"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
It is the warmth that lures him from the shadows, bathing his marred, bloodied flesh in the bright sunlight that shines across the drying terrain. The brush is growing brittle and the blossoms are beginning to fade; the land is settling in for what will be another long embrace of ice and snow and he himself can feel it settling into the pit of his bones. His muscles flex slightly beneath his obsidian pelt as he strides forward, stretching the aching muscles of his limbs, which had been still too long for his own liking.
Still fresh with open wounds, he is a sight to behold - dried blood linger along the edges of his frayed skin, and he appears more ragged and war-torn than usual. He remains solemn, swallowing his discomfort for the most part, though his crimson gaze gives it away. With a toss of his tangled, dread-locked mane, his dark eyes peer across the terrain as his lungs fill with the crisp, biting air of autumn. It has not yet moved into the land, but it is within the dying and splitting brush and waning dusk and dawn that he can feel it coming. It is only a matter of time.
His sinewy tendons shift and twist under his taut skin as the bright light of the sky cloaks him in a sheen of illumination; his pale skin scars glisten beneath it. The muscles beneath his coat pain him with each slow step; he is bruised in too many places to count. Such is the price of battle. He has put off political matters for far too long, his mind lingering too easily on matters of the heart - of which had only torn him apart from the inside out. With his mind still fatigued from the rampant nightmares of fiery weaponry, fluttering fairies and oozing poison secretion, he is a sight to behold - a behemoth, but a tired one.
Healing takes time, after all.
Though it pains him, he releases a loud bellowing call from his chest, calling for the men and women who seek their place among the ranks. Once settled and standing still, he raises his thick neck, overlooking the terrain as their few but immensely strong hopeful brothers (and soon, sisters, alike) step forward to heed the call. His gaze then moves towards the grand ruins that loom behind him, daunting and threatening, even in the light of day. He had studied their architecture for some time; their allure was undeniable but the unpredictable and volatile lie within and he knew it all too well.
He breathes slowly, shifting his sore muscles carefully as he his weight weighs him down, searing red eyes observing those who finally come forward. The bright sunlight peers unforgivably upon them, highlighting the many injured features of his body - but he stands, still upright, still commanding with his own presence. With a faint uptick of his whiskered lips, he speaks, and the thin air carries his voice.
"Men, women, welcome. Today, you will embark on a journey both painful and difficult. Within this cave lies a magic stronger than you can imagine - a scathing reminder of where you have been, and projection of what you fear most. If you cannot handle it, the cave with reject you, and sear you with a marking to show your inability to follow through. If you succeed, you will emerge worse for the wear, but with the mark of brotherhood and sisterhood left on your flesh. It will be painful - at times, excruciatingly so - both mentally and physically. When you return, from the very same entrance, your physical wounds will fade away, though the mental ones may not. Enter at your own risk. And welcome; I look forward to seeing you on the other side."
OFFSPRING
THE FIRE AND ICE KING OF THE TUNDRA
Here are several examples of past cave initiations: Here || Here
Your character must encounter both pain (their wounds will be healed prior to leaving the cave; think jagged ice and rock) and mental anguish - seeing a figment of a loved one in pain, hearing terrible memories, anything.
Upon completion, the cave will finally show you the exit, which is the very same as the entrance.
You must complete this for each character you want to put into a caste.
Please include an OOC note as to which caste you'd like your character in.
You also get a choice of any size/shape scar, either black or white, to leave on your character's body to show their solidarity with the Tundra.
Once completed, please begin a tally of your points on the Points Tracker thread.
You can track all posts made from 7/6/16 on.
07-20-2016, 05:09 PM (This post was last modified: 07-20-2016, 05:28 PM by Rael Fire.)
Rael Fire
Rael had come to the caves before, peering into it's dark depths , but shying away from the evil sounding whispers, and only came very rarely anymore. But now.. He was to properly enter, and succumb to the nightmares and demons of his past and inner fears. He listened solemnly to Offpsring's short speech, noting curiosly his fresh wounds - where had he gone?
He stepped forward, toward the entrance, and looked back to Offspring, giving a single nod before continuing into the cave's depths. The last sane thought that crossed his mind was what was in the cave's icy walls that brought your fears out, before stepping completely inside. He felt a sudden cracking pain in his back, his legs, and his neck. Being lengthened, tortured, strengthened for battle, for war. His worst fear, having to be magically broken, stretched, and rebuilt to save his family in a war amongst the kingdoms of Beqanna. He felt his legs thicken, his hooves become larger, his shoulder muscles slightly enlarging, and growing stronger - the magical equivalent of nearly a year's normal work on constant mocks, extensive strain, and 24/7 training with hardly a breather between training, traveling and battle itself. He hated the fact it would mean having to ignore his family, feared that most, and it came out.
