|
I’d known this eve was coming. Like there was a hot breath running across my neck I shivered in dreams of such a time when Ranjiri would return, her teeth wide with an unnatural hunger. I’d gone out looking for the golden babe a few times, praying that I wouldn’t find her horribly mistreated flesh cast aside on some forsaken shoreline. With every beat of my heart I prayed that she was alive, and curable (that was the important part). Curable. For I’d let no other take her life with blessing, none would stop the rattling from those shaky jaws without first driving past me.
Even though she’d see my head cleanly parted from shoulders…
Dreams twist and stir to another part of our lives, when we stood in sand, salt. Playing along the surf as if nothing could shred the light—ignorant to what pain festered below like a sore that hadn’t been treated. We ignored it, every green sickly clue that might have tuned in a warning. Those afternoons are warm and bright, I struck my face toward the sun, simply relishing its delight. In the background were tiny foals playing, my children and their dark mother standing by with a watchful smile.
That dream vanished in a cloud of swirling darkness. “Midas! Wake up!” I jerked with eyes still closed, stirring toward the sound, frantic, female. “Ktulu?” I whispered softly, “Midas!” She insists, “Wake NOW!” It was then I realized that there was a strange pull along my shoulders, Fina was tapping my flesh with her beak rather savagely, and breaking the flesh until its sting caused my lids to drift apart. “W-w-what?” I stutter, and turn quickly toward her with questions blazing, intelligence triggering that something was wrong. She paused, gazing back at me with tight eyes as if stricken by some unseen pain, “What?” I ask again, more forcefully this time. Her beak shifted aside and I lost sight of those aqua pools, “Ranjiri has come.”
My lips fall apart, absent words to add. The phoenix turned back to me, serious and urging. “We must go.” She insisted, “We cure, like all the others.” How many had drank from the pool, (or been dunked) by us? But somehow I knew we couldn’t simply tell ourselves that everything would be alright when the words themselves were a lie. Golden feet slipped into action, I could hear someone descending down into the halls.
With effort I summoned my chains, hidden in the ground outside. Earth fell without clinging, each shinning link would serve as a salvation for us both. She came into sight as a shadow and I called out, “Ranjiri! If ye can hear me, fight this evil. Fight child!” I’d seen one other fight this disease, only one other. Silk…he had appeared almost normal, halfway restored. He had fought the darkness with every ounce of strength. “Ranjiri! There is a cure!”
| |
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
![[Image: 5388c9b80fe59]](http://images.helovia.net/index.php/view/5388c9b80fe59)
