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Auto quest. - Nereza - 06-04-2021
“I love you.”
“Always?”
“Always.”
If her mother had been around, she would have warned her against believing in such promises. They were only ever destined to be broken—always did not mean forever. ‘Always’ only lasted so long as the promise-keeper cared enough to keep it. She would learn that soon enough.
They were two children orphaned together by circumstance. She found him before the Darkness lifted, weeks after a tiny little creature exploded and its glowing pink blood splatted across her face; it soaked into her skin as if she were a living sponge and then she, too, started to glow a brilliant white. Nereza thinks that was what attracted him to her. He had spent his entire colthood in darkness, starved for light—even his hide was as black as the world around them, but she liked that about him. When the Light came, he was a familiar shadow and she found just as much comfort in him as she did during the Long Night when the Monsters chased them.
Nereza never thought he would hurt her—but what is done in the Dark eventually comes to Light.
Sometimes Nereza would find dead things during their travels.
She thought nothing of this, of course. It was the Monsters who slaughtered those poor creatures. The fawn and the fox cubs, the rabbits, mice, and squirrels. Once, she grew suspicious when she came across him when he had an owl pinned down by its wing. It flapped and screeched, scraping at his skin with its talons and beak, and he just stood there staring down at it. Expressionless. He did not notice her until her heart started to grow heavy and her glow extended its reach, its soft light strengthened by the intensity of her fear. He snapped to attention, releasing the owl, and went to console her when she started crying. “I thought it was one of them,” he cooed into her ear.
“I was just trying to protect us.” Liar.
‘Liar, liar, liar!’
Nereza stared up at him in disbelief, tears sliding as hot and heavy as the blood pumping out of her throat; she is not certain what he is—a monster, certainly, but of what ilk? His fangs glint in the light, there is a crazed look in his eye. He laps at her wounds and makes an almost purring sound that makes her shiver. “Caesar,” she mouths his name, though nothing comes out.
He feasts on her, draining her of her life force until she does not have the strength to do anything besides blankly stare at the ceiling of the cave. Her thoughts scatter, passing quickly through her mind’s eye like great swooping owls.
’I love you; I love you. I love you. Please stop, stop hurting me, I’ll forgive you—‘
Nereza takes no notice when he leaves, it feels like an eternity before he does and though she cannot see him, she knows he does not so much as spare a glance back at her. Caesar leaves her for dead. This, for some reason, hurts her more than his betrayal. He shows her no sympathy, no remorse. Gives his actions no second thought. It had all been a game, she had been no more than his plaything, and this leaves her begging for Death to come and claim her; please, she only wants this raw ache in her chest to stop. Only wants to leave this place and have all traces of her erased.
“Oh, noes, I didn’t give you me lights just to have you get them knocked out like this—”
‘Leave me alone, please.’
“Leaves you alone? Oh, no child. I have been with you ever since yous found me.”
‘Please.’
“I’ll go get the Lady of these Woodses; she’ll know what to do.”
Nereza watches the pixie fly off—straight through a wall—and she musters up enough energy to frown.
‘Lady of the Woods…?’
A breeze sifts through the cave like a sigh, and for a moment, Nereza thinks this is truly the case. Something rushes past her, though she never quite sees what it is, and leaves a single white feather in its wake. The feather drifts lazily through the air before it softly, gently, comes to land on her side and from it erupts a sudden explosion of power. It forces her to stand straight up, forces her light to glow so bright that it casts the darkness out of the cave; she can physically feel her throat sealing itself, feel the blood return to her veins, feel her heart start to pump faster. ‘Let me die, please, let me die—'
(Why would I do that?)
The voice, if one could call it that, comes from inside Nereza’s own head. She shivers, closing her eyes against the intensity of the light inside the cave. Is it even just her light anymore? She doubts it, truly, especially since she can feel some sort of force pulsating from deeper within the cave. That’s where the real light is coming from, she realizes; it wraps itself around her own soft, white glow, shielding her—healing her. She has never felt so loved in all her life, never felt so safe.
A sob wracks her body as she looks down and notices she is floating, her hooves dangling well above the floor of the cave. Her soul is not long for this world, she is sure of it. This is some benevolent being come to take her to the Afterlife, an angel of sorts that will promise her comfort and safety for the rest of eternity.
(You aren’t dead, nor are you dying, Nereza.)
“What is happening, then?” She asks sharply, then frowns, surprised by the tone of her own voice. How could she ask such an insolent question?
Did this being not just save her life?
“I, I am so sorry—”
“I like your spunk,” the voice is light, airy—amused, but not angry nor cruel. Its laugh is merry, happy, almost lighting a true spark of joy in Nereza—though it is quickly stamped out once she remembers Caesar and his cruelty. She should have known, should not have been so foolish as to not see him for the monster that he was.
“A simple mistake.” Nereza’s golden eyes draw upwards to the ceiling of the cave where a beautiful, snowy white owl swoops in lazy circles around and through the large stalactites. The very same owl Caesar had freed the night she caught him pinning it to the ground. “I trusted him once, you saved me—you trusted him, too, and now I am saving you.” The owl angles itself downwards, intending to land, though it quickly transforms into an equally lovely white Arabian. The mare smiles at her, sweetly, and Nereza closes her eyes tightly to keep more tears from falling.
“Those tears will do you no good, sweet thing.”
She feels something wipe the tears from her face, though the mare is still standing opposite of her, and she stays floating through the air.
“I’m so stupid.”
“No,” the Lady of the Woods snorts and rolls her eyes in exasperation. “It’s never stupid to love someone, it’s stupid to be cruel to someone who loves you.”
“I just—”
“Hush,” she snorts, staring at her sternly. “Now, focus. Bring yourself down before you float up and impale yourself on the ceiling.”
Nereza stares at her, blinking stupidly, but sure enough, the second she wills herself to land she begins to gently descend to the cave floor. The weight of her body feels strange to her legs, so she shifts it around awkwardly from foot to foot.
The Lady of the Woods grins wryly, looking to the left as a transparent little pixie pops in beside her. “Oop, she’s all yours now.”
“Oh, joys,” Oop grumbles, shooting forwards to flutter around Nereza’s shoulder.
Nereza’s eyes widen in surprise. “Wait, YOU’RE—”
“Yes,” he sticks his tongue out. “It is I.”
“Life isn’t easy, Nereza,” The Lady of the Woods tells her, though her eyes follow Oop as he flits erratically around the spotted filly’s head. “But a few of us have given you a few things to make it a little easier.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for saving me, I gave you your life back—and such a beautiful soul deserves to have an equally beautiful face.”
“I… I don’t think I’m beautiful,” Nereza admits shyly, her ears splaying out to the sides.
“I cannot fix what you think of yourself,” the Lady of the Woods seems to shrug. “I can only… fix how you are seen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you will see!” The white mare laughs, turning to take a purposeful step towards the entrance of the cave.
“What… did the others give me? Who are the others?”
“Beqanna has been extremely kind to many of you this season,” the mare says softly, the daylight outside the cave casting a mischievous glint in her bright blue eyes. “You won’t know what I mean until you figure it out for yourself, but… that is all I can tell you. I’m going to send you elsewhere now, sweet Nereza. Away from this Mountain before beings more powerful and less kind than myself come to find you.”
And in a flash of blinding white light, Nereza disappears.
Word count: 1566.
Auto quest for Enhanced Beauty.