This place is different, but everywhere is these days.
Nothing is like the virgin splendor of the Gates, the stretching of emerald meadows mated to the sapphire sky at the horizon. Nothing is like the Mother Tree before the raid, when her limbs had still stretched up into that same sky, welcoming all to the plains of Heaven. Nothing is like the babbling, laughing creeks that her adopted son had splashed in before they had run red with the blood of the injured. Nothing is like the everlasting silence of failure, of losing their queen and their dignity all in one fell swoop.
She embraces nothing, now, and runs from everything she once knew.
This forest is simply the latest place to hold her, to hide her in its shadows. She thinks it is fitting as far as hiding places go. Emmerly, the once-proud defender of Heaven, left to rot amongst the fungi springing up from the loamy forest floor. She is not comfortable here, but she deserves that, too. The sunlight that she’s lived under her whole life (that she’s bent towards like a starving plant, hungry for its warmth and nourishment) is fragmented here. It dapples her already patchy back in diluted pools of gold. Like a tracer, it beams over her as she walks underneath the canopy. As if the world will see her, judge her, find her, despite her attempt to disappear.
The light hits her nose. We’ve found you.
Sweeps across her neck. You can’t run forever.
Races along her back.
Fear clenches her heart like an iron fist. Not fear for herself, though. Whatever doubts and hesitations she’d had about herself before had gone up in flames alongside the great tree. She was a runner; every step she took further away from the gates had proved as much. She was a failure; she left her home burning and her people alone amongst the ashes. What she fears for is not herself but her son. His face is like ashes in her mind, and Emmerly flinches before remembering that it is only the storm-grey coloring he’d grown into.
Relief comes with the cool breeze that prickles her skin. She leans into it and closes her eyes. It can’t hold her up. It can’t sustain against the hot fever of her disappointment, but it is enough to temper the flames. Until she can will herself back home. Until she pulls her weary feet from the soft ground of the forest she’s cloaked herself in and marches them back to Heaven. It will be the hardest thing she’s ever done. A battle, not of sinew and blood, but of her mind and intent. She resists, briefly (just stay here, just let the mushrooms digest and disintegrate you, it’s what you deserve – hide from the light), but she is still a fighter. Deep within the folds of her brain, Em prepares for battle.
She opens her eyes and takes a step forward.
Emmerly
walter x valien