Whimsical mushrooms erupt around them, and with a laugh of pure-enjoyment, Solace leaps for the first one. With little Iri bounding before her, they race for the clouds, and Solace is content to follow. They climb and climb, the mushrooms continuously appearing before them just in time, never afraid of the fall. The world below fades away as they leap and bound, the blues and golds are replaced with amethyst as they reach into the sky. The sugar-spun clouds they had been chasing gather around their racing hooves, and Solace tries to fight the encroaching bittersweet ache in her chest.
Iri crafts a living staircase with the ease of a well-practiced magician - another reminder that she would not be safe here forever. Her youngest daughter was at home in this world of limitless magic, but that didn't mean she was safe. It was a fickle world without rules she lived in, and it had repercussions for the dreamer on the other side.
But for now it is just the two of them, perfectly safe in their own little world - painted just the way they want it, with no detail left out. But she can't fight the way her heart is breaking.
The clouds begin to take on shapes, galloping horses run beside them. They would be nameless faces to Iri, but to Solace, they mean more than life itself.
With a shuttering breath, Solace halts, and she swallows hard against the emotion gathering in her throat.
The mushrooms crumble gently around them, and the pair float as lightly as dandelion petals. Where there had been birdsong, there is stillness now, interrupted only by the crinkle of frost as it stretches to cover the world around them. As far as they can see, the soft swells of hills or clouds are dressed in a quilt of white and frost-blue, but it is living color - alive, and sparkling with the bright moonbeams the have replaced the sun. Only, Solace is not looking out across the changing landscape, she watches her baby, hoping against reason Iri will not be too disappointed by this change that her mother had triggered.
"I'm sorry," she says, and the word escapes her in a whisper. Their perfect world was nothing like it had been now, replaced with a barren tundra of non-descript shapes. But she can't find the strength to change what she has done, not even for her darling little dream-girl. The snow crunches below her hooves as she steps forward to wrap Iri up in her wings against the sudden chill, and to hide her from the faces of her lost children that are forming in the mists. She wishes away the tears that start to dance heavily in her eyes, a small grab for control over the feelings that are overwhelming her.
It is hard for her to believe that everything will be alright, that she has lost her last child to the afterlife, that her immortality will not be a gift she curses over and over again before she finds a way to join them.
That little Iri will be fine.
That the magic that held her captive in the world of dreams would simply let her go.
These thoughts writhe in her mind, none fully formed but all too clear to ignore. The ghosts begin to fade, but Solace is hesitant to let Iri go. With a furrowed brow and aching heart she holds her, and hopes that that somehow she can find a way to make it all alright.
we are the ever-living ghost of what once was
the mega-post no one asked for
