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i light the fire and see the blossom dance on air alone; i will not douse that flame, that searing flower; i will burn in it.
Like a dying body, this night grows more cold. Sends winds trembling through the arteries of the hollow forest to creep up suddenly, first in my eyes and through my mane down my backside. It's the kind of cold that sparks fear in raising a foot or blinking dry eyes. Even motionless, the sting of frozen weight climbs up my feathered legs. I squint at Essetia, ignoring the weight of my eyelids to watch her words spill over, cloaked by softness similar to the sound of a yawn. I dip my head, confirming our standings, though far too tired to question Romul's obedience as he settles in by her side. I must look drunk here wavering in the bitter wind with the moon casting deep shade over the valleys of my ribcage. I must look dead.
But some kind of bravery keeps her speaking, words crooning around this world, Helovia, and a safe haven bounding with falls and seclusion. I see it somewhere between the lackluster folds of an overused memory. I find a meadow behind my eyes and the mumble of water beneath my ears. I almost doze away in the warmth of her words, feel the solidity purr the lulling image through my thoughts. I can't remember the last time I talked to someone.
Two words caught on the edge of my consciousness: short journey. An oxymoron. My thoughts move like coagulating blood, slowly, stiffly. I can't imagine taking another step on these spent soles. If I do the veins may shatter into blue glass, the muscles might splinter like diseased trees, the bones might degrade to powder. My brain shivers under the blanket of my skull. I simply don't know. Nothing spurs me forward into the arms of reality.
"I'm just," drops from my mouth, draping open in the break of silence. Cold, I think. But it is not good enough. I loosen my frame with the turn of my head, glancing onward to where the mare came like a gift from the moon. "Weak," finally escapes the null, pushed from the back of my throat like vomit. Weaker than I thought. Perhaps I would still be swinging mindlessly through the rhythm of pace if I hadn't let stillness turn my body to stone. How do you move stone?
I lift my foreleg slightly, just rocking through motion, more like shaking through the weight. I inhale deeply, imagine water in my lungs. Imagine swimming. And like a miracle, I move.
"We should go," I say, taking a crippled step toward her, blinking away the ache in my legs, feeling the knives of cold. It's like deep mud consuming each leg. I don't know where we're going, but I trust the moon, the memories, and this girl at the same time. She asks for my name. Again, a brave gesture.
I focus on my limbs, watching each hoof fall before me like precious gemstones. I do not trust them because they have failed me before, met the slide of ravines like these into the depth of water. Two mediums in one moment. A gallop does not translate in a current, the legs are free but the body isn't and it only creeps onward, at the speed of a walk if you're lucky. My thoughts are traveling backward, back into the memory. I hear my name scream from the back of my brain in a voice that is distant, vague. Dead. I am too tired to recognize it, but I repeat the utterance to feel it on my tongue.
"Malachi."
And I see her tender face half-submerged in mirth, stony eyes pierce mine, a trail of crimson trickles from her lip, the dark water swirls with wild arms, the current hugs her, and the undertow snatches. Kills.
I blink to the moon, and slide into the depths of travel. Leaving more of myself behind as we make the short journey.
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i am nothing, i do not even have ashes to rub into my eyes
