing. She leapt and she ran and lightning flurried down limbs, imbued her with strength -- the winds chased her, arctic cold in the first days of spring, and fire crept.

She was happy, Jörmungandr, for perhaps the second or third time in her life. She had always been content, always peaceful, but never happy; joy is kin to hatred and love, strong wild emotion, and as unattainable as the sky she’d once wished to tear down.

In all two or three times, she’d seen a flash of gold, a drift of white like a seafoam, and thought --

Home.

But the fire crept, and happiness and joy wore down and the knife’s edge was sharp as it fell:

Why must all beautiful things hurt?

It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!
--