He lingers in the treeline, unwilling to commit to the sunlight just yet.
It’s been a trying few months to say the least. As spring slipped into hot, humid summer, he had slipped into a new role as well. He had ventured into the final frontier of space, had battled for his life in a pit of quicksand. He had been chased by plague and langoliers and the end of everything, and now, he is a different boy for it. How could he not be changed by it all, though? He is a keeper of a secret few know, a secret that feels like the weight of every dead soul upon his back. They call to him without words, beckoning him to visit their Other Beach. They are a pull he finds hard to resist, sometimes.
Ramiel would have gone back, too. He would have bludgeoned the cliff walls until his shoulders bled with the effort to get to the ghost world again. Fortunately, he knows it isn’t necessary, not anymore. The dead realm is a portal easily reached these days. But something keeps him from returning. Fear? No, he thinks. I’ve seen the ultimate destruction, have waded through the boiling ocean. I know where I’ll go when I die. This life is not the end. He doesn’t fear death anymore, but maybe he fears life. Or rather, all the lives that were cut short – the potential for life. He pictures all of their faces pressing together; he imagines the ghosts clamoring for answers that he cannot give. What can he say to them to make it okay? How can he relate when blood still pulses in his living veins on the Other Side?
He closes his eyes as he thinks on it all. The quest has made him more pensive than he was even before. Questions he hadn’t thought he’d ever need to consider now fill the majority of his days as he searches for answers. He’s still young (closer to adulthood than childhood, though) but his sense of responsibility already rivals any adult.
The black two year-old has the dead and the living to take care of, after all.
Movement stirs somewhere in the near distance and his eyes fly open. His honey-gold gaze lands on the retreating form of an unfamiliar stallion. With a sigh, Ramiel leaves the comfort of the shadows and moves towards the man. “Good afternoon, sir.” He doesn’t hesitate in his politeness, despite not knowing the roan horse descending into the kingdom. His mother had told him to be cautious of strangers, to call out before approaching. But this is his home and he cannot allow himself to feel fear within its borders. If anything, he smiles a little brighter. “I’m Ramiel.” The trail curls away ahead of the pair, well-worn and centrally-leading. If this man is a new recruit, the young stallion means to lead him down and into the Dale proper. “Who are you?”
r a m i e l
what a day to begin again