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07-20-2014, 11:32 PM
larkspur There's a ghost, she's wearing my face. “Four seasons…” Larkspur’s voice is a soft murmur that spills past parted lips in disbelief, muffled disquiet, and her head reels at the thought of imagining an entire year having passed and gone, a complete and perfect circle of time, lost, taken from her, while she wandered as a wayfarer in a land of dreams, a place of nightmares. She breathes, in and out, a steady rhythm that masks the true calamity that roils and rages inside her as she battles with this new reality, this new world that has continued on even in her absence. Panic lingers at the periphery of the tumult, because her thoughts drift and linger on the unknown, and she considers all that could have come to pass; what struggles have her people faced, what horrors and atrocities? And was there anything she could have done to stop it, had she not been held prisoner beyond the Time God’s mirror? Or had the Aurora Basin flourished, thrived, untouched by war and destruction? “I feel lost.” Larkspur remarks suddenly, her voice gaining strength, her convictions, though still lost, gaining ground. “Though perhaps I was lost to begin with.” She shifts her weight, tests the flexibility of her legs, the snap of her knees and the pull of her hock. She feels the flat, smooth surface of the cave floor beneath her hooves. This mountain, perhaps as old as the world itself, will not be moved, no apparition or hallucination is strong enough to break this floor and send them tumbling into the deep. Larkspur’s eyes linger ahead of them, to the bend in the tunnel, the glow of distant light that beckons and tells of a world beyond the darkness, and it calls her like a siren song. Now more thane ever the solider craves escape, and the distant promise of sunlight and an open sky whispers and calls to her with the gentle breeze that floats through the cavern, the smell of summer following behind it. Another glimpse of the mirror, her reflection, wants to send her racing, fleeing, screaming from the cavern, never to return. She brushes Lena’s shoulder once more, fervent, avid, nodding in the direction of the light, of the world beyond, her eyes eager - more alive than they had been before. “Please, let’s leave. The longer I stand here, the more I fear I’ll wake up and realize this is nothing more than a dream.” The possibility that this is a dream, a cruel joke played by the Mirror, the Time God, or both, is not lost on her. However, despite the hopeless, endless depths of the world of shadow beyond the Mirror’s surface, Larkspur never lost hope entirely, and she does not lose it now. Lena’s warmth, her voice, the smell of herbs and flowers and earth that clings to her coat, familiar and comforting, reassures her. She watches Imogen, mirthful and bright and spritely as she flits about Lena’s hooves, never far from her side. The pair are so vastly different from Larkspur, so bright and full of promise and joy, while she remains a jaded silhouette in comparison, a shell of her former self. She argues with herself, considers the costs, what it means to have lost her memories, to see them in the distance of her waking thoughts, unable to catch them. The same question remains as before, the same question that worries Lena's thoughts troubles her own. Which is more painful - a lifetime lost forever or a painful past relieved? She isn’t sure she knows the answer, and the longer it remains unanswered the more she begins to think there may never be one. Of one thing she is certain, and that is the gnawing, corrosive guilt that eats at her spirit, sets fire to her soul, as she begins to linger in the despondency of her own imagination. She fixates and envisions the many ways the helpless may have suffered in her absence, how those she loves might have been harmed, or hurt or worse. Duty and honor are the ties that bind Larkspur, commitment and justice to her cause are the facets of the armor that make up her integrity. Despite her cold and callous demeanor, her abrasiveness, her inequities, she is admirable and honorable, righteous and sacrificing of herself for the greater good. She feels as though she has failed them, and it kills her. |