He felt his body be crushed under earth and rock, his lungs flowed through by searing water, his mind slowly blacken and fade. He felt more and more broken bones, more and more fear for his family slowly override his senses, instinct take over as he spluttered, ran, and kicked his way through the crushing darkness until light seared red against his eyelids, and he stopped, stock still as he gasped, before opening his eyes. His form was normal once more, somehow, war had not torn his family apart, and he was alive. But on his spine's centre, he felt an odd pattern of jagged lines, running along from his withers to the peak of his rump, burning and etching itself. The lines gleamed an obsidian black, reflected the sun ever so slightly and heating up his dark grullo coat.
The Brother of the Ice
OOC - Rael is going to be a Warrior.
Scar looks approximately like this - /\/\/\/\/\
07-20-2016, 05:42 PM (This post was last modified: 07-20-2016, 06:40 PM by Maribel.)
Who cares if hell awaits?
We're having drinks at heaven's gate.
She trembles.
Maribel was not the first to come to mind when you imagined bravery, courageousness. You imagined a rather intimidating black stallion with dreaded hair and piercing red eyes...not the delicate waif of gold body and silver hair.
But-
But here she was standing shoulder to shoulder with all the others. The flutter of her heart rattles in it's bone cage, fleeting and frightened but Mari steels herself as she listens to her father's words. Today she is not a daughter of Offspring and Isle. No, she is a tundra maiden seeking her place amongst the ranks and she would earn it today or stay within the cave for as long as necessary. She would not fail her parents for she owed them so very, very much.
She feels like she is floating and does not realize that her body is moving on it's own will and she is merging ahead of the others. She is first. She volunteers to be the leading initiate. Blue eyes remain on Offspring for fear of removing them would draw away the nerve that she desperately is clung to. "Father-" Her voice feel so small, "I will go first." The last few words are stronger, weighted.
Good.
The lithe form of the honeycomb girl is moving her to the mouth of the cave. The dampness swells her nostrils and she can feel the fingers of the chill seeping into her bones but she still presses on. The sound of dripping water, the shards of broken rocks and ice are bruising her tender feet, the thud-thud-thud of her heart beat echoing in her ears. It is all that she can sense, all the while, the mouth of the cave is growing smaller as it swallows her whole.
---------------
"MOMMY! MOMMY DON'T GO!"
Maribel can see herself. The tiny fluff of sunshine, on too thin legs attached to a bony rib cage. Winzy, her mother, is pushing the child off and down so that she falls against the dirt. Fat wet trails are cutting through the dirt on her cheeks and off her chin. Little Maribel is crying, crying, crying. Winzy could not be swayed and easily is gone through the thick grass long before the small image of herself can find her own feet (bogged down from lack of food and interaction) but the child tries so, so hard. The saw grass is cutting her tiny form so that there are small trickles of red running down against the dulled gold of her starving hide. The salt of her tears sting the open wounds on her skin...
The whimpering of the tiny child is enough to drive her mad. The desperate pleading of the child she once was is shattering her from inside out and Maribel begins to scream to drown it out. The scream is thick and wet with the glutted savageness of a wild, disturbed creature. The scream vibrates the entire cave as she shakes it with every ounce of her soul.
"She left me for dead!" "She left me for dead!" "SHE LEFT MEEE!!"
The scream climaxes to a shriek of borderline insanity as Maribel witnesses a part of her that she had long stuffed away in the corner of her mind. The very moment of her memory had been that of abandonment, unwanted, undesired. She can feel her throat bleeding as she screams but she can not stop. The primal voice of her shredded throat is enough for a cracked stalactite to vibrate from it's grip and plummet toward Mari. Thankfully it would miss her mostly, catching only against the skin on her right eye and dragging it enough to cause a heavy gash starting above her right eye to a few inches underneath it.
The sudden searing hot pain quiets her. She is reflecting, processing. Her fractured mind is moving her towards the inky pool of placid water that lay within the cave. When Mari stand before it, she can see the tear streaked face of the once forgotten child. Her own tears mingle with the motionless pool as it begins to beckon to her. Soothing her and whispering sweet things as the bottomless liquid licks her ankles delicately, invitingly. It laps her up greedily to her knees-
(I'm so cold)
the water beckons her further till she can no longer feel her limbs...but somehow, somewhere, the bloom of warmth in her chest as her heart slows is soothing her. The slow methodical beat is a lullaby as she feels her head finally slip beneath the icy water.
