11-02-2019, 10:23 AM
Lepis had said once, to someone whose face is little more than a blur now, that the older she gets the more quickly time seems to race by. What must it be like to have an immortal life, she wonders; does it seem like they blink and years disappear? The same had been true for the decade old mare, months vanish in a heartbeat; her little son is a man grown, a sapling in the woods is three times her height.
It had been true.
Yet the last nights of autumn and these first of winter drag on with an agonizing slowness. Minutes seem more like months, and the arc of the sun’s passage takes eons rather than hours. Time seems as frozen as the ground underfoot, harder and colder even than the ice that dwells within her chest. At first she had tried to count the days - count down the days, but that had brought a sharp ache that was almost dread. With both her magical and natural ability to emote as absent as the leaves on the trees overhead, she thought the dread might pull her under, and it made it impossible even to fake smiles for her children. The worry in their faces was - and would will always be - worth easing even at her own expense, and Lepis no longer knows how long she has with them. Each moment was precious, cherished, and she had even been reluctant to leave them dozing today.
But the redwoods are too thick with memory to bear alone, and she has wandered instead, oblivious to the path her feet take. The dun mare might have wandered past the black figure had he not sighed, had she not heard something in his exhalation that echoes some small part of what she cannot feel.
”Hello?” She calls, peering through the surrounding trees in an effort to find the source of the noise. Her navy nostrils catch a scent and she turns to the left and steps around a cluster of winter-bare hawthorn to see a marbled black figure. He looks younger then Marni, she thinks, but older than Celina. The triplets age, perhaps, with a low-hanging head that would likely have elicited a gentle dose of cheer had she been able. Instead, she asks: ”Are you alright?”
@[Risk]
It had been true.
Yet the last nights of autumn and these first of winter drag on with an agonizing slowness. Minutes seem more like months, and the arc of the sun’s passage takes eons rather than hours. Time seems as frozen as the ground underfoot, harder and colder even than the ice that dwells within her chest. At first she had tried to count the days - count down the days, but that had brought a sharp ache that was almost dread. With both her magical and natural ability to emote as absent as the leaves on the trees overhead, she thought the dread might pull her under, and it made it impossible even to fake smiles for her children. The worry in their faces was - and would will always be - worth easing even at her own expense, and Lepis no longer knows how long she has with them. Each moment was precious, cherished, and she had even been reluctant to leave them dozing today.
But the redwoods are too thick with memory to bear alone, and she has wandered instead, oblivious to the path her feet take. The dun mare might have wandered past the black figure had he not sighed, had she not heard something in his exhalation that echoes some small part of what she cannot feel.
”Hello?” She calls, peering through the surrounding trees in an effort to find the source of the noise. Her navy nostrils catch a scent and she turns to the left and steps around a cluster of winter-bare hawthorn to see a marbled black figure. He looks younger then Marni, she thinks, but older than Celina. The triplets age, perhaps, with a low-hanging head that would likely have elicited a gentle dose of cheer had she been able. Instead, she asks: ”Are you alright?”
@[Risk]
