The Cure - Round 2

[Beqanna Fairy]

They come. There are days when the faeries doubt, when they wonder whether or not the residents of Beqanna will stop fighting. In this though, these horses have never disappointed. They always fight, tooth and nail, through pain and nightmares, to save the home they so love. They climb up the mountain, hacking up blood, facing demons both seen and unseen. Magic can be beautiful, but not here, not on the mountain today.

When they have all made it to the top, the mountain begins to rumble. The faeries pour their magic into it now, letting Beqanna go unprotected from the plague. They cannot do both, not now. They can only fight for the cure, can only fight with the last dregs of their strength to restore what they have lost. The black cloud spreads beneath them, rolling out to even those that believed themselves self. There are no safe places now; there is no escaping the plague.  

Beneath the quester’s hooves, the mountain splits, the sound deafening across Beqanna. If they are not quick the mountain will swallow them, but the faeries can only hope the rumbling had been enough warning. They cannot do more to help. They can only open the heart of Beqanna, can only provide the path. The crack turns into a pit, the heart of Beqanna pulsing in the center of the mountain. Like a fire it rages, but it’s so much more than mere fire. Magic pours out, overwhelming and drowning. The quester’s own magic rages, uncontrolled now in the presence of such power.

Along the edge of the pit a path forms, narrow and winding as it leads to the heart. That is where the items must go – first up and now back down. Like before, they know what they must do without being told. Take the items to the heart. End this as they began it – with blood, their blood. Certainly not all, but a cut, a few drops, will do. There’s enough horses that answered the call that together that they can feed the magic what it needs. They can create the cure. They must, or Beqanna is doomed.  

***

Game Changes
The faeries are using all their magic to help cure the plague, meaning there are no more safe lands. In addition, the plague is out of control. If you are not immune to the plague, you will now have the plague (regardless of where you live). Uh oh.

Quest Details
- Detail your character’s reaction, trip into the heart of the mountain, and how they feed the heart of Beqanna the items and their blood. You still have the plague and you no longer have control over any traits you may have.
- Responses are due Monday, April 22nd at 9am EST.

[sochi]

Sochi

darling, you're wild-eyed, empty, and tongue-tied
maybe you need me or maybe you don't

She doesn’t fight because she loves this home.

She has no particular ties to the land, no deep-seated loyalty to Beqanna itself and perhaps that makes her a traitor, but she cannot stop the way that she feels. Instead, she fights for her child. She fights for the man she loves—even if she cannot admit it yet. She fights because it is the path before her, and she has always been one to put her head down and fight through it. Whether it is swimming to the depths of the ocean, cursing Carnage every step of the way, or plunging forward to sink her teeth into the throat of a man she doesn’t know, or learning to serve a kingdom even though she has never had interest in such things.

But it doesn’t matter.

He reasons are meaningless.

Because regardless of what is around her and what is to come, she is to see this through. So when the mountain begins to shake, when the ground begins to growl and rumble and tear apart, she is quick to lunge forward. She doesn’t overthink it, she just reacts—her back legs gathering beneath her and throwing her forward as the world turns upside down and everything begins to plunge inward.

She tries to call on the tiger—because such things are easier when in such a form—but it doesn’t come. She tries again—and, again, she feels resistance. For a moment, she feels absolute panic. She feels it settle into her bones, this feeling of being trapped. She coughs and blood floods her mouth. It’s escalating quicker than an average disease has any right to spread, but she knows that this is no normal disease.

But it doesn’t matter.

She can’t stop.

So she fights around the panic rising in her. She fights against the fear that grips her—the feeling that she has run from for so long now—and she lets it settle into her belly. She accepts the rhythms of it and tries to harness it into adrenaline to keep moving forward past the fatigue and weakness.

She tries to find the path and she stumbles down it, feeling her body morph in increasing alien ways. First, she feels her teeth stretch into their feline curves and then snap back into place. Then, she feels her tail grow muscular before flowing out with hair once more. Her hair ripples into ivory and orange and onyx before settling back into its familiar smoky black. It is painful, when her transitions have never hurt before, and she growls in her throat, clenching her jaw against the sickness and the rebelling of her body.

But she doesn’t stop.