(peace at last)
---------------
She does not know how much time has passed. She is saturated to her bones and shivering. Pins and needles are all she can feel when she struggles to her feet. The blue of her eyes are sharp and piecing with unrelenting knowledge. It feel like days before she finally finds the mouth of the cave, emerging with bluish lips and the evidence of the cave pool waters freezing the ends of her mane and tail when a few fat snowflakes begin to cling to her skin eagerly. Mari moves slowly but with steady force to stand before her father. She seeks his red eyes with her own blue to wait for his approval or disapproval. Small frosted plumes form with the shake of her jagged breath but Mari refuses to budge before hearing what her father has to say.
She does not seem to feel the sear of the rather large black mehdni scar of intricate designs that had formed between her withers, stretching down from the spine to her shoulders before spreading forward to interlock on the front of her chest and forming a breathtaking flower. It suited the young mare and the essence of her very being. The scar is finely detailed and so much more than what meets the eye but it was there and boldly worn, nonetheless. She would wear the large scar like a breastplate of armor that she had earned for the rest of her years.
M A R I B E L
whew that was emotional. mari wants to be apart of the diplomacy side please.
She listened intently, having often gone with her dear brother to the edge of the cave as a young foal, but now had come responsibly for initiation! She never expected the time to come that she would rise in the ranks alongside her brother, doing mocks and patrols, meeting leaders, yet choosing words first like a proper, civil equine. She had daydreamed often on that fantasy, for as a foal mares could not join a caste in the Tundra.
She watched her brother enter solemnly, wondering what would happen. She heard only silence in there, until a running figure came out, until he stopped, looking with relief at her, her mother Blazed, and his own form. What had happened that he had become worried? She walked up to him and rubbed her form along his lightly, as a sign of welcome, and she saw his scar, a jagged line along his spine that gleamed black in the Tundra's snow-reflected sunlight.
She stood back, wondering whether they had an established order or if she was to go next. She walked next to Rael back to their mother, and stood together as a family, Echo nursing happily. She watched Maribel walk in, and after a short while come out, soaked through and blue-lipped, to stand before her father, and shivered slightly at the snow clinging to her wet coat. When nobody stepped forward after her, she took it upon herself to walk in, nodding to her mother and brother before going to the entrance, passing Offspring and the others now around them on the way. She walked to the edge, and faced Offspring. "I shall go next." She states, her tone hollow, before continuing to the entrance again.
She turns her mind off, closing off her emotions, ignoring the hard thumping of her heart. She ended up being forced to think again as a primal, angry scream comes out of the blackness - and her eyes open wide in the darkness. She saw her mother pelting around the end of the icy wall that Offpsring created to separate her and Echo from that odd stallion, supposedly her own father, her flesh and blood. She snorted and pawed the ground, but unable to do anything about the memory; she heard her hooves racing against the ice as she comes towards her location, and then it is silent except for a muffled muttering, she was ranting. She tried to follow, but every time she stepped the opening was farther away, and she hurt with worry and fear that he was going go go too far with her, and force her into submission.. She saw her own vision turn black and morph into a heated battle, her brother next to her, his body stronger, his hooves, legs larger and stronger. And then she saw her mother, whose form had been next to her, fall flat as her body freezes, stills, being turned to stone by a magician. She saw the tribal markings of the Amazons on his chest and shoulder, and they reminded her of Maribel's new scar. She stopped, her legs held by vines, and a vined curled up around her neck - just behind the ears and jaw - and around her muzzle, holding it shut, and forcing her head low as the stallion forced her to come with him, jerking her head down and tugging her legs forward mechanically with the vines. She started stumbling, tripping and heard her hooves start to clang against stone as her muzzle was released and her legs freed - she was back in reality. She started forwards, darkness pressing in around her, until light appeared in front of her and she saw the Tundra's harsh ice and snow welcoming her back. She stopped, just outside of the cave, and looked down at her legs - was she truly back? - and saw a vine pattern shining white up her right foreleg, her scar of initiation had been formed.
The Sister of the Ice
OOC - Real also intends to become a Warrioress.
Scar -
He hears the call, and he comes to find out what the deal is. He hasn’t really been here long, not even long enough to know more than one member – Maribel, the horse who had recruited him in the first place. The stallion who called them is unfamiliar to him, of course, but reminds the spotted stallion of Vanquish, what with being black and very tall. Romek stands at an easy fifteen hands himself, and this new stallion towers over him, but that doesn’t faze him. He has faced worse. There’s a collected host of horses around him, including Maribel.
