It was still the very earliest part of her life, their life, and as such theirs was a world of firsts. But Aspara knew already that the mountain, with its deep-rooted trees and ancient stone faces, was a being she loved with her whole entire heart.
The glass tree was full of kindness, and love, and a sorrow so deep it felt like roots. The forest was different. It was older, darker. Patient and impatient. It had so many stories that it didn’t know what it wanted to say first. Is it louder than the forest? “I don’t know.” She is almost breathless with the listening, although her magic was so out of her control that it was less listening and more waiting.
(then, all at once, the forest washes over her: “The river once ran through here– its name is etched into our spines, did you know– in the year of the flood they– ”)
“Yes!” Having heard snippets of the forest, Aspara feels as accomplished as if she planted these trees, and all their stories, in that long, turbulent darkness long before birth. “It’s like… papa speaking, compared to all the rest of the court at once!” The sound of her laughter is crisp and pure and bright, so at odds with the dark, hunched mountain.
But she’s being slow, again. She’s getting distracted. Her sister reminds her of their babysitter-captor and she shivers at the sound of his wings beating the cool night air. Then-- oh, how her heart swells at her sister’s silken touch! She will be wild, she will run faster, she will do anything-- anything at all, for Avesta.
So they run, as only they could, with the sea in their hearts and the moon on their backs and the nighttime all over them. As soon as her stride opens up into a sprint down the wild trail her sister blazes, the forest speaks to Aspara again. (“Death– are you listening child?– child– the seeds are dying, child– listen”) A vine reaches out for her touch, and in its excitement it trips the filly. She crashes in a graceless pile of limbs. Another bruise or three she hardly feels. No one would be surprised the next day to see the queen’s daughter, the clumsy one, sporting another skinned knee. It’s only by Calligo’s mercy she hasn’t yet broken a leg. Not that her parents wouldn’t make a huge fuss.
There’s pain, but it doesn’t matter. She’s listening too intently to feel the sting– she isn’t even aware of Avesta helping her up, although of course she she wouldn’t be– her sister’s skin, scent, touch, everything; an extension of her own skin, scent, touch, everything.
(Images she does not understand. A blur of color and scent that evolves into feeling, the glorious feeling of fertile earth on young root-skin, the oldest story this tree knows. Then– Blood seeping into the dirt, turning it to mud, distributed from tree to tree to tree to child– the taste of it metallic in her mouth, like that time she bit her tongue.
Then– finally– A mother’s dying prayer, gifted to the dark canopy swaying overhead like a black ocean. A mother's plea.)
“There’s… children out here, Vesta. They're hurt.” Her voice is full of wonder, as though the words surprise even herself. If escaping Fable and their parents were not enough to motivate her to run, the urgency of the forest was. “We need to help them.” But of course Avesta knows. Of course she’s already running, fearless, wild through the night. Her night. Aspara is two steps behind her, always, calling the way breathlessly as they draw closer and closer to the (dying seeds. “not even sprouts. a waste, a waste. Hurry, child.”)
She can still taste the blood on her tongue.
@Avesta <3