She continues forward, coughing with rattling lungs. She continues and the vision before her comes in and out of focus. It is the heart of the mountain and then it is the heart of Pangea with its sickly green glow. Then it is Loess and she is blinking into the sunlight. It is all of them, none of them.

She cries out, but she doesn’t stop. She doesn’t stop until she reaches the core of it and stumbles forward. Her mind nearly splits trying to hold this moment with her efforts in raising Pangea. He body nearly splits too, and when she looks down, she sees the legs of the tiger. She knows what to do. Of course, she does.

It is what she did to help bring about this damn disease.

And now she needs to be the counterweight to it.

For dust thou art—

She screams when she rips at her chest again, as her claws dig into the tattoo that runs jagged across her flesh. It is throaty and marked with the hoarse signs of her disease. She screams as the blood runs thick and syrupy down her chest and she falls to her knees. Her silvery, mercurial eyes close and she begins to murmur beneath her breath. Prayers, promises, threats—it doesn’t matter. Because she doesn’t stop.

—and unto dust shalt thou return.

playing the slow rooms, howling at half moons
if you are a Queen then, honey, I am a wolf

[litotes]

Beqanna rips her heart open just as she expects her children to.

Beneath Litotes’ paws, the earth screams with birthing pain. He lifts from his stomach and stumbles to the side just as the Mountain tears herself open with a groan so final it echoes in his ears. Sorrowful topaz eyes reflect the brilliant light that flashes as the path is formed - the lion is not fearful in his cowering, but terribly heartbroken. He is watching the land that feels like a mother to him tear herself to shreds to save her people.

Every creature is so small, their desires so base, their actions hardly have meaning. The world turns: magic gives and magic takes away. Every political triviality and personal angst is useless and self-centered. Nothing really matters, he realizes, in the grand scheme of the world. But in this moment, they matter - they wrap their arms around something bigger than themselves, even if it burns their flesh down to the bone.

Gods and their people defining the constant struggle for purpose.

Into the Mountain he pads, the light swallowing Lie whole. Above his head the items continue to circle. He winces, dipping his head to his chest to prevent damaging his eyes. There is no thought of the others that must be here - surely he cannot be the only one on this quest - and the path is eerily empty for one that is certain to be well traversed.

Suddenly, the light of the path completely falls. It feels as if it is suctioned away, the brown and rocky wall disappearing into complete and utter black. The lion stops dead, whimpering for the first time since he was a babe. The magic is trying to make a point, to instill some understanding into him, some lesson he has yet to dig from the twisting and dangerous surprises.

Beqanna calls, then falls silent, then opens its world to the voices of countless universes. Litotes falls to his to stomach to dig his entire body into the earth in submittance to the overwhelming susurrations, but finds that there is no wall anymore - no loose pebbles, no crumbling trail. Prayers, curses, passions, murders, love-making - the cry of every intelligent emotion is in his ears and invading his mind. The claws on his front paws feel as if they are going to snap under the pressure of digging them into the ground that is somehow there and not.

The people of the unknown cry as the cremello does: a pop and a crack and his body is spasming in the black nothingness. He collapses into the dark, right-side lion legs unmatched to left-side equine legs. Litotes screams - his legs are breaking and then reforming - the magic is torturing him, taking him by a broken leg and twirling him then repairing him. He cries once again, tears he wishes he could repress; he begs to be killed, to just be sacrificed for whatever Beqanna needs, tells the fairies that this is too much pain to bear -

The magic refuses. There is a lesson to be learned.

The cacophony stops like a train coming to a screeching halt: slow and desperate. Pants and groans of the injured lion-horse echo in the empty air. His eyes are closed when the white light starts. Lie opens a pained gaze to slits, staring with no care for his well-being into the pinprick the brightness starts at. The billions of universes from before bulge and scratch at the edges of Beqanna’s world - then stop as if ordered by a stern mother. One lone voice, beautiful and lyrical and somber, starts low and grows stronger as the seconds pass.

Today I will wear my white button down
I'm tired of wanting more
I think I'm finally worn
For you have a way of promising things

The woman croons, voice crackling distantly as if passed through old speakers. Litotes struggles to his feet. He has the paws of a lion and the legs and body of an equine. His face is of his natural form but his ears are round with a horse’s fur. Long tufts of lion’s mane protrude from his neck. He gulps and drags his paws, stepping high and uncomfortably because these legs were not meant to carry feet such as these.

