how much heartache can we take?

The shadows are much darker here, colder. The way they wrap themselves like enticing tendrils, wanton against me, like gnarled fingers hooking into all my cracks and crevasses, whispering promises to take my broken parts and make them whole, the darkness always finds a way to seep into the gaps, filling my core with a coldness, a doubt that seems to stretch over my bones, close like skin. My hazel eyes, they star out, up into the distance of the tree spires. I'm strewn across the loam, beneath the splintered bark and conifers. Gorse and brambles knot my mane, my tail. I stay silent for a moment, listening to the gentle autumn breeze, lull, whispering in the treetops.

It's happening again. I stir, I wake. Knee knocking into oneanother as I rise, transitively at first, so flinty hooves break the soil and I emerge from the shadows a chocolate form, silvery tresses falling in knots over my hollow eyes. I have found the field, again. Woken in the confines of the terrain, with no memory of how I had gotten here. The nightmares, they take me places, the shadows, they drive me out of the safety of the Gates, to make me fall victim, to make me weak, weaker even.

My pace is a dawdle, each hoof stepping in a mechanical rhythm. Not breaking the cadence that breaks the myriad of browns and oranges at my feet. I wander the outskirts, silvery tail whipping at my hocks. My thin frame was no loner emaciated, but still holds the scars, always the scars. Even Jason's magic could not take away the taint of the memory, the haunting of the scars. If only I could try, try and find out why, why the shadows chase me, why the nightmares unleash the beasts within. I even feel them now, claws and talons scratching at those closed doors. If only I could find the way to open them.

Hollowed eyes, walnuts and pecan, glass-like, like the reflections of the river in the height of the sun's light. They find the stranger first, and then my ears flicker, listening. The sound of her breathing, it fills me with a new feeling. The gentle beat of a heart caged within, it thrums against me, like my own thuds, thuds against my ribs. The feeling, the rhythm, it pushes me on and on, until I stand just before her. 'Hello.' my tongue feels stuck against the roof of my mouth, swollen with the urge for words, but like the caw of the birds in the trees, they, and I, fall silent.

There is a delicate whimsy, in the way my head sways, my body like a leaf, lost in the autumn breeze. I bend, I break. My chocolate skin, mottled with burrs, twitches against the flies, as I pull my gaze from the strange mare to the direction of the Gates. Home. Home, where it is safe, safe. 'Ghosts wander. In search of lost things, in search of home. Home. Are you looking for a home?'

Ghosts. They chase me, haunt me, over and over. And yet I am drawn to them like moth to flame. The twist of a smile pulls at my lips, curt, cruel almost in the way that teeth and flesh declare what is meant to be a gentle offering. I soon decide against it, and remain a mask of indifference. Watching the pallid mare with a curious eye, and a throbbing tongue.

R E U E N

how much heartache can we take?

Scarlet filigree, tainted wounds, I know them, I feel them even now, as I glance over the pale mare's frame. She stretches bone white, and there, there are the waves of blood, rivulets of crimson that run on, and on. I feel my own scars, the thick ridges burning now, a memory, the pain. It seems long ago that I had stumbled upon the Gates, a flurry of perspiration and blood, of iron lungs and leaden limbs. My head tilts to the right, walnut eyes observing quietly, knitting together the picture of the grey mare. If there were a mirror, a gentle reflection of what I had have looked like. I am sure, I am almost certain, that I would quiver, bend and bow to my knees and wish for eternal sleep. If only, if only I could recall them, and how, the how. It is always the how, and the why, but never the when.

Twisted chocolate ears get lost in the creamy mounds of silver mane, lost within the knots of twigs and burrs of autumn's reign. They listen, gently quivering against her voice. She speaks of trees, of roots and my walnut eyes glisten, alight with a sliver of memory. The Gates, they were gloriously verdant in colour, many, many trees and seeds. They burrow into the soil, like wildflowers and mint, they grow and they grow just like the mother tree. they were all seeds once, we were all seeds once. 'Home.' I say, the word capturing my lips with a soft caress. Her quiet discontent made me feel as though, as though there were many things underneath the surface. Bone deep, sinew torn. I quiver, the very memory of blood, of fire and hate, of ash and ruin. It violates my peaceful mind for now, and I stand there, idling. Whispering nothing, and yet everything.

My eyelids close, breaching the world. I see them, the cuts, so deep that the red torrents like wine, down my ribcage, my shoulders, my neck. the ground is cool and yet throbs with life beneath. Runs red with the blood of many, ash from the cinders that fall like snow. I quiver, every inch of my skin a knot and a never-ending puzzle. I sit and explore, piecing together and together until I get some form of a picture and then they all fall to the floor and i'm left trying to decipher them over and over.

