I knew well how tricky the island could be, how dangerous. How the more benign it appeared, the more it was hiding. I almost died there once. I’m certain I would have if it were not for Furfur and the cloaked (and daggered) stranger. In another of the island’s variations I saw my death played out in many ways, most of them unpleasant. This time, I knew, was different. This time I was more adult than child. I stood tall, lean and sharp as a scythe, my horn pointed straight and certain to the center of the island. I was the arrow that knows its target before the bow is even drawn. I knew my destination.
I was going for the heart.
Furfur and I were both restless and eager, spurred by some strange drive both of us felt keenly but could not define. Despite this we crossed the bridge at a walk, self-restraint clear by the tension knotted in our shoulders. I knew this was a thing that should not be rushed. Water dripped from the ceiling of the massive cave, rhythmic and lulling, a subterranean music that could drive someone mad if they stayed and listened too long. I felt compelled to sing, to speak, to scream-- anything to drown out the weeping walls. I held my silence, and we passed through in peace.
The outskirts of the city were eerily still. The wind managed to touch without touching- I felt its caress on my cheek but my long mane was not stirred. Even the dust remained still where it lay, stagnant in its corners and alleyways. My magic was stronger now than the last time I was here. It leaned into the stone walls and the walls leaned back, straining against their nature. A younger Aspara would have stayed and listened. She would have coaxed the stories from the walls, and then she would have walked among the abandoned marketplace and listened to each and every story of each and every ware. I’m certain she would have learned a lot about this place, but when she left she would still feel empty and unfulfilled. Like a cup with a hole at the bottom, filled with water but never able to sustain it.
Good thing I was older and my soft edges had begun to harden and sharpen. I paid no mind to the meandering alleyways that beckoned to my sense of adventure. I sent Furfur ahead to scout out the glowing castle that loomed watchful and terrible as the stories I’d heard of dragons. The bad kind of dragons, not like Fable. (at that time I still saw things as good and evil. I had begun to see the true nature of things, but I did not yet understand what it was I saw.) As he silently loped ahead, I followed slow and steady, head low and swinging gently back and forth like the hangman’s noose.
The massive doorway stood open and gaping, a hungry mouth leading to a dark and welcoming gullet. The heart would be someplace beyond. If I closed my eyes I think I could have felt its pulse, echoing from deep within the stone. Did it know I was coming?
I think so.
I did not pause or hesitate or linger. I passed the threshold, into the great entryway, and only when I was inside did I stop. A lush red carpet swallowed the plod of my steps. “Furfur?” When I prodded the darkness with my thoughts, I had the strange feeling that the castle was listening to me. Then, when my wolf did not respond, I had the shuddering thought that it was laughing.
I was angry. I placed my horn to the velvet carpet and I asked it, with the strength of a demand, “Where is my wolf.” It shivered and buckled, reaching for me then away, away, away, its grains shifting like sea grass to point deeper into the keep.
open to any!