And I've been a forest fire
I am a forest fire
And I am the fire and I am the forest

The woman sings to him as the light glows and glows. The ground turns back to pebbles and dirt, but the shadows have yet to reveal where the magic has dropped him. The broken man leans into the wall that is suddenly there, dragging his exhausted body along the cutting surface. Plague rumbles in his chest, blood pools in his mouth, pours from his lips, stains his chest. He thinks once again that he is going to die, thinks the woman’s words are irony, thinks -

And I am a witness watching it
I stand in a valley watching it
And you are not there at all

The lyrics sputter, crackle, then end. What white light still needs to grow flashes suddenly, blinding Litotes in his already paralyzed state. He cannot get her words out of his head (a witness, a witness in a valley where he believes he is safe - from himself, from pain, from reality).

Before him is the heart. The stallion opens his eyes and coughs up the blood still dripping from his mouth. He stumbles at a snail’s pace to the pulsating life of Beqanna. Just as with any quest, he does not need to be told what to do. Lie closes his eyes but knows exactly what is happening without watching.

The hovering items fly to his chest then form the shape of a “2” gently upon the sensitive skin of his breast. They linger there for a moment, then rush to their final resting place. The pebble lingers, though, as if sentient and pondering its next move. It flings itself with supernatural force into the flesh of the stallion’s sternum, then carves out yet another shape of a “2.” Blood pours from the wound, then floats ethereally into the heart.

Litotes does not dare utter a sound. He collapses.

---

lyrics are credited to mitski's "a burning hill"

[Ten]

- do you stare into the void or does it stare into you? -
Unfortunately for the exhausted and bedraggled Ten, this journey is still not over. Not even close. Were he more experienced, he might have realized a simple trip up a winding mountain path could not be all they would require of him. But alas, he is merely a boy, with a child’s innocent naivete. So as the mountain rumbles and shivers beneath him, he realizes that  the sickly, awful fog was just the beginning.

He stands on trembling legs, eyes following the cracks as they begin to yawn open, rock crumbling as the earth splits before him, revealing the deepest, most forbidden parts of Beqanna. It would only make sense then, that the path to her heart would be narrow and treacherous. For a moment he can only stare, wondering in awe at the incredible power - such wild, tempestuous energy - that pulses from within. He should be afraid. Terrified, even. Instead he gapes in reverent fascination.

But then, we have already established that Ten may not be the most sensible of boys.

Another rumbling shock, one that sends a cough bursting raggedly from his chest, recalls him to his purpose here. Reminds him that he must reach that feverish heart before his own body remembers it’s mortality and gives out on him.

Stumbling forward, he eases cautiously onto the narrow, unsteady path that spirals ever downwards. It’s impossible to say how long he descends into the mountainous pit, but for a young boy, it feels like an eternity. In reality, it does not take quite so long as his trek up the mountain, but with the echoes of falling rock around them and the stony path threatening to give way beneath each footstep, it feels as though each moment may be the very last.

His heart beats a wild tattoo inside his chest, his skin itchy with sweat and dust, his breath ragged inside his lungs as he takes those last few anxious steps onto more stable ground. His body aches, his bloodied knees throbbing, but for a moment he knows only the elation of success. The euphoria of having reached the pinnacle (or depth, as it were) of his true goal here in the heart of the mountain.

With childish eagerness, he stumbles forward, squinting into the brightness of the heart. The pulse of energy that emanates towards him is nearly overwhelming, but it’s pull is undeniable. With determination in those pale features, he presses closer, until he can offer the gifts he had brought. He feeds the small collection of items into the heart before frowning with consternation as he realizes it requires one more thing from him. One final, deceptively simple gift. After a moment of thought, he stretches one leg forward, but the scrapes he’d received during his clumsy dash up the mountain are clotted and caked in dirt now. Entirely unsuitable to the task at hand.

Brows furrowing, he glances around him, eyes darting to and fro until they land upon a particularly jagged rock jutting from the side of the pit. He stares at it for a moment, but stubborn resolve quickly overwhelms whatever misgivings he might have had. He could not (would not) fail at such a simple task.

With a deep breath (or at least, an attempted breath, for the inhale only brings forth a hacking cough), he steps grimly towards it. Closing his eyes, he rams his shoulder into the sharp edge, wincing as it roughly bruises and tears sensitive flesh. Gritting his teeth, he opens his eyes, gaze dropping to the fresh trickle of blood escaping his pale skin.

