HOLD MY HAND AGAINST THE NIGHT

SHOW ME ALL THE DEMONS LEFT TO FIGHT:

You were more than the words you couldn’t breach. Than the in betweens, and the vast spaces between silences. You were alive, and you defined yourself however you wished.
 
The girl only knew her mother’s love. Unconditional, sublime, and painful as it fell away from her grasp a year or two ago. Lost and uncomforted by the world who had spat them out, lost and unfound, and beaten to a point where she had thought there was no where else to go.
 
But then there were the dreams that the stars reminded her of. The subtle breeze off the oceans, and the brine that rested on her lips – how it breathed in life within her dull lungs. And how it energized each stroke from a firm and steady wing.
 
Her god had been the air and its many faces. The heavens, and not the gods themselves that occupied her soul; their presence, removed, was but another sigh thrown against her alter of thought. Given up to the comforting pulse of air that resided at her cheek, ruffled her feathers and crooned quietly into her ear.
 
Ru watched the ocean as it beat against the cliff side then. Lost in the simplicities of its natural cadence, and reveling in the natural ebbs of the world around her. There was no family to comfort or embrace in these strange times, no friends to wander to – other than the once home that had held her small, and tiny soul for only a speck of time. Wherever they were, the people inhabiting this land, appeared scattered and disjointed throughout the kingdoms.
 
Without a battle to attend, perhaps the heroine felt an impending sense of dread despite her companion the wind. Without purpose, it was as if she might become the very stone that the waves, and the gales crashed upon. Bound to conform, and release into their elements - faceless and untraceable.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

so i listen to the    wind for an answer

She would always be there. Well, she would try. She would try to be there for everyone whenever they needed her and whenever they didn’t because she knows, all too well, what it’s like to have everything and everyone taken from you. It’s a pain that never leaves, one that only dulls around the edges but the knife always stays firmly between your ribs. It’s a wound that does not heal, does not go away, perhaps does not even fade. Your mind simply becomes numb to the pain.

Slowly, others fill in your life around the ones you have lost. Slowly, the pain becomes a friend, a reminder that you are alive just like the startling red of your blood when it trickles down a leg. Wrongness hangs in the air around her now, the knife poised to take even more from them. Yet here they are, stuck in limbo without their Gods, without a clue where to begin, without a hope of winning. Perhaps it doesn’t matter though, winning. So long as they live, so long as they have each other, does it matter where?

The Edge had become her home just as Morham had once been her home. She could live anywhere, she knew that. What she didn’t want to do was live without the friends she had made, without the faces that had kept her going when there’s been no reason for her to do so. She cannot stomach losing them again as she once lost her family. So here she is, trying to be everywhere, trying to be everything, even though in the end, she is nothing so important as that.

The form on the cliff is familiar, and one she hasn’t seen in so long that her hearts, perhaps literally, skips a beat. The winds picks up a bit with her excitement and relief (a wave of it hits her and it’s like breathing when you never even realized you weren’t). Lyanna lets out a nicker in greeting, making her way to join her friend on the cliff, extending her nose to touch the mare on the neck if she’ll allow it. “Ru,” she says, the wind whipping her words up and away. She cannot bring herself to ask how the girl is, because dread hangs in the air, because none of them were okay. Though right now, that didn’t matter because at least she was here.

lyanna

HOLD MY HAND AGAINST THE NIGHT

SHOW ME ALL THE DEMONS LEFT TO FIGHT:

The once child cannot do much to sate the tiny threads of fear that coil within. A different kind of fear, estranged from the plummeting heights of the heavens – or the thrill of adventuring on; it was a fear Ru felt convinced she could not be released from.

She barely catches the nicker that rides along the wind. Lifting her head with a small creak from her neck, eyes taking in Lyanna’s spry form.

A smile curls against her maw. Small, albeit shining with a sense of warmth for her friend, while the rest of the world scrambles to reconcile with everything and everyone they hold dear. Strangely, the Edge appears and feels hollow – ruined without her mists to unveil a sickly land. But as Lyanna extends her nose, Ru begins to recall the other love she had discovered on these plains.

