[open] Is This Where I Go?

[Kindling]

The wind sourly lifts up her mane, a feeling she hadn’t felt since her body had laid to rest so many sunsets ago. She stands still, at the top of the hill overlooking the snowy landscape that lies before her like a gray-scale paint sample. The trees are naked, only the soft brush of frost gingerly hanging on thin twigs and branches. The sunrise is not yet insight, but rays of light peak up around the end of the world like a candle hidden in a different room. Not yet strong enough to illuminate Beqanna in yellows and reds, but there and waiting for the time to come.

Like her, perhaps.

Our little deer had waited years for this time to come, for a glitch or spell to fall on Beqanna and allow the gates of Hell to unlock. It took time, it took patience. Kindling had always been patient for chaos. It was always worth the standstill.

So here she is, her pale charcoal coat hardly visible along the treeline that stands behind her. Her mane a matted mess, her body scarred and beaten from her untimely demise years ago. The world even smells different. Oh, how satisfying it felt to feel the soft air sooth into her flared nostrils.

Home is where the fear is, and she smells it in all it’s glory.

Kindling has come to realize her true power. Before, she could hide behind the fear of death. And while some might argue it didn’t seem like she did much hiding at all, Kindling knows true. Death is inevitable, yet everyone fears it. Why? The thought of unknowing is terrifying. Terrifying enough to even keep the most evil of souls at bay.

But once you have experienced death, felt the last drop of blood fall from your body and your breath become short. Once you feel the weakness that swallows your power whole, the way the air changes to an unbearable cold… Once you die, what more do you have to fear?

She takes a step forward, the euphoric rush of blood running through her body to power her forward a welcoming feeling. Her adrenaline is sky-rocketing. Will she recognize old faces? Did her Osric find the opened gates? Did Oxytocin reside in his old home, still?

Oh, the winds of change, how she missed it.