With unsteady steps, he returns to the pulsing heart before dragging his lips along the wound and shaking several precious drops into the hungry, powerful heart of Beqanna.

TEN

[Kagerus]

Kagerus

{ and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }

What small comfort I earned in laying with Panthera atop this plague-forsaken mountain is disbanded all too soon as the sound of tectonic wrenching assaults my ears. Scrambling to my hooves seems impossible yet I manage, almost laughing at the absurdity of this situation with a bloody gurgle in the back of my throat. Next to me, Panthera hisses, the sound of her aggression silent before the breaking of Beqanna's rib bones, before the surgery into her very heart.

Stay close to me.

I think the words to my familiar, but she makes no response; without warning, the cavity of the mountain which continue to open and unsettle our weight spews out what I can only describe as magic incarnate. My vision glitches, the fibre of this reality morphing in sickly fashions, the images being presented not yet clear as they distort my perception. Panic sends more blood spilling down my muzzle. The earth shifts dangerously beneath me, and the last thing I see before tumbling into the deep recesses of the mountain is Panthera, clawing at me desperately, her eyes confused beyond reason as I realize that she, too, must be trying to contact me.

Breathless. Landing on the recently earth-bended path which winds down the rib bones of the mountain, I lay as though with stars floating above me head - and they do, in my dreamscape. In my dazed stupor I reach lazily to send one of the stars (which, I numbly realize, are the items I must bring to the heart) twirling, but nothing happens. A weight lands atop me, thrashes upon me. My withers twitch as though to make the weight move, my eyes glowering towards what switches between a mound of snow, a mound of sweet red flowers, a mound of dragonglass, and a mound of sand. Eventually the image clears into that of Panthera as my dreamscape recesses, and I realize that she is trying to get me to move.

I groan. Wordless though it may be, the sight of me reacting to her efforts is enough to get me to my hooves once more. I turn my head away from the onslaught of magic which pours from the mountain's heart below, anxious to keep my grasp on reality firm; and, with a staggering step, I begin the journey downward, praying that whatever hallucinations come will not disrupt me from doing as the faeries have bid.

It is difficult to be true to an objective when your mind convinces you that you are merely dreaming.

Although many fluctuations occur before I can put words to the phenomena I experience during my painfully slow journey down, I eventually find enough mental prowess to understand. About every ten seconds, my dreams weave themselves as they see fit, dancing and flitting and convincing me that what goes on around me is simply a nightmare. The comfort of knowing that I am yet in Solace's arms always makes me smile... But in the next moment, that blanket of security is ripped away from me along with my sanity as the dream vanishes, leaving me crushed as I realize again the gravity of the situation at hand. Panic sets in as I struggle to cope with the fact that I will cycle again, that I will again be put through the horror of relief and realization, on and on as my own magic turns against me.

When I finally reach the cusp of the heart, I no longer possess any understanding of reality. The image of that which fuels all of Beqanna's magic might as well be a giant crystal, a sea of stars, or an ethereal gust of air to my dream-addled mind. I no longer attempt to discern dream from wakefulness, mentally exhausted from the severity of my panic during the journey down. I haven't even the strength to wonder at the greatness of this quest, at the magnitude of that which I and the others are accomplishing in these moments. I only know nothing, lost to the trance of a hyper-suspended existence.

Lowering my head to drink from the pool of the heart of Beqanna, the three items which have followed me faithfully to their resting place now dissolve into the precious silverline liquid. Called there, I suppose dreamily, stirring my nose in the precious heart and tainting it with the blood of my sickness. Lastly, the shell which saved me life dislodges itself from my shoulder blades, floating like a shooting star as it joins the remainder of the galaxy.

As I stand, stirring and shivering, a sensation comes over me: that of Solace standing next to me, her arms beneath mine as she supports me. The part of me that knows this to be but another trick of the fickle magic-and-plague concoction around me silences itself gladly, and with a sigh, I lean into my wife's hallucinogenic embrace, not caring that the world around me cries out in pain.

