Torielle
have you any
D R E A M S
you’d like to sell
IS
this what death feels like? Perhaps it is the worry of some; that death is a void, a never ending loop. A soul’s insanity. But if my soul had somehow moved forward, I should have felt something. At least, that’s what I would have to assume. After all, even when making small journeys, just the right jolt to your corporeal form would cause some response, if not simply snap you back into place. But in all your planes you’ve felt the passage of time, and yet here, there is nothing. The idea was startling, but not necessarily upsetting. My intuition, my love for Gaia, they settled the rolling feeling in my abdomen. This place was some kind of in-between, of that I was sure. I seemed to step through endless stars, balancing on the unseen and my footing sure as could be in the vastness, always towards a soft glow on the horizon. Its distance from me changed imperceptibly, and it was this that sparked the thought that perhaps instead of lifting me to greater understanding, my earth mother had freed me from all earthly things. After all, I felt no pain, no hunger, no thirst, and no weariness to my bones. Perhaps this journey is to teach you patience, young one. Patience is key to fullness of understanding, and to a greater love of all things. It was my distraction with this train of thought, almost like a meditation, that I failed to notice that I had been getting closer to my goal on the horizon. The soft light gradually filled the void space around me, populating it at first with sparse trees of coarse grey bark, tall as can be. As my steps took me further, the trees thickened, gaining individual personality, shape, varying hues of grey. Their branches twisted around each other like lovers, and I knew that in full splendor they were rich with leaves that would leave a thick canopy of shade, filtering a green dappled glow at mid-sun. There were remnants of bushes and foliage, curled upon themselves for the winter had settled a thick blanket of snow upon the land.
I had an urge to turn my head to look behind me, but I shook it with a twitch of my flank. I knew that the void would have faded with each step, and even if I had wanted to return to the in-between, I would be unable to. My audits flicked, listening to the silence of the forest around me, my pistons coming to a slow stop, reveling in the thick sound of days old snow crushed under-hoof. I had not realized how temperate the void space had been until I noticed the plume of warmth curling into the air from my nares as I breathed. My pelt twitched again, and the soft pressure of planes travel slowly faded, replaced by the brisk touch of the early morning atmosphere.
I saw to my left flank the sky fading to a soft lilac hue. That must be the east, and sunrise a short time away. Though the chill was beginning to seep into the silver I wore upon my neck, a small smile graced my lips. Sunrise and moonrise were perhaps my two favorite things to observe, and where better than a quiet forest muffled in snow?
It never failed to awe me how much snow could affect the environment around it. Not only could it dust any surface with glittering beauty, but it brought a stillness to the world wherever it went. Both in a literal and figurative sense. Snow, when either falling or when gathered in copious amounts did wonders to dampen sound. Some would say they could go mad surrounded by a snowy landscape, and I suppose that could be right. If the mind was unused to such measured stillness it could be rather unsettling. What sound was produced never traveled very far and always seemed just a touch warped, as if the snow itself wanted to hush your movements. And yet, there was a deep allure, a calm that brought troubled minds to seek beautiful spaces with thick blankets of it. I firmly believed that Gaia brought forth snow to provide others with a place of quiet contemplation. A place where they could whisper all their secrets and know they would be kept safe, and all their troubles would melt away with the coming dawn and that they would be free. What an exhilarating thought.
My pelt shivered once more, but less from the cold and more from excitement. My silver made a soft tinkling, as if fairies laughing with agreement, delighted by the thought. Something told me deep in my gut that I would be witnessing a most beautiful sunrise in a strange new land that could offer me the beginning of everything. The quiet determination that had settled in my gut flared with a bright new life. Gaia had brought me here to teach me all that I had asked of her, and much, much more.
”Shall we?” I breathed with merriment as I oriented towards the coming sunrise and set course for a clear view of what was sure to be a spectacular sight.
"SPEAKS" THINKS | @
