The forest rose like a dream
from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter
and the sun fell heavy and thick
In a strange way, she is the only thing in this realm of darkness that is familiar. It is her shape, if nothing else: she looks like a girl, like a unicorn, and in a land of magic her spiral horn is the foil to his Pegasi wings. The darkness, to him, is hostile; the ancient wood; the whispering trees. The entire forest sways and creaks with a rhythm like the sea, and nothing like the sea. Not even the ground does not seem firm beneath his feet, even as he stands. You should not ask me to stay. Perhaps if he were older, wiser, he would recognize the note of danger in her voice. The way those simple words manifest more threateningly than the howling of wind through any hollow tree. Still, Aeneas draws nearer; hopefully nearer; the foolish fly that sees the spider and wonders, salvation?
Aeneas is no fool, however, despite his naivety; as her magic clamors loudly in her mind, so too does his. The answer is bright red; he glows the color of a slit throat, pulsating, furious. The forest becomes awash in it, in his growing desperation, and with a strange suddenness the pine needles from the evergreen above begin to turn yellow and fall in a quiet rain.
What—she begins, and then amends: Who do you think I am?
“Who?” he repeats, almost dumbly.
It doesn’t make sense to him. But he draws nearer still; the darkness, bathed in his eerie red glow, does not seem quite so threatening. She is dark, too, and mottled with a lightness like a blanket of snow. He is almost near enough to touch her; but the pine needles continue to rain down, and the energy around him is volatile, nearly explosive, with his fear.
“If—if I am going off the fables—“ his voice is needle-thin, and high, and seems the only sound outside the wind and his thrumming heart. “Then you must be my saving spirit. My guardian angel. I was alone, and you found me.”
Why is his mouth so dry?
Why is he still so afraid?
to warm the blood of a world
not quite ready to live
but so tired of its own imagination
