HERE IS THE HOUR THAT HAS FORGOTTEN THE MINUTE
though the minnow remembers the stream.
He could go around the lake, or spread his wings and fly over it.
He does not do either.
He wades into the murky water, gold-dark fibers of his long hair spreading out like a bloom on the surface; the ripples lap at the pale half-moons of my hooves buried in the bank below, not quite hungry. I watch the water part around him as he moves, perfectly still. The forest is changing, now, growing darker with each passing second, and the air around me seems to tremble with tension. (I have been the wind; I know how it feels to tremble.) There is a low sound, like a growl, barely perceptible. I breathe in the grey haze, and it feels wet against my nose.
He emerges from the water, thin streams of green running like vines down his sides; I think that it would look better if they were real ones. (I can almost see him with vines and leaves strewn about his antlers, like a deer gone through a thicket.) He is near as tall as me, but not quite, and his eyes put me, somehow, in mind of the reflective gold as a speckled forest cat, prowling in the undergrowth. (I do not think that he has the teeth to match.) Those eyes linger on me, terribly intent, but I do not shy away from his stare.
“No. Most prefer it, and I assumed you might, but…have you ever seen a storm?
“I haven’t,” I breathe. I haven’t ever, I nearly say, in all of my many lifetimes – but somehow I don’t think that I need to. It isn’t that he knows. How could he?
(A memory, faint, knocks at the door of my mind – it is sepia-tone and crisp around the edges, like old paper. In it, a man with golden laurels woven into his mane is watching me, but I can’t see his eyes, so I don’t know how. “No one will ever know what you aren’t willing to tell them,” he says, but with my name; I no longer recall it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I know that I was sorry, when I said it, but I no longer recall what I was apologizing for.)
“Come. Let me show you something wonderful and then, if you still wish for shelter, then I will give it to you.”
Regardless. What is the difference between never, in all my lifetimes, and never, now? Two angles converge on the same point. His lips curve a smirk, and he tells me that he’ll show me something wonderful, and I know without thought or hesitation that I will follow where he leads.
It’s foolish, probably. I should know better than most not to go chasing after forest things – golden-eyed spirits and whispered winds will always lead you astray. I know this. I remember chasing after the dead, in the past; I remember trying to catch my mother, the cat, or my sister, the owl. They only led me into thickets, into the deepest and darkest parts of the Woods, where we do not go on principle.
(Golden-laurels shakes his head. His mane falls in his eyes, and I could laugh at the memory; his hair reminds me, somehow, of mine. “I know that you are grieving, but…”
“There is no death,” I say, and even through the indistinct haze of memory, even though I feel that I am hearing it through water, I know that my voice sounds a bit colder than usual.
“There is no death,” he repeats, “but that does not mean that there is no grief.”
He is wise, he is wise, he has always been so wise - I can almost remember his name, sometimes. Wise, but heavy. I think that he told me that I needed to value myself more, and I think that I laughed, and I told him the same. My shoulder pressed to his; wishing I could take the world off him. I was reckless for the things I loved, and for myself, and I still am.
He was reckless because it was his duty to be.)
I have never hesitated to chase after wisps or ghosts. And whatever he is – he is neither.
He passes me by – but not for long.
I turn on my heels and chase after him through the brush, following unseen paths through the bleak darkness and perpetual green of the wood; I am running blind, but I know that he isn’t. The ground spins beneath my hooves. The air is colder now, bitten by sudden chill, and the wind works through my feathers, tears through my chestnut hair-
When we bound out of the cover of trees and into the meadow, it streams behind me, as violent-copper-bright as tongues of flame. The wind weaves it behind me; it dances like a blaze, even as the storm comes in.
The sky is magnificently grey, coated in thick clouds. There is a brief, magical moment before it reaches us – I can see droplets of water tumbling down from the sky, less like tears than droplets of murky water shaken from the fur of a bear, just as he ambles out onto the riverbank. I breathe in deep of the air, which is thick with moisture and still humming, and I embrace the way that the temperature has dropped, a growing cold that I have never experienced before.
“Oh, it’s-“ I gasp out, stumbling over my words, “beautiful, or maybe-“ Beautiful seems like the wrong word. As the water reaches us, streaming down on my skin, fighting with the wind tangles of my chestnut hair, I can’t think that beautiful is the right word; it’s too weak for this. Not enough, and too soft. The water dribbles down my face, catching on my lashes, and somehow, I don’t want to shake it off. “Is this…rain?”
A flash of blue-violet streaks the sky. The earth rumbles to follow it. I stare at the aftermath, wide-eyed, my chest heaving like I’ve been running – and I have, but not enough to warrant it.
I look over at my companion, wild-eyed and somehow transcendent, like I have just been reborn again.
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"Speech!"
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
