11-04-2020, 09:59 AM
Autumn leans into winter, the world of the dead leans into the world of the living. Sintra, on spindly legs black as iron and bedecked in the darkness of her baby-down, does not know a world where the dead cannot pass easily across that hallowed boundary, but neither does she know that they do, because she is small and new and as unfamiliar with the concept of death as she is with this new concept of life and consciousness.
She is coltish and clumsy in the sharp air, and the strange breeze that parts the thick curls of her hair exposes a curious thing, exposes pale places at her flank and hidden behind her elbow where glimpses of the skeleton that moves beneath her skin can be seen. It's as if she is wreathed in smoke, a ghost, a ghoul, and perhaps no more alive than the souls that hold back and do not return to the living world, but there, at her chest, the pulse of red just barely visible between her night-black forearms belies this theory. Her heart beats, and she lives.
Carefree, she follows that strange breath of wind. Mama would surely stop her, but some magic keeps the mare from noticing her wayward daughter as she disappears from sight, lost to the darkness. How often is this the way? Sintra chases the wind with all the excitement of her handful of days, with her spidery, long, limbs and her too-large violet eyes. She follows the curl of mystery that hooks in her heart with ill-advised eagerness until she finds that dark doorway with the gathering crowd and its silent guardian, and even here, while others mill nearby, curious or cautious or confident, here she approaches the guardian giddily, imprudently, unaware of the things that make others hang back or smile their slow, venomous, smiles. She reaches out with toothless gums to taste the shadow cloak the figure wears - it tastes of nothing, or perhaps it is Nothingness, instead - and looks up brightly to where its face should be.
"My name is Sintra! What is a Tricker? Can I have one of those? What happened to your face?"
She is coltish and clumsy in the sharp air, and the strange breeze that parts the thick curls of her hair exposes a curious thing, exposes pale places at her flank and hidden behind her elbow where glimpses of the skeleton that moves beneath her skin can be seen. It's as if she is wreathed in smoke, a ghost, a ghoul, and perhaps no more alive than the souls that hold back and do not return to the living world, but there, at her chest, the pulse of red just barely visible between her night-black forearms belies this theory. Her heart beats, and she lives.
Carefree, she follows that strange breath of wind. Mama would surely stop her, but some magic keeps the mare from noticing her wayward daughter as she disappears from sight, lost to the darkness. How often is this the way? Sintra chases the wind with all the excitement of her handful of days, with her spidery, long, limbs and her too-large violet eyes. She follows the curl of mystery that hooks in her heart with ill-advised eagerness until she finds that dark doorway with the gathering crowd and its silent guardian, and even here, while others mill nearby, curious or cautious or confident, here she approaches the guardian giddily, imprudently, unaware of the things that make others hang back or smile their slow, venomous, smiles. She reaches out with toothless gums to taste the shadow cloak the figure wears - it tastes of nothing, or perhaps it is Nothingness, instead - and looks up brightly to where its face should be.
"My name is Sintra! What is a Tricker? Can I have one of those? What happened to your face?"