Listen close and you’ll hear it.
The soft fold of metal as it stirs.
(It has been quiet in the Cove—
since the dragon visited and sank its teeth into her psyche—
and she quiet with it.)
There have been children, though none of these have eaten their way out of her womb.
None of them have left her in ruins.
(Which is to say that none of them have killed her.)
But she has been restless.
Restless as the sun that circles her head and casts light across her brow.
(Listen close and you will hear this, too,the call that she heeds.
Though it feels as if the words exist only in her own head.)
She has learned to be dutiful.
In all the ways she has died, in all of the terrible ways she has lived.
And so she goes without question, without stopping to wonder if she should.
It is a terribly long journey to the Mountain but she arrives no worse for the wear.
(Because she is indestructible now, this mare cast from gold.)
Come, the voice had said and so she goes.
And it echoes when she arrives at the base of the Mountain and looks up.
She squints, trying to catch a glimpse of the peak.
But it is shrouded in clouds.
(She has never visited the Mountain.
Or, if she has, she does not remember whatever particular past life harbors this memory.
But she knows, just as every soul in Beqanna knows, of its power.
She knows, just as everyone else knows, that it can be just as cruel as it can be kind.)
Alas, she has been summoned.
She feels no trepidation.
She understands that this is what she must do.
And so she begins her climb, though she still cannot see the summit.
(Ah, Bible, what a good girl you are.)
She has not been climbing long when the air goes thin.
So impossibly thin.
Until her breathing becomes labored.
Until she’s not breathing at all.
(Or, rather, she’s trying but no air gets in.)
Her vision strobes as she staggers forward, stumbling through and over boulder fields.
And she is gasping still, the heart clenching in her chest.
(Turn around, the Mountain says, you are not welcome here.)
These words exist only in her mind, too.
But this is a warning instead of an invitation.
She sways on her feet, sinks to her knees.
Were she not cast from gold, she might have begun to bleed.
And the Mountain, perhaps seeing that this will not deter her, allows her one world-swallowing gasp of air.
But it is polluted with poison.
Poison that pours blood from her nose.
Poison that immediately begins to eat at her lungs.
She coughs so violently that her heart seems to seize.
“No,” she gasps fiercely, teeth gritted.
She lurches to her feet, lunging forward, scrambling now.
And where the blood from her nose drips onto the rocks, the rocks spring to life.
They grab for her ankles, they yank, they grapple to stop her.
But she can breathe now and she has encountered more savage beasts than this.
She is not afraid, this mare cast from gold.
She has died many times before and she will die many times again, she’s certain.
But she will not die on this mountain.
Not like this.
Not even as the rocks try to sink teeth into her flesh.
(But it is flesh made of gold. There is no meat.)
The poison burns her lungs.
Blood continues to bring the rocks to life.
The rocks try in vain to stop her.
She scrambles.
She scrambles and she lurches and all she can taste is the iron of her blood and the bitter poison.
Still, she cannot make out the summit through the dense cloud cover.
But there has never been any quit in her.
She was never made to yield.
And when, finally, she breaks through the clouds and finds the summit, the air is thin but it is pure.
There is no poison here.
She pauses to swallow as much air as she can here.
Her vision is still black at the edges.
Her sides heave as her vision clears and she sees that she is not alone.
She says nothing.
She couldn’t even if she tried.
i didn't need to go where a bible went
(i'm so sorry i know this format is so annoying but i can't stop it)