Winter is the only season Lyr belongs to. The thin light strains through the trees; he haunts the forest as a phantom would, as a ghost, with the memory of—
The memory of what?
And as he thinks he, he knows.
He haunts Viride with the memory of love. He can hear Capella laughing; the high, bright laughter of childhood and joy. Lyr feels—with the weak grey light and the whisper of the trees creating an aura of mystery—that his younger sister could be around the next corner, nestled down into a grove of roots.
Find me, Lyr.
I know you can.
The snow, too, would offer sufficient shelter, or hiding—
But Lyr knows she is not here, in the forest, where as children they had played.
He trudges on, past the imagined sound of laughter, and deeper into the shrouded trees. All of Delumine had held, for him, a certain shrouded mystery—his mother had always called it nuanced, and poetic, unlike the violent beauty of the other courts. Gentle, she would say of the trees, and the fields, and the ivy-covered city. But Lyr had learned otherwise when finding carcasses of deer and elk within the tree, strangled with fungi and creeping vines.
This morning, everything is shrouded as if with a bride’s veil. Fragments of snow and ice fall whimsically from the naked branches above, or the evergreen’s frosted tips.
Lyr does not know what he is looking for, or how long he looks. Only that he is searching for some truth—if not of his childhood, than of himself—and he passes time this way infinitely, as if many days are contained within one before—
Well, before he sees the cottage.
Too yellow, too blue. Colours that seem affronting and strange set back against the natural surroundings. Lyr’s brows furrow; and he steps closer just as the door creaks eerily in the wind again.
Yet Yarrow is already gone.
The wind whips it; open, closed, a creaking, groaning beast. Abandoned. Or dead. It does not take him long to discover the circular tracks in the snow that then grow haphazard and almost panicked; fleeing.
Lyr recognises the panic; the disarray in the tracks.
He recognises it in the same way that he will dream forevermore of the Far North, and the way the forgotten gods had winked like dying stars up in a too-close sky. How one had reached down, perhaps, with one mighty clawed hand and—
Anyways,
that is a dream, he thinks. Or a memory belonging to yet another man.
And how many men are you, Lyr? he asks himself, as he begins a dogged pursuit of the tracks in the snow. He traces them as they disturb the winter purity of the forest; as they scuffle through deeper banks and shallow hills, beneath trees and through an open field. At times, the trail grows scrambled and messy instead of the clean marks of an open run where whoever it was must have fallen, or stumbled.
Conditioned as he is, Lyr does not break a sweat in the cool winter morning. His breath only comes in a more rapid rhythm; a long drawn inhale and powerful exhale, like the telltale ticking of a clock given life. It is a long time before he finds her; and even then, Lyr does not at first recognise her as a girl.
No, her colouring is subtle in this dismal landscape of brown and white. Against the tree, she becomes it; and Lyr turns almost too late to see her. He might have assumed her trail dropped clean out fo the woods and excused it as something magical, as something cursed—
Perhaps, he decides, that is not so far from the actuality.
“H-hello…” he says, very softly. Nevertheless, his voice sounds booming in the forest; nearly unnatural. “Are you… alright?”
She looks touched by a god-thing, with the flowers that bloom from her face. At the sight of the deformity, a solid pit of panic forms itself in Lyr’s chest; but he does not turn away.
He cannot yet decide if this seems more a dream, or a nightmare. “What… were you running from?”
"Speech." || @Yarrow
The memory of what?
And as he thinks he, he knows.
He haunts Viride with the memory of love. He can hear Capella laughing; the high, bright laughter of childhood and joy. Lyr feels—with the weak grey light and the whisper of the trees creating an aura of mystery—that his younger sister could be around the next corner, nestled down into a grove of roots.
Find me, Lyr.
I know you can.
The snow, too, would offer sufficient shelter, or hiding—
But Lyr knows she is not here, in the forest, where as children they had played.
He trudges on, past the imagined sound of laughter, and deeper into the shrouded trees. All of Delumine had held, for him, a certain shrouded mystery—his mother had always called it nuanced, and poetic, unlike the violent beauty of the other courts. Gentle, she would say of the trees, and the fields, and the ivy-covered city. But Lyr had learned otherwise when finding carcasses of deer and elk within the tree, strangled with fungi and creeping vines.
This morning, everything is shrouded as if with a bride’s veil. Fragments of snow and ice fall whimsically from the naked branches above, or the evergreen’s frosted tips.
Lyr does not know what he is looking for, or how long he looks. Only that he is searching for some truth—if not of his childhood, than of himself—and he passes time this way infinitely, as if many days are contained within one before—
Well, before he sees the cottage.
Too yellow, too blue. Colours that seem affronting and strange set back against the natural surroundings. Lyr’s brows furrow; and he steps closer just as the door creaks eerily in the wind again.
Yet Yarrow is already gone.
The wind whips it; open, closed, a creaking, groaning beast. Abandoned. Or dead. It does not take him long to discover the circular tracks in the snow that then grow haphazard and almost panicked; fleeing.
Lyr recognises the panic; the disarray in the tracks.
He recognises it in the same way that he will dream forevermore of the Far North, and the way the forgotten gods had winked like dying stars up in a too-close sky. How one had reached down, perhaps, with one mighty clawed hand and—
Anyways,
that is a dream, he thinks. Or a memory belonging to yet another man.
And how many men are you, Lyr? he asks himself, as he begins a dogged pursuit of the tracks in the snow. He traces them as they disturb the winter purity of the forest; as they scuffle through deeper banks and shallow hills, beneath trees and through an open field. At times, the trail grows scrambled and messy instead of the clean marks of an open run where whoever it was must have fallen, or stumbled.
Conditioned as he is, Lyr does not break a sweat in the cool winter morning. His breath only comes in a more rapid rhythm; a long drawn inhale and powerful exhale, like the telltale ticking of a clock given life. It is a long time before he finds her; and even then, Lyr does not at first recognise her as a girl.
No, her colouring is subtle in this dismal landscape of brown and white. Against the tree, she becomes it; and Lyr turns almost too late to see her. He might have assumed her trail dropped clean out fo the woods and excused it as something magical, as something cursed—
Perhaps, he decides, that is not so far from the actuality.
She looks touched by a god-thing, with the flowers that bloom from her face. At the sight of the deformity, a solid pit of panic forms itself in Lyr’s chest; but he does not turn away.
He cannot yet decide if this seems more a dream, or a nightmare. “What… were you running from?”
"Speech." || @
i know i am damned for the pyre
no matter how bright you glow when you call for me
