—
It is not for himself that he comes to the tree.
When he learned of it, overheard chatter in a dim drinking hall, at first he wanted to scoff. Every detail sounded false, every piece like something from a story made real. A myth for children - except they were not children who spoke of it. And there was nothing childlike in their speculation, and awe, and fear when they spoke of its leaves and trunk and the grass that surrounded it and most of all what it meant.
The gods in this world, it seemed, were not so quiet (so dead) as his own.
The unicorn listened to their conversation until his drink was empty and his head was certain. Every feature, so fabulous and strange, whispered of her, her, her. When he slipped from the bar it was evening, still heavy and warm from the day, and he turned north and began to walk. There was a long way to go.
Days have passed when he at last reaches the prairie. His legs ache, but he is no stranger to a many-days march. Sometimes he walked beside others, speaking only enough to be considered friendly, listening much. Sometimes he bedded down in groves of aspen or spruce, beside a lake or a brook or a meandering river. And over and over his hooves struck to the same rhythm, Isra, Isra, Isra.
Dawn is going to day when he walks the final meters to the glittering trunk, and the shadow of the crown falls over him like water-light. It is both very beautiful, and very strange - a cathedral full of ghosts. The grass is as golden as those two men had said, and the flowers as blood-red. Neither betray that others have been there before, though there are paths worn through the rest of the prairie already, a great web that leads here.
But she is not.
There is nothing in him but a new weariness, and that new hollow ache. The bay stallion tilts back his head and looks up at the branches, where no bird has dared to land. Garlands of leaves tumble like windchimes, and the wind sings softly through them and the grass. Bruise-blue shadows shift and twist and become dazzling light. It all screams of Isra - sand turned to glass, nature to godhood, story to story to story unending. It should open his heart but it remains closed as tightly as a fist, a heavy bit of flint in his chest, waiting for the right time to burn.
He knows she was here.
He does not know that he is following her ghost when he, too, lies down in the golden grass, and presses his cheek against the twilight bark. It is cold, like glass, and rough-textured like any natural, gnarled oak. And he presses harder and harder against those edges until he cuts himself, and bleeds.
@na
When he learned of it, overheard chatter in a dim drinking hall, at first he wanted to scoff. Every detail sounded false, every piece like something from a story made real. A myth for children - except they were not children who spoke of it. And there was nothing childlike in their speculation, and awe, and fear when they spoke of its leaves and trunk and the grass that surrounded it and most of all what it meant.
The gods in this world, it seemed, were not so quiet (so dead) as his own.
The unicorn listened to their conversation until his drink was empty and his head was certain. Every feature, so fabulous and strange, whispered of her, her, her. When he slipped from the bar it was evening, still heavy and warm from the day, and he turned north and began to walk. There was a long way to go.
Days have passed when he at last reaches the prairie. His legs ache, but he is no stranger to a many-days march. Sometimes he walked beside others, speaking only enough to be considered friendly, listening much. Sometimes he bedded down in groves of aspen or spruce, beside a lake or a brook or a meandering river. And over and over his hooves struck to the same rhythm, Isra, Isra, Isra.
Dawn is going to day when he walks the final meters to the glittering trunk, and the shadow of the crown falls over him like water-light. It is both very beautiful, and very strange - a cathedral full of ghosts. The grass is as golden as those two men had said, and the flowers as blood-red. Neither betray that others have been there before, though there are paths worn through the rest of the prairie already, a great web that leads here.
But she is not.
There is nothing in him but a new weariness, and that new hollow ache. The bay stallion tilts back his head and looks up at the branches, where no bird has dared to land. Garlands of leaves tumble like windchimes, and the wind sings softly through them and the grass. Bruise-blue shadows shift and twist and become dazzling light. It all screams of Isra - sand turned to glass, nature to godhood, story to story to story unending. It should open his heart but it remains closed as tightly as a fist, a heavy bit of flint in his chest, waiting for the right time to burn.
He knows she was here.
He does not know that he is following her ghost when he, too, lies down in the golden grass, and presses his cheek against the twilight bark. It is cold, like glass, and rough-textured like any natural, gnarled oak. And he presses harder and harder against those edges until he cuts himself, and bleeds.
@na
***STAFF EDIT
@griffin has been sent +100 signos!
@martell has been awarded +1EXP!