[Nocturne]

Nocturne only had a few moments to pull himself together and catch his breath before the Mountain began to quake beneath him. He dragged himself to his unsteady feet, panting and wheezing from the effort as fire swept through his body again and chased away the chill. His silver eyes widened as the fog rolled out from the base of the Mountain and spread as far as he could see, swallowing the rest of Beqanna right up, even the places that used to be safe. Shit. He was really in it now, huh? No way out but through, fate of the world resting on his little shoulders and all.

Adrenaline spiked as the mountain rumbled and shook, an addictive little thrill that lit him up, made him feel alive despite the sickness raging in his veins. Everyone in the whole world needed him, and it caught in his chest, something like hope welling up inside him that maybe they’d love him if he saved them. Maybe he wouldn’t be alone forever, maybe someone would look at him and see how good a boy he was, and take him home and cuddle him and love him and--well okay but sure as hell nobody would if they all died, so. That was tomorrow’s problem.

He shook himself and shoved aside all those tempting, useless little thoughts and made himself focus on the task at hand. The Mountain was starting to crack open beneath his feet, the ground splitting and startling an undignified squeak out of him. He scrambled for safe footing, heart racing as the steady, solid Mountain tore itself apart, twisted and trembled and transformed into a pit with magic fire in the center.

That magic fire flared, and his ice went wild in answer, pouring out of him and making the narrow pathway before him slick and slippery, spiking up in crystalline stalagmites and deadly pikes, freezing the world around him and leaving his teeth chattering, his body shivering, his breath coming in gasps. Treacherous thorns and tangling vines sprouted around him, the first unsuspected whispers of plant magic spreading like wild and adding still more danger to the path before him, all of it forming vicious walls along the narrow, winding path that led down, down, down into the fire.

And above and below and through it all, the heart of Beqanna raged. The air thrummed with power, deafening him, vibrating through him until he could feel it in his bones, and he leapt forward to answer. She needed him, needed the cure ingredients that trailed after him, clinging like static, drawn like magnets, bound by unknown magic beyond his understanding. But he didn’t need to understand.

All that mattered was that they came, following as he slipped on his own ice, lost his footing and went careening into a tangle of thorns. They waited patiently as a sharp scream tore from his throat and he struggled free, thorns tearing still more wounds into his shoulder, his neck, catching on his legs and leaving blood trickling down his moonglow baby coat. They trailed along behind him like obedient ducklings bobbing in the water behind their momma as he struggled for footing on the slick surface with every step, nothing dignified in this descent.

He stumbled, slipped, and fell tumbling farther along the narrow pathway, pained cries squeaking out of him as his hip, his shoulder caught on the sharp edges of thorns and spikes of ice. He pulled away, but he pulled too hard and slipped again. Shit! Frantic feet clambered uselessly, desperate for purchase as his stumbling body picked up speed and went careening down the narrow path. He brushed against more spikes and thorns, some just sliding through his fur and startling gasps out of him, others tearing scratches into his skin but not managing to slow him down any. Until the path narrowed further, and he crashed into a too-tight corridor of ice and thorns.

He choked on a whimper as the sharp edges caught him and dragged him to a halt with piercing fingers. Wheezing and dragging in frantic breaths, he paused a moment to look around, to try and find a way through. A coughing fit racked his body, and desperate, exhausted tears welled up in his eyes. The only way forward was through the too narrow tangle of thorns. It wasn’t big enough for him to fit, and neither ice nor plants were listening to him even as he gritted his teeth and tried to push them away with his gift. Nothing.

He ached all the way down to his bones, dull throbbing and sharp pain and the odd feverish fire-chill and the thrum of magic, the tightness in his chest from the cough and the gross ick feeling of snot and blood dripping from his nose, and the thought of having to make all that misery worse by clawing his way through an endless patch of stabby things made him want to curl up and cry and let the whole world just end. What did they matter anyhow? None of them cared about him, none of them even knew he existed. Maybe it would be better, letting the plague wipe them out and letting death claim them all one by one. Maybe they could all go back to being wrapped up and cozy in the dark just like things had been before he was born.

He could just give up and let the fog do its worst.

But he was so close, and the heart of Beqanna flared brighter, reaching out and calling to him, demanding he finish what he’d started on the day he was born. Maybe this was why he’d come into this world, covered in blood and viscera, why he’d woken to life surrounded by death and the still-warm corpse of the father who’d carried him. Finish it, he could almost hear her demand, and he took a steeling breath and pressed on.

