11-17-2019, 06:58 PM
It was always going to be like this.
Perhaps she had known it, perhaps she hadn't believed the truth or the lie of it strongly enough. Perhaps it was the Magic of the scarred mare that had intercepted her belief. Two Red Mares steps forward into the water confident that they will cross, and two Red Mares are swept away and under simultaneously into the fever dream of this mpossible river, carried along by the current towards the falls.
Red Mare does not gasp, she is too resolute for that. There is no pang in her lungs, her lungs do not seek to breathe, they are no more than dust somewhere far away. It has been decades since her cracked hooves settled against solid ground, decades of dreamless black slumber. When the crushing water barrels her against rocks and debris scattered across the river bottom, the pain is like in a dream, a strange stiff twinge, an itch, even these things should be impossible but though the impact makes her grunt, makes her think she is hurt, when her body rolls away from each obstacle, the dream of pain is already something else.
Memory is funny like that. She remembers dreaming such dreams, cats on her back, wolves at her haunches, pain that had made her awaken with a shout, yet was already gone when her eyes flickered open. This is what the battering ram of water is like. There is a sense of fear, the stomach she does not have dropping when she teeters for as much time as it takes for her to say <I>Oh!</I> before hurtling over the precipice. There is a feeling of weightlessness, of drifting, and then she disappears, dashed against jagged rocks shaped by an eternity of water falling down upon them. She is wedged there, with her memories of bruises and her dreams of bones broken, crushed beneath the weight of so much water falling from so high, destroyed by the debris and the non-bodies of the horses that follow her because, try as they might, none could cross no matter their imagination.
And now, she cries, the salt of her tears diluted and washed away, but more real than anything else about her. <I>Emotion</I> crosses all borders, and Red Mare cannot stop the breathless wail that comes of finding herself stuck, trapped, wedged between rocks and incapable of escape. The crash of water, the press of it, she can remind herself it is less than real, but the fear of being trapped incites panic and she squeals and struggles and feels the grey stone grow more solid with every frenzied tug of her limbs. There is a sharpness to the pain in her leg and her eyes roll as the bone she doesn't have fractures. The falling water from above suddenly seems to grip her, to pull and twist and with a shudder she knows the limb is broken, with a gasp, she knows that this is the end, forgets that she had already faced it. Water rushes is and the world turns to smoke.
<I>Stupid</I>
She is weak, but the voice makes her eyes fly open. Peering through the swirling bubbles, a flash of red, her other self drifting, one rear leg snagged under rock, twisting in a way that makes her stomach turn. Is that what she looks like?
<I>Yes. You look stupid.</I>
That isn't what she mean--
<I>You forget yourself. There are no rocks, there is no you. You cannot break in this way.</I>
Their dark eyes meet across the distance and the little chestnut remembers. Dreams and memory. Her leg is not caught - <I>it cannot be caught</I> - it is not broken - <I>impossible</I> - her lungs are not full of water - <I>it would not matter if they were, she does not need breath.</I> She blinks and both mares are walking up the riverbank, favoring their right hinds as though injured, but obviously whole.
It is hard to remember right away. They cannot help but limp until they reach the side of the grullo mare and press twin muzzles to hers, blowing soft breath into her nostrils. The memory of breath. Both mares speak in unison.
"What are we to do? We are the same, there is no decision to be made." The decision to help, perhaps. She could simply refuse to return at all, to let the World crumble beneath the weight of the Living and the Returned.
"It isn't right, that the Dead are returning. They will overwhelm the whole world. I will go, I will help if I can."
Only one bright chestnut remains on the sandy shore.
Perhaps she had known it, perhaps she hadn't believed the truth or the lie of it strongly enough. Perhaps it was the Magic of the scarred mare that had intercepted her belief. Two Red Mares steps forward into the water confident that they will cross, and two Red Mares are swept away and under simultaneously into the fever dream of this mpossible river, carried along by the current towards the falls.
Red Mare does not gasp, she is too resolute for that. There is no pang in her lungs, her lungs do not seek to breathe, they are no more than dust somewhere far away. It has been decades since her cracked hooves settled against solid ground, decades of dreamless black slumber. When the crushing water barrels her against rocks and debris scattered across the river bottom, the pain is like in a dream, a strange stiff twinge, an itch, even these things should be impossible but though the impact makes her grunt, makes her think she is hurt, when her body rolls away from each obstacle, the dream of pain is already something else.
Memory is funny like that. She remembers dreaming such dreams, cats on her back, wolves at her haunches, pain that had made her awaken with a shout, yet was already gone when her eyes flickered open. This is what the battering ram of water is like. There is a sense of fear, the stomach she does not have dropping when she teeters for as much time as it takes for her to say <I>Oh!</I> before hurtling over the precipice. There is a feeling of weightlessness, of drifting, and then she disappears, dashed against jagged rocks shaped by an eternity of water falling down upon them. She is wedged there, with her memories of bruises and her dreams of bones broken, crushed beneath the weight of so much water falling from so high, destroyed by the debris and the non-bodies of the horses that follow her because, try as they might, none could cross no matter their imagination.
And now, she cries, the salt of her tears diluted and washed away, but more real than anything else about her. <I>Emotion</I> crosses all borders, and Red Mare cannot stop the breathless wail that comes of finding herself stuck, trapped, wedged between rocks and incapable of escape. The crash of water, the press of it, she can remind herself it is less than real, but the fear of being trapped incites panic and she squeals and struggles and feels the grey stone grow more solid with every frenzied tug of her limbs. There is a sharpness to the pain in her leg and her eyes roll as the bone she doesn't have fractures. The falling water from above suddenly seems to grip her, to pull and twist and with a shudder she knows the limb is broken, with a gasp, she knows that this is the end, forgets that she had already faced it. Water rushes is and the world turns to smoke.
<I>Stupid</I>
She is weak, but the voice makes her eyes fly open. Peering through the swirling bubbles, a flash of red, her other self drifting, one rear leg snagged under rock, twisting in a way that makes her stomach turn. Is that what she looks like?
<I>Yes. You look stupid.</I>
That isn't what she mean--
<I>You forget yourself. There are no rocks, there is no you. You cannot break in this way.</I>
Their dark eyes meet across the distance and the little chestnut remembers. Dreams and memory. Her leg is not caught - <I>it cannot be caught</I> - it is not broken - <I>impossible</I> - her lungs are not full of water - <I>it would not matter if they were, she does not need breath.</I> She blinks and both mares are walking up the riverbank, favoring their right hinds as though injured, but obviously whole.
It is hard to remember right away. They cannot help but limp until they reach the side of the grullo mare and press twin muzzles to hers, blowing soft breath into her nostrils. The memory of breath. Both mares speak in unison.
"What are we to do? We are the same, there is no decision to be made." The decision to help, perhaps. She could simply refuse to return at all, to let the World crumble beneath the weight of the Living and the Returned.
"It isn't right, that the Dead are returning. They will overwhelm the whole world. I will go, I will help if I can."
Only one bright chestnut remains on the sandy shore.