how much heartache can we take?
Broken pieces were never easy to fix. I have spent the year, nearly two in Beqanna, sorting through the blank expanse of my mind. Standing in the derelict room, arms outstretched, trying to claw at any fragile memory, trying in a vain attempt to clutch at even a wisp of what once was. All I know is fire. The burning, the ash. And blood. It was always the blood, wet and Crimson, worn burgundy against my cocoa coloured skin. The dark eyes, ever watchful, they peer at me from within, dark tendrils wrapping delicately around my neck and pulling, suffocating. Fingers bearing down upon my eyes, my face, scratching at the soft, fleshy scars, attempting to tear me open once more.
It's those dark eyes that I feel, swallowing me whole, refusing to chew at my tough flesh and flimsy bone. The chill in the air freezes me to the very core. Winter's harsh kiss upon my pelt, my bones. I turn my head, away from Elowen to the source. Grey and ghoulish, he plucks at my memories like a broken violin. A terribly painful serenade berating my ears. 'Cold. Cold like death's embrace.' I remember the ice, it felt as though it had been dragged through every vein of mine, filled my lungs, my heart, my very life's essence. I had tasted the bittersweet twang of death, I had it within my grasp. But someone, deadened eyes, heavy burden of deadened weight, he had saved me. Told me to run. And run I did.
My trembling worsens, my knees knock and my hocks shift uncomfortable beneath my fragile form. I slip against the ice that taints the loam, flinty hooves knocking at the ice. My hollow walnut eyes find him, they glance him in scraps of view. He is mirrored by the ice, as it dances like wispy fingers, cold, cruel. I shiver, against the ice, against the pain that drives through my body like rivulets of iron.
These are games. Games that have no winner, but take many pawns. I shake my head, silvered tresses falling in knotted ribbons over my eyes as I feel the grip tighten around me. There's nothing there, but in frozen in place. Fear, fear's henchman. He keeps me against my will, and forces me to watch as teeth glide against the newcomer.
'Safe. No where is safe.' my words fall, clumsily like glass shards from my trembling lips. I move, it feels rigid, as though iron and lead keep me in place. I thrash my head, crown rampant in its ferocity. Wild eyes find another, a bird, a bird. She swoops down and is upon us, equine form within moments.
The flashes come then, cold, ice beating down upon me to the point my knees buckle and I collapse. There is nothing there. Except the shadows, the thousand eyes staring me down. The cruel words whispering in my ear. Walnut eyes find the grey steed, the creator, the king of the frost bitten pain. I quiver, like a forgotten leaf upon the ground, silent, dead silent.
My throat throbs, stuck and swollen. Words cannot form, lungs find it difficult to expand. The coloured mare, she is iron will, wildfire against Cruel ice, and all I can do is watch, helpless, frozen in place by nothing but fear, dread. It fills me with a burdensome weight.
The slivers of hope, they tumble at my feet and blow away in the wind, and like some broken up child, reaching for them, they slip through my fingers. Lost.
'Not safe. Not safe.'
R E U E N
little broken girl of the gates