The thorns tore into him, snagging in his flesh and catching and piercing, leaving little nicks and punctures and scratches, until his pale coat dripped blood in more places than it didn’t. The world narrowed to sharp points of agony and the ever-growing thrum of the heart of Beqanna as he fought his way closer step by step. Finally, finally he could see an end to the thorns, the magic fire blinding in its intensity as he clambered forward, just one more step! Thorns tangled and gouged and tore at him, fighting to keep him from success he could almost taste, and with another primal scream he tore free.

He fell to his knees, shaking and overwhelmed, but it wasn’t quite finished. The cure ingredients he’d brought with, or maybe just led here, shook right along with him, vibrating and begging for attention. One by one, he took them in his mouth and fed them into the magic fire. Ice, stone, flower, shell. And then he stumbled forward, body dripping and drenched in the blood he’d already shed to get here, open wounds still trickling red and soaking his moonrat baby fluff.

“Take what you need of me,” he said, his voice hoarse and gravelly as his blood dripped into the heart of Beqanna. He had given her everything else, would give her anything he had in him to give. What was a little more pain, a little more blood, in the face of so much suffering? She could have it all if she needed. Lucky for him, it didn't seem like she'd demand so high a price this time around.

[Eurwen]

Eurwen

the secret of walking on water
is knowing where the rocks lie

Instinct saves her, when nothing else can. If to be saved is preferred over simply tumbling down with her objects, she will only question later. Now, the stone mountain which she is still connected to, breaks open and she hurries backwards to avoid a fall.

It was the last moment of her connection with the trait.

While the fairies pulled all their magic from the corners of the world as she knew it, a strange thing happened to the helpers gathered on the Mountain - especially the young one still connected to said rock. The earth split and so did her earthen magic - rocks and debris flying freely in a tornado of mad stones, of hardy material shards seemingly designed to kill the unwary. Eurwen doesn’t think much about it, her mind confused and disappointed in herself still, again, who is to say. She cannot grasp the rocks that fly about, fly around her. She only hopes the fairies did not mean for this to happen, and that the others had already gone ahead and would not be hot by the byproduct of her incapability to control her own gift.

The rocky box has broken, yet the cures within still cling to her like a magnet. At least they had not been harmed. At least they still came with her when she moved towards the endless-looking pit.

A narrow path lies before her, down down deep into the split mountain. It’s surprisingly hot now, perhaps the mountain’s rocks had held warmth all along, but it never made it to the surface. But she can’t linger on such mysteries - down is where she must go.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she is glad that her father and brother stayed behind. At least they can have a good life even if she perishes now, she thinks. Her thoughts linger on her mother and twin then; no, it’s fine. Surely she will be missed, but they can survive without her if necessary. After all, she has found herself pretty useless. A sacrifice like hers wouldn’t be too troublesome on the rest of the world.

The path is hard with rocks flying and the earth still trembling. Is it her magic that went awry? Such destruction… it might be best if she failed. If she stops here.

If she doesn’t hinder the others, they may succeed.

But they are far ahead of her, she sees. She can safely try, she assumes, and so she finally makes a move. Her mind and body so tired, she trembled each time she takes a step, and with every step of hers, the very ground shakes.

Shocked, she looks around, every bit a foal again, a filly scared of the path she’s on, no different from when she first went on a quest for the fae. No, it is different: this time she is already an adult, this time she is already sick.

Dull dark eyes scan the ground, which shifts and takes a different shape every other blink. In doing so, she no longer avoids the rocks and stone flying around, and earns a larger share of cuts and bruises. But by now, the sickness has come so far that she can hardly notice if there’s more pain than before, hardly notices anything at all, except the ingrained knowledge that she has to go down, down, down.

Sometimes the rocks spike towards her, cutting her legs. Sometimes the path becomes rugged and she has to move carefully to avoid breaking her leg. In one moment, the magic within her changed the path into a small bridge to the other side, but before she set a hoof on it, it was back in it’s former place, a narrow winding along the wall. Rocks sometimes hit her head, though most simply bruise her side and back or cut her legs. But the cure ingredients at least stay, as if glued to her side. A last remnant of fairy magic no doubt.

Or rather - she doesn’t doubt anything at the moment. In fact the trip, once begun, is one she barely remembers.