It is a gentle love, a soothing presence for which she extends her muzzle to Lyanna with a sigh of relief. Nudging her neck, and inhaling her scent to recall what brought her to these lands. In search of purpose and meaning. Ru’s eyes glitter when she hears her name, tangible, dancing for a moment within the voice it exits out of. Offering a quiet coo.

She looks back to the ocean, and the horizon that glitters – blinding those who stare for too long – as the sun reflects from the terrible waves below. She tosses her head in its direction several times, letting out minute grunts with each nod.

Unfurling her wings, she brushes their tips against Lyanna as she starts towards the cliff. Embracing the wind, the once-child looks back with a teasing – nearly forlorn grin.

‘Come with me,’ she wanted to say. Before plunging into the nothingness, the air, the in between that separated mortals from gods, and the living from the dead. The heavens from the earth, and the living from their graves.

Ru leapt from the edge, fell momentarily before her outstretched wings plunged and pulled her higher into the air. She cried out to her friend, as if to follow her if she would. The young warrior did not recall ever having the chance to play with her friend in the air.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

so i listen to the    wind for an answer

She’s beginning to understand that home is where her friends are and nothing more. The Edge feels wrong, hollow and empty without the Moon Goddess watching over them, but it is still home. Her friends are here, trying to collect their belongings and their loved ones and though she is largely alone as they all go about their business, it doesn’t hurt as she might expect. It only took the end of the world for her to begin to feel okay again, their very existence threatened by a war started and ended by Gods. Their opinion would not matter, their fight would not matter. In the end, they were pawns, but she didn’t care. She only cared that they all made it out alive.  

Ru’s returned touch is familiar and comforting as they stand there at the World’s Edge, the end of their world looming above them. The quiet hangs in the air, more than just the wind whipping away the usual sounds of the Edge. She doesn’t feel alone though, not now, not with Ru here, not with an entire herd to protect. Not that she has much to offer then in way of protection, but she would try. She would be there when Kaos called them, she would be there no matter what happened.

Ru nods off the cliff a few times, chirping, and Lyanna grins slightly. Now is not the time for play, maybe, but perhaps it’s the perfect time. There may not be another chance for fun. There may never be a cliff in their lives again. Then Ru unfurls her wings and plunges off the cliff. Lyanna’s breath catches in her throat, fear that the girl might not save herself suddenly coursing through her veins. It would be easier to just give up, to end here where they all finally found a second chance. Life is not easy though, and the things that are easy are rarely worth much.

After a moment, Ru comes soaring up and Lyanna lets out a breath before running off the cliff, unfurling her wings and letting the wind pick her up. She feels alive, calling out to her friend with a nicker, loud and joyous despite everything. They had never played like this that she could recall, and it feels good to shed the heaviness of everything, even if only for a moment. There’s a familiar tingle too in her bones, something that always comes with the wind, something that is akin to when she long ago controlled the air around her.

She tunes into the feeling again, suddenly aware that it is more than a memory, more than a ghost wind. The feeling is not the same as it once was, but still…it’s there. Call the wind, her ghost says. Her brother’s voice, the one that will not leave her no matter how much time has passed. It feels foolish, but she reaching for the familiar strand of magic as she soars behind her friend, leaving the Edge behind. They could keep going. They could see what else is out there, past the end of the world…but no. She can’t do that.

Instead she focuses on the feeling, on her brother’s words, searching for a magic she no longer has. She’s beginning to think hope is getting the best of her when she finds it, a tiny piece of the magic she used to wield. She pulls, the winds around her gusting stronger and faster than a moment before. She grins, though she can’t be sure, and she calls to Ru before pumping her wings to go higher, looking for air stiller than that near the cliffs. She finds it, a pocket of peace above their home, and she tugs again. The wind howls around her, taking hold of her wings and sending her on, out toward the horizon that they would never reach.

Her laugh is loud now though, bouncing on the wind gusts that buffet the once Princess, once Queen (there is no herd to be queen of now, is there?), once sister and daughter and windwalker. Her teal eyes search for Ru, for her quiet but amazing friend, so they can dance on the wind together.

lyanna