The wormhole spits him out onto another beach (though whether it’s a different beach or simply the same one at a different time, he doesn’t know). The surf is violent as he struggles to shore; weighed down by all the water he has taken on seemingly everywhere. It soaks his mane into dripping dreadlocks, clogs his ears so that they swoosh until he thinks to shake. Worst of all, the salt burns his eyes and flavors his throat with its tang. It tastes like the blood that wells upon his lips after he bites them. Here, among more ruin, this realization hits too close to home. Here where time has evacuated the travelers from its highway, he doesn’t like to think of death.
He’s glad when he can feel the sand beneath his hooves once more. The sound of machinery reaches his ears then (and he can hear, now that the water’s gone. He can hear all too well). A pulsing, living clanking in the near distance that rattles his bones. It fills him, makes his blood anxious as it circles around his arteries and veins. This unholy noise, this unnatural pulse that seems to split the universe with its progression. But he sees other things too, and hope fills him at the sight of one. Gail – the black woman he’s been so desperate to find – and he wonders how she’s tolerated the sound for so long. Surely, she is made of stronger stuff to tolerate this. Surely, that is part of the reason their dark god has spent so much time and energy (or rather, sent proxies) to rescue her. Why else would he do so? Who else would he do it for?
She must be amazing.
She must be what grounds him, what keeps him from pulling the world apart at the roots. He could, too, in the blink of an eye. Gail is his constant, his anchor and beacon in the darkest of waters. She keeps him afloat (or at least clinging to the edge in desperation). Ramiel wonders what kind of love that must be. He wonders what they’ve sacrificed for each other – because isn’t that what love is all about?
Gail draws in his eyes first, her stark figure a borrowed beacon for him. His legs quickly follow, leaving imprints in sand that is more familiar than the alien terrain he has become accustomed to. The surf crashes next to him (still so violent, so unrelenting) but he becomes more and more concerned about the clanks. The yearling stops in front of her and is surprised to see just a mare. She’s just a black horse, nothing outwardly special or unique. They look similar, in fact, save for the gold strands woven into his dread-locked mane and tail. He smiles because she is plain, smiles because he has searched galaxies for this lost woman, believing her another god (adorned and marked and powerful), only to find someone like him. As if he, too, could be worthy of such devotion. As if someone would bend time and pull apart the stars to find him.
Anything is possible, he thinks.
“Gail,” he breathes her name quietly, thinking she might appreciate hushed words when she’s been so used to the hellish noise. “I’ve been everywhere trying to find you. I’ve battled monsters.” Ramiel looks back to his leg, showing her the tentacle marks that creep along it. The wounds are puckered, ugly things made worse by the burning water that had further singed them. The pain is less than it looks, though, and he looks back at her. “I’ve ridden on the backs of flying creatures, flown through a wormhole.” He had been smiling, but it quickly fades. “I’ve lost my sister along the way. I hope she’s alright, that she’s home, but I don’t know.” His gold-flecked eyes are somber thinking about what they’ve both lost. He, his sister and her, possibly much more. To him, though, it’s his greatest loss thus far. “I don’t know.”
It’s clear that she’s hesitating. He can see it in the way the sand seems to pull at her feet (like the blue sand pit had pulled at him). She becomes anchored rather than the anchor, and it makes Ramiel feel even worse for her. Gail, the woman he was meant to save, and she doesn’t even want to be. He has to convince her, to pull her from her trappings like he had been. For now, he might have to be the monster, the shell-backed behemoth that rips you from the fate you had already accepted. She won’t die here if he has anything to say about it.
“Beqanna is different – it always is. It’s always changing, an amorphous mess of shifting politics and wars. You’ve missed many wars, I think. You missed Carnage’s resurrection by one of his daughters.” He’s not sure he should delve further into the tale, but feels suddenly compelled. If she knows, if she comes back, she can stop it from happening again. “He made a sacrificial pit in the Valley. They killed non-mythicals like you and me. My parents say it was horrible.”
He is pleading for a moment, as if she could go back in time (haven’t they messed with time enough to allow one more change?) and fix it. Rewind so the blood pours back into the wounds, back into the veins and the hearts start up again. Change things so that Carnage becomes a hero in other ways, becomes a legend for his hidden love of Beqanna, rather than its chaos. “He helped revive the place though. He gave it life, in a way.” Ramiel is a young fool, perhaps. A dreamer in some of the things he thinks. “Maybe you can influence him – make it a better place again. I think you're the only one who can.”
She still hesitates, and the sounds grow louder and more threatening. Already, the sky is black enough to make the colt think that there is no sky, not any longer. Maybe there won't be one again. The blackness is as deep and dark as space had been. This time, though, there aren’t any friendly aliens to carry them. No wormhole has opened up for him to push Gail through. He’s been trained to them, at this point. He would follow them anywhere, but now, he is stuck. His voice rises higher in its urgency. “Carnage is all of ours, all of Beqanna’s for better or for worse. But he is yours above all.” He says, knowing little and less of their history but guessing all the same. “And you are his. His Gail. His black light at the end of the universe.”
He tries once more. This time, he touches her though. It’s a whisper against her skin (skin that has been without touch for so long, he can’t imagine it. Skin that has survived normalcy when it is likely used to wonders beyond his comprehension). His muzzle slides up to the older and taller woman and finds her neck briefly before retreating. “Don’t you miss companionship, friendship? Love, even beyond the dark one?” Ramiel looks away again. CLANK, CHOMP, WHIRR. The robotic pulse is strong, deafening. He has to shout at her now, though he hates himself for it. “Come with me Gail. This is the end for both of us if you don’t.” He points, though the sound is all around them now. Inescapable, but he thinks there might be some time left if they hurry. He hopes. ”There are other worlds beyond this end. See them once more, please. I can't bear for you to miss them. I won't leave you like you've been left before.”
You deserve universes, he thinks. Carnage has already proven it.
r a m i e l
what a day to begin again