And so she reaches the bottom. Some would say this is the easy part - down takes less energy than up. And to be fully delusional while doing it, makes it easier perhaps too. She’s not thinking. Hardly creating any memory on her way.

The storm of rocks finally dies when she sinks down near the heart of the split Mountain, the place where her cures join the others’, the place where the blood from her wounds and her throat mingle.

Beqanna’s Plague started with the blood of the tainted, but healthy. Perhaps with the blood of the untainted and unhealthy, something might yet be done to stop it. But the magic is everywhere, and the magic is fickle, and perhaps she no longer has it. The magic of the land and the fairies mingled with her own is something she can’t unravel. The rocks of the Mountain are not hers to command, but she can feel them still, in the chaotic way of their existence.

Where does Beqanna end, and where does she begin?

[wonder]

Wonder

At first she thinks it is only in her bones, exhaustion so real it takes her within its grasp and shakes her until she is unsteady on those pale, opal hooves. But then the rumble grows louder, a sound as if from a wild beast, growing and deepening until she can feel that, too, inside her body. She cries out and stumbles backwards, shocked by the sound of ruptured, groaning earth and the shatter of stone as it is pried so violently apart around her. For a moment it is beyond her understanding, beyond anything she can begin to piece together until she finds the place with those wild teal eyes, a tear in the mountain not unlike the ones her antlers had left in the chest of the child she left behind.

It grows, this crack, in length and width until she is scrambling to find purchase on a ground that breathes and heaves and bucks so wildly beneath her. She feels horrified, like perhaps this is how this story ends. Swallowed and trapped in the belly of the mountain, a grave beside a ghost she will never truly put to rest. But as the crumbling chases her further and the crack yawns into something vast and dark to behold, she finds a path into the madness, a thing so strange she knows it must be for her.

She dashes for it wildly, scared that the mountain will drag her from it if she is still for too long. But she pauses for a moment at the edge of the path, turning with tears on her feverish face to a world she no longer recognizes. Everything she knew is dark and stained with the fog that had clung to the mountain, soaked in the strange, ugly plague-magic that had shown her the dead and her nightmares and turned her lungs to wet tissue in her chest. She feels so helpless, so heartbroken, finds that she is trapped by fear for her parents and her siblings, for her beautiful brother. For Nightlock, whose face is still silently looking back at her when she closes her eyes in the quiet dark.

It is in them that she finds the strength to keep going, to turn to the path instead of turning home to make sure they are all okay.

She stumbles down the narrow trail, and immediately she can feel the wrongness of sick magic here. She nearly stops again, recoiling at the sensation of drowning in it, at the way it flares inside her - too big for the little body to which it is tethered. It’s okay, she tries to promise herself, don’t be scared. But she is scared, and it only gets worse when her skin suddenly pulls tight and ragged around new bones emerging through her swollen flesh. She cries out and stumbles to a stop - or would have, but the bone wedges against itself, stained red with her bright blood, and threatens to lock her limbs in place at the joint of hip and shoulder. She is scared imagining these bones as a trap, this body as a prison while the heart of beqanna dies somewhere beneath her spiraling path, scared that if she does stop she’ll lack the momentum to move again.

So she struggles onwards as the bone armor in her skin grows thicker and more intricate, severs her flesh in long bladed sweeps to make more room. She can feel the pain of every wound in each beat of her heart as it forces more blood out onto the surface of skin so slick and warm. Even her antlers seem poisoned by the strange sick of the magic as they grow and grow so rapidly, only to fall from her brow and tangle in her hooves as she steps past. They start growing again abruptly, shoving with a punch back up through her forehead to repeat the cycle of abuse.

It goes on like this until she reaches the bottom, reaches the heart, and the items fall still and inanimate around her. She is exhausted beyond anything she has ever known before - used up entirely inside and out. But she forces herself to finish the task she came to do, fights limbs that feel as though they are made from wood and each step she takes cracks fissures through her being. One by one she picks each item up and surrenders them to the heart that beats so sadly at her, a heart she can barely see beneath the thorny darkness choking it, until the last sacrifice to make are the tears of her own blood running from the wounds down her face. They fall and gather, gifted in their red, aching sorrow, until she bows her bleeding head and whispers, “I am so sorry you suffer because of us.”

i am brambles but i am tangled in your love