He presumes this tall one to be the King, then, and all these are the people of this land. He looks around, and takes in all the unfamiliar faces. People to get to know. Again. How many times had he done this old routine? Too many times. Too many times.
Cave initiations, something he has never heard of before, but presumes that they are alike to the Jungle’s permanent scarring. He thinks for a moment – does he really want that for the rest of his life? While he is musing, Maribel goes in, and then two others. They seem to have passed it well enough. It is then he decides that it is time for him. What’s another scar in his collection?
He steps in and his eyes take a while to adjust to the sudden darkness. Meanwhile, all he is aware of is the freezing, biting cold. He thought the Tundra right now was bad? Well, it felt like mid-winter, and his skin was bare. He shuddered, and seamlessly slipped into his tiger form… except he couldn’t. He began to say ‘huh’, but the sound died in his throat. And then he could see again, and somehow in here it was even brighter than outside, like the walls were made of five suns – except there were no walls. He was standing in the Valley, a Valley which was strange to him, but it was still recognisably the Valley.
He shivered, looked around for anyone, but it was empty. He tried to call ‘Hello?’ but again, no sound. He tried to walk but he couldn’t walk in a straight line, he ended up walking wonkily, or going around in circles, like he was dreaming.
A lifetime later, he finally saw a figure. His ears perked up and he stayed still, worried that he might end up walking away. The figure moved closer and closer, quickly now, running. He smelt her before he saw her, and the smell brought back memories of being curled up warmly, snuggled into the armpit of his mother. ”Romek!” the figure said as Krys came closer and closer. ”Romek, help! Do something! Please!”
He could’ve saved her. If only he was closer. If only he had been there. If only. ”Ma,” he says softly, finding his voice at last. ”Ma! Ma! Hold on! Hold on!” and he ran towards her. When he finally came within touching distance of her, she disappeared. The spotted stallion looked around confusedly, desperately sniffing the patch of snow where his mother had been, twirling around, but she was gone. And then there was a loud, crashing sound and suddenly he was floating above a scene, a memory he shouldn’t have, something that had happened, but had never happened in his presence.
There was his mother, not running now, but lying quite sedately, covered all over in bruises and cuts and scrapes. Her eyes were sunken and her lids heavy, but still, she tried to move as Elite brought her hooves down on her skull, and crushed it. Then there was just a smattering of gore and blood and bone-pieces, and the stallion could hear his name being whispered on the wind.
He fell into this mess, and he scrabbled around for a foothold in the slippery mess of his mother’s body. He looked around for help, but the Valley horses were just watching in disgust. Vanquish was there now, shouldering his way through the crowd, accompanied by his fellow comrades. ”My mother, my mother,” he gasped, stumbling over his words, feeling sick to his stomach. ”Please help. Please.” but he just watched. Everyone just watched.
And then – another loud bang, and he was standing where he had been when they had mounted their attack on the Valley. He felt weak this time, although it was a beautiful day, and looked like it ought to be in some kind of painting. He looked to Vanquish at his side. He looked ahead. There were wolves, and the horse statues, and all sorts of people coming towards him. ”For your mother,” said Vanquish.
Romek nodded, and they charged. But his attacks were useless and they fell on backs which took no damage. Meanwhile, the wolves ripped into his flesh, searing chunks off his shoulders, although it didn’t hurt. He flailed around, but it was no use, none of his attacks were doing any damage (or at the least, they were doing very little). He looked around to see if anyone was having this problem and he saw Vanquish, over his fourth victory, looking towards him. ”Romek! Fight, would you! Fight!”
He couldn’t speak again, and his attacks were useless, but he kept on trying. ”Useless! Useless!” said Vanquish, coming to bail him out. But it was too late, the wolf had his head in its jaws, and pop – Romek was dead.
When he came to, he was in a very dark, very cold cave. There was no way out that he could see. He stood up quickly, shivering off the ice and snow that had formed on his skin. Was this heaven? Was this hell? Purgatory? His memories came back to him slowly, and he finally remembered entering this cave. Still, he could see no way out. He could only press on, and hope that there was something ahead. So he did.
The rock scraped the skin from his body, and he flinched as it dug in. He contemplated turning back but, no – he must go forward. He must. No matter the cost. The scrapes increased until they were digging into muscle. He could barely walk now, but he still pressed on. He turned a corner, and the icy walls of the cave had become smooth again, wide enough to walk comfortably. His mother was standing there, her head intact this time, smiling at him serenely.
