[ Respond | Andarin: The Mountains ]
Posted by mc. chapal on March 31, 2009, 3:05 pm, in reply to "this is our final hour; [any + chapal]"
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Chapal did not know the end was coming, not like Enola did, at least. But Chapal knew her, knew the nuances and her expressions and the tiniest of her movements and so, through all of this, things started revealing themselves to him. His eyes saw the end, saw her metamorphosis, saw the shaking and the cracking and the despair – he saw all of his before it played out, so that when she pressed against him, he was prepared.
He figured that some of them would move onto the next place – that the Element would leave a fissure that would need to be fixed, filled, repaired. And something – some place – would be there in its wake. He also knew that she would not be there – he could feel it in her tense body, in her boundless desire. She would soon be gone and so then what would be left of him? Nothing. He could not follow her, not in the way she was going, and so instead he would face The End. Here. With Pax, should the boy choose to stay – or, he would ensure that his son reached the border safely. But regardless, the child would be alone and Chapal could not feel sorry for him.
“I know. I’ll be waiting,” he says, to reassure her, and when her lips pull away he remembers their agonizingly long courtship, and his heart swells with pride. He does love her, as he has never loved befor – and alas, as he will never love again. He watches her with Pax and then, she is gone. Her wings take her away – far away – and he is glad that she is gone, for the tremble in the earth worsens and she will be gone before it’s all destroyed.
“You should listen to your mother, boy,” Chapal says, to the only child he will ever call his own. He can spare this for the colt, at least – spare the few minutes it will take to see him safely to the border. “Follow me, now,” he says gruffly. The grey stallion streaks towards the edge of the Element, where the quaking is less and the blinding light has not yet reached. When they stop, he presses his nose into Pax’s mane and then against his rump, pushing him beyond the borders and into safety. “Go, Pax. Find the others, there will be many – and follow them. You will be safe there.”
He turns then, plunging back into the heart of it all because without Enola, he sees no point in seeing his son any further than the edge of this place. Lightning crackles along his skin and he wonders, briefly, if the boy will hate him for it. But he cannot worry over this, for he has shown Pax the way out and that was all he could ever do.
So, when the light spreads across him, and the flames engulf him and Andarin breaks and the world shatters, he is ready to wait.
For her.
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