I pull my attention back to the pale mare. Wandering eyes meeting hers, burning, burning into her with an intensity that rivals the sun above, the harsh winter around the corner. 'Home. The Gates are Home.' I say once again, faded, broken and clipped. 'Seeds are sown, and trees grow. Many, many trees.' a purposeful paw at the moist earth, drawing a sense of knowing from the mother earth below. I inhale, breathing in the life of autumn, the life of the newcomer. 'You chop, you pull and you tear, but they always grow back. Given time, given time.' Gentle, gentle. My words slip and fall, gracing the air with wisps and fragments of all that I know, all that I see. But broken little girls, they see much and yet do not comprehend what it means. I see much, broken and fragmented and I piece them together in my own way.

'I am Reuen. Ruin. Reuen.' Because even though Mast and Jason, Wichita and Fiasko say, they call me gentle, they call me friend. I know, I know deep down I am ruin, I am ruined and ruin. The red eyes of my nightmare plague me, chase me, whisper sweet nothings in my ear, and over and over again, I am ruin. I cause the ruin, the pain. The throbbing scars torn over my thin frame, they are because of me, I know it, I know it.

'Who is the ghost, that bleeds, that haunts? Who is the ghost that wanders with eyes like glass?' because ghosts need places to haunt, they need an existence to live, to dwell. I step forward, closer, closer, audaciously so, extending my patchy scarred muzzle to the girl. Offering a gentle hand if there ever was one, in the darkness and in the light. I throw her that rope, that falls and falls into the eternal pit of blackness. 'The Gates can save you, like they saved me. They are safe. Safe.'

R E U E N

how much heartache can we take?

Broken pieces were never easy to fix. I have spent the year, nearly two in Beqanna, sorting through the blank expanse of my mind. Standing in the derelict room, arms outstretched, trying to claw at any fragile memory, trying in a vain attempt to clutch at even a wisp of what once was. All I know is fire. The burning, the ash. And blood. It was always the blood, wet and Crimson, worn burgundy against my cocoa coloured skin. The dark eyes, ever watchful, they peer at me from within, dark tendrils wrapping delicately around my neck and pulling, suffocating. Fingers bearing down upon my eyes, my face, scratching at the soft, fleshy scars, attempting to tear me open once more.

It's those dark eyes that I feel, swallowing me whole, refusing to chew at my tough flesh and flimsy bone. The chill in the air freezes me to the very core. Winter's harsh kiss upon my pelt, my bones. I turn my head, away from Elowen to the source. Grey and ghoulish, he plucks at my memories like a broken violin. A terribly painful serenade berating my ears. 'Cold. Cold like death's embrace.' I remember the ice, it felt as though it had been dragged through every vein of mine, filled my lungs, my heart, my very life's essence. I had tasted the bittersweet twang of death, I had it within my grasp. But someone, deadened eyes, heavy burden of deadened weight, he had saved me. Told me to run. And run I did.

My trembling worsens, my knees knock and my hocks shift uncomfortable beneath my fragile form. I slip against the ice that taints the loam, flinty hooves knocking at the ice. My hollow walnut eyes find him, they glance him in scraps of view. He is mirrored by the ice, as it dances like wispy fingers, cold, cruel. I shiver, against the ice, against the pain that drives through my body like rivulets of iron.

These are games. Games that have no winner, but take many pawns. I shake my head, silvered tresses falling in knotted ribbons over my eyes as I feel the grip tighten around me. There's nothing there, but in frozen in place. Fear, fear's henchman. He keeps me against my will, and forces me to watch as teeth glide against the newcomer.

'Safe. No where is safe.' my words fall, clumsily like glass shards from my trembling lips. I move, it feels rigid, as though iron and lead keep me in place. I thrash my head, crown rampant in its ferocity. Wild eyes find another, a bird, a bird. She swoops down and is upon us, equine form within moments.

The flashes come then, cold, ice beating down upon me to the point my knees buckle and I collapse. There is nothing there. Except the shadows, the thousand eyes staring me down. The cruel words whispering in my ear. Walnut eyes find the grey steed, the creator, the king of the frost bitten pain. I quiver, like a forgotten leaf upon the ground, silent, dead silent.

My throat throbs, stuck and swollen. Words cannot form, lungs find it difficult to expand. The coloured mare, she is iron will, wildfire against Cruel ice, and all I can do is watch, helpless, frozen in place by nothing but fear, dread. It fills me with a burdensome weight.

The slivers of hope, they tumble at my feet and blow away in the wind, and like some broken up child, reaching for them, they slip through my fingers. Lost.

'Not safe. Not safe.'

R E U E N