(In the beginning, there was nothing.
In the beginning, there was a cluster of cells.
There was nothing that indicated life, and when the palomino queen miscarried she only mourned for a brief while, and then she was pregnant again (with the boy who would ultimately be her downfall, but that’s a story for another time). She forgot about the thing left on the sand, the creation that had not lived.
So when Graveling awoke, she was a ghost, and for years, she watched them – her mother (who did not live too long), her brother (who lived entirely too long), and her father.
There was a shift as a new realm opened up, created by the dark god’s magic and the ingenuity of those who partook in his quest. Graveling was able to solidify – not entirely, but somewhat. Suddenly, there were others.)
Although she is old, her new body – the one she was rocketed into as the new realm was birthed – is that of a foal. She is not used to doing anything but watching, and now she is made to move about, to exist in a new state.
She is adopted, in a way, by a dark woman named Gail. Gail is much more solid than Graveling, and it is strangely comforting. It isn’t long before she calls her mother.
Sometimes she finds Gail watching, staring out at the gray shores.
“They’ll come back,” Gail murmurs to herself, “they’ll come back, they can’t stay away.”
Gail does not speak over much of her past, and Graveling doesn’t ask. She has enough stories in her heart as she watched her family’s lives unfold and end – at each other’s hands, at the sea, by a virus winding its way through the bloodstream.
She looks for them in the realm, sometimes, and thinks she sees glimpses of them, but when she runs towards the figures they are gone, like will-o’-the-wisps, ghost lights leading her astray.
She asks Gail about her family, sometimes, but Gail didn’t know them. There’s a tangential relation there, a frayed rope of kinship, but not enough for Gail or know (or particularly care) about Graveling’s family.
She asks about Gail’s family, but Gail does not share much. She mentions a few children, and Graveling even meets a few. Atrocity, the first, who is strange and uncomfortable. Shiv, one of the last, who makes Gail visibly uncomfortable and does not visit long.
She learns in this realm she cannot watch them as she once did. This land is more permanent.
They’ll come back, Gail had said, but Graveling doesn’t know who she speaks of.
.
graveling
the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out