She glows. Her heavy strands of black hair slide /
like serpents over somber, blood-red plush.
☼
Dawn had come quickly, rousing her from the restless handful of moments her eyes had managed to slide shut, her body heavy against the loamy earth of the plains. Her night had been spent trekking towards a sliver of the Oasis that splintered nearest to the border of desert and grassland, and she might’ve returned to their meeting place sooner, were it not for a rare, impossible encounter; a brush with familiarity. She’d paced her limbs ragged, sweat sluicing down her spine by the time she returned to the narrow valley bordering Delumine, her trembling body hidden within a fringe of rare trees. Her intent to witness Avallac’h’s midnight behavior was forgotten, the plan stamped to ash by the errant thoughts that blundered, rampant, through her mind.
It was all she could do to contain her breath and to lasso the wild things that threatened to devour her. When she’d at last fallen asleep, her bicolored hair a mess around her heavy head, the moment between resting and waking had been as swift as a blink.
She was exhausted, her hoary eyes haggard, but it hadn’t stopped her from gathering her legs beneath her with urgency. When she’d found Avallac’h, not far from where they’d parted the day before, she had hardly spoken a word beyond gesturing for him to lead onward. Heedless of what shadows of memory awaited her in the forest, if any, she needed to know—she would know.
And she would possess the tiny facets of joy that rarely accompanied the scent of bark or the rustle of branches. That was all she thought of as they entered the woodland, the satire of her antics the night prior drained away.
Viride Forest, as it happened, was not the spread of pale yellow birch that she had hoped for. It was not full of the nuances that had filled her thoughts with rare, begrudgingly precious gems since awakening from within the tomb—and they were certainly not the trees that had accompanied her throughout a decade within a stasis. The disappointment wafted from her in waves of discontent, the bitter tang a constant accompaniment to her purposeless steps. She followed Avallac’h, never betraying (at least in words) that she hadn’t found what she’d wanted.
Forget it had been her brusque instruction the day prior. So far, he had stayed true to her request—her command. Whether he continued to do so, she couldn’t be sure.
And though she presently lacked the vigor to care through the haze of her exhaustion, she knew she would give him even a grain of truth unless he offered her the same in return.
For now, she only walked—a stubborn, aimless streak of sunlight within the winding paths of the forest, as silent as a ghoul, as misplaced as a horned snake upon the mossy bed of a forest floor.
The trove she sought to unearth was not here. And yet still, she pressed onward.
The longing never faded, the purpose never ebbed, and the forest—much as the one in her dreams—felt endless. By the time they came upon a narrow clearing, meticulously cared for, she was deaf to all but the lilting song of her heart that beckoned her ever onward, filled to the brim with a permeating sense of solitude. The ache of emptiness cut deeply into her heart, her fatigue overwhelmed by the bitter ire of feeling.
This was not the forest of her dreams, and yet—
And yet the branches seemed to rustle with whispers where she’d paused, having drifted a few strides from her companion’s side (though she hadn’t been companionable to begin with).
The grass was friendly, even to a woman such as she, and it tickled her fetlocks with knowingness. The cupping hand of the wind guided the tilt of her jaw to look down a tunneled path, stretching forth endlessly with its spirals and forks, as kempt as it was wild.
Do you hear them?
The scarred black of her lip curled slightly, her hoof suspended in the air. The darkness of the tombs had convinced her of madness—she would not let this forest do the same.
And yet…
They’re only the voices of the lost. Some say they only sing to those who are also lost.
She hated that the ache within her chest grew like a bloom, its branches winding through her ribs, its seed burrowing within her heart. She hated that she stepped forward, more a girl compelled by a fairytale than a woman beholden to the sun.
She hated that she tilted her head towards Avallac’h, her body drawn to the path, her hooves sinking upon the soft dirt of its threshold.
"Avallac'h," she called.
Since their meeting a day prior, her voice was finally soft.
“Did you hear that?”
If he had, perhaps it would mean that he was lost, too; it would mean, for that singular variable, she was not alone.
