10-20-2021, 09:41 PM
C
lap.And there is light.
There is light.
There is light.
She wonders if this how the universe had first been born. She feels the click of these new teeth in her mouth, notices how bumps creep across her arms and suddenly she feels a cold she has never felt before. It feels strange in this body, ice leaping to her skin. She is reminded of the ice horses her mother used to tell ghost stories about. The name Frostbane still tries to creep into her nightmares, but there is so little room amongst the forests, and graves, and unicorns.
As she draws nearer to the light. No, it is lights. Like the snowflakes she watched glitter across the mountain in Denocte. As if this night were desperate to confirm suspicions, the path grows snowy. She thinks of the snow angels she and Bird had made and she wonders what sort of angel this new body would make. It is a wholesome enough memory, but there is another story to that day, another creation. The cutting of flesh as they both bled onto the snow. Blood sisters they had called each other.
She tights the red cloak tighter around her as the wind kicks up snow around her. She is not sure how to warm up this body. Her big blue eyes look wider in the soft glow of the wildflower petals. And perhaps they are as she wonders what yet is to come because a mountain is never just a mountain.
Something like a cold breeze brushes the back of her neck.
No, not a breeze—a kiss. The kind unicorns with blood stained lips press to an ivory heart on your forehead.
Elliana runs, she runs and runs and runs. She feels her legs growing tangled in their unfamiliarity with this body, but she lengthens her stride as she glances over her shoulder. The snow and ice has swirled and curled into the shape of twin unicorn that eyes can still glow red even in the white of the snow. Delicate face turns back around as the red hood flies from her head and drops down to her shoulders. Once again, blue eyes peer over her shoulder. They are walking slowly, so slowly, and Elliana, her heart pumps courageously as she tries to run, she thinks she should be putting more distance between them, but she can never get any further.
Before her the snow rises up around all sides like a gravesite made of ice instead of soil. Not yet, not yet, not yet, she whispers to herself as those feet pound their way along the mountain path.
A foot reaches out a little too high and pulls down the edge of that red cloak and sends Elliana tumbling forward. The snow she once admired is now ice and digs into the bare skin of her arms. It both stings and burns and she lets slip an ‘ah’ at the sudden pain. She crawls on all fours for a moment, still desperate to get away, until she can slide a leg underneath her and pushes up, running on two legs once more. Elliana realizes the contents of her basket are lighter after the fall. In a moment of panic (because she is not thinking of anything but one foot then two, again and again) she throws the goodies in her basket one at time behind her. A distraction, a weapon, something. She just knows it is something she can do besides this desperate running and labored breathing. She thinks maybe it is safe to look over her shoulder, and blue eyes peek behind her, trying to see the monsters through the snow, like a deer searching for a mountain lion in the tall, tall grass.
Not yet, not yet, not yet.
Her legs are shaking when she reaches the red sand of a land she has never seen before. She wobbles into the fog, her chest shaking and heaving. There is an eerie calmness that stands there in the fog, waiting for them to come. Her hands tremble with no basket to hold onto to hide it. “Who is doing this?” She asks as blue eyes train themselves into the fog as it grows thicker and thicker. Straight ahead, she thinks, the secret is hiding because she is learning, nothing can be clear, noting that you are searching for at least.
Everyone, everything, wants to hide.
She speaks like this.
some are ghosts before they are dead.