[ Respond | Andarin: The Mountains ]
Posted by nyota & kivuli on March 31, 2009, 9:22 pm There had been so many goodbyes.
71.42.216.68
Don't worry you will find the answer if you let it go
Give yourself some time to falter
But don't forgo know that you're loved no matter what
And everything will come around in time
* * *
First, there was Requiem. She was sad, and selfish, and jealous; most certainly, she was foolish. But she loved him, recklessly and endlessly and she was glad – so glad – that he had returned. It had been enough – it was always enough, really – but she was ready to face the things ahead of her with his image rekindled in her mind and in her heart. After all of this, perhaps she would visit him, as she’d promised. Perhaps it would stretch beyond life, even; for this, she could only hope. But she sent a piece of herself with him –
Anatole, her brilliant first-born who had found his flames again. Ilium and Requiem had allowed his for him, and not fully understanding his mother’s hesitance to flee with them, he kissed her cheek and finally said what she’d yearned to hear since he was a child. “I love you, Mom.” Not Nyota, Not Polestar – but Mom. Shivers slipped up and down her spine as she took in his ashy, forest scent and relished the feel of his smooth skin, their scars kissing. The Polestar still did not fully accept that this was final – this was The End – nor did she make any indication that she knew this when she said goodbye to him. There was only, “I’ll see you soon… Kivuli and I will come and visit.” And with him too, there was a part of her –
Holden had been pressed to her side, too, and with eyes wide and dark he crooned to his Mom (one he’d never had trouble expressing his love for). “Mom, where’s Anna going?” Nyota grinned at him, brushed his cheeks with his lips. “To a place not even I have seen,” she said, excitement glittering on her face and her tongue as she told Holden what she knew about Requiem’s home. She did not know how else to persuade him to leave her, but Anatole passed her a knowing glance and bumped his brother’s shoulder with his nose. “Come on, I need a traveling partner and I’m used to you by now, squirt.” Anatole’s voice was gruff, but the Polestar was relieved when Holden nudged her chest.
“See you soon?” he asked, and she laughed. “Always in your Dreams, Holden. I love you.”
She watched them go and was happy – relieved and happy – that they were going together. She knew they would be safe there, and once it was over they could go where they pleased and she would Know, forever, that they had not died in the same way she would.
But this place was her life-blood, just as she’d known all along, and she could not forsake it. She was as much of a part of the Earth as was her tree, and when nothing was left, she would still love the place for everything it was. And perhaps… perhaps they would find a way to stop it, there at the end.
Kivuli had crept up to her, then and said, “You cannot stop this. You Know that – you have dreamt it.” Nyota shivered at the cat’s wisdom and nodded. “But I can hope – that is what I have always done!”
And then, they darted across Wolfrange and she said goodbye to all the things and faces she’d met along the way – Fei, Wicked, Aian, Nicodemus, Icarus and Wyvern, Severus, Dorian, Enola Gay, Astarte, Rook, Magnolia, Hypatia, Kale and his striped son Stelios, Elemmire, Delilah, Alcatraz, Larxene, Entropy and his flower-daughter Ilium, Yehl, Oceantree, Legend, Lycoris, Arrakis – oh, how the list could go on for so long! There were the mountains and the shore and the trees and the creatures – all of them, all of them! There was so much to rejoice in, so much to be thankful for; even in the face of it all, she did not lose this love for the people she’d been lucky enough to meet along her journey.
“You have lived a fully & happy life, Nyota,” Kivuli remarked quietly. “Yes, but It is not yet over,” Nyota said hopefully, as they curled up together beneath their tree – as was only fitting. She thought of Choke, of course, in these quiet moments – it was painfully obvious how she missed him, how she would wonder into the afterlife what could have been…
And so the starlight poured into the tree, as it did when she thought of him, and into her own shoulders and eyes and mane and ears and she laughed and was thankful for it. The blue-green light engulfed them both, so brightly and so warmly that she knew it was here, finally; when the ground shook, she bent her head to the Earth, rested her shoulder against Kivuli’s, and was silent.
* * *
When Nox Finis faded, the familiar and his Polestar went with it, dissolving forever into the vast night sky.
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