”You thought I was weak, didn’t you?” she said, but in typical Krys fashion, her words weren’t accusatory, simply sad, pleasant, conversational. ”I wish you hadn’t. Perhaps if you’d loved me more, you could’ve been there to save me.” ”I did love you. I do love you. I do. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said, but Krys continued as if she couldn’t hear him. ”I loved you very much, my little boy, but I was lost in grief. If I had had someone, I might’ve been okay, you know?” she paused. ”Did you really want to be the General that badly? Did you let me die so you could lead the Army to victory yourself?” ”I never wanted to be General!” he screamed at her, but she didn’t hear him, or if she did, she didn’t let on. ”You wanted to make me proud. But you never got to. And that was your fault. Yours. Not even Nocturnal was proud of you, nor Vanquish, and god knows that poor daughter of yours isn’t either. Does she even know who you are?”
”I’m sorry. I can’t do anything more. Time has moved on too quickly.” he looks at her, and she fades from view. Behind her, the exit. Did he run towards it? It would be a lie if I told you no.
He exits, and the wounds across his sides heal almost instantly, although his wide, wide eyes remain.
”For your army.” he says to the King, as the scars begin to solidify across his body, black scars against the browny-black of his coat, visible only when the light shines on him in the right way. Curling ram horns, one on each shoulder. The identifier of his family, how apt. The past he could never escape from. ”I’m Romek.”
This was all crazy to her, just a few weeks ago she was in the Dale with her family and now she was preparing for an initiation. She met Vaughan and decided to join the diplomat caste, but learned she needed to go through an initiation first. She followed in a group of others, they were around her age but some slightly younger than her.
They all seemed nervous for what was ahead of them, as if they were all Tundra born and raised and heard horror stories. The nervous vibe they gave off made Josie anxious for what was ahead of her, scared she couldn't complete the task.
They stopped at the entrance of the cave and Offspring, the king, noted it would be physically and mentally painful. Her eyes grew slightly wider, what exactly does that entail? She had so many questions but refrained from asking, the only way she would find out was if she went into the cave. She watched as a few others went in and started there initiation before stepping to the entrance of the cave.
She glanced behind her to the others that remained, awaiting the return of those who entered. She took a deep breath before stepping into the cave, her body instantly grew cold. Colder than anything she has ever felt, her body felt paralyzed as if she was unable to move from the cold. She pushed through it, each step grew heavier than the last, it felt like she was carrying fifty pounds of extra weight on each leg. Her mothers voice shot through her ears Josie she called out followed by a blood curling scream. Josie! Come Home! it was almost as if she was begging her to return to the Dale.
She wanted to run out of the cave, she did not want to hear her mother in pain but she shook the thoughts from her head. This was what she wanted, being apart of this kingdom that she found all on her own, this was all she wanted. As she pushed onward Phaedrus stood about twenty paces away from her, her heart raced with joy and she pushed through the pain breaking into a gallop but as she moved forward he got farther away Phaedrus! she screamed out in pain, was this a sign of weakness? Tears began to shed, it was all so overwhelming, she wanted this so bad but the memories of those she left behind tore her apart. Her body was so cold now, she really couldn't feel anything anymore but she knew that she was freezing cold.
The walkway seemed to be closing, and it was getting harder to be able to walk, at one point her body scraped against the hard icy walls, scraping her sides up some small patches of fur torn away from her pelt in the process. She lifted her droopy head with hopes the exit was in sight, but it wasn't, instead her mother stood there. She stood there like a beautiful flower, her head was held high like she was proud of Josie but as Josie grew near her mother fell to the ground and screamed out her name Josie. Josie. Josie Help me! she screamed out as her image disappeared before her.
Josie wanted nothing more than to be out of this cave, why did anyone have to do this to defend there kingdom. Mother!! she screamed out and used all the strength she had left to run forward. She reached the exit, not one hundred percent sure how but the others stood there staring at her. She breathed a long and heavy breath glad to be back to the real world, she glanced at her sides that were no longer covered in blood and her body was no longer cold. She walked near Offspring, the king to introduce herself, dropping her head in a dip I request a spot in the diplomats her head returned to eye level but she moved to be back in with the crowd awaiting any others to exit.
Like The Dancer Before Me
Josie will be a diplomat, her marking will be a mandala similar to this:
07-22-2016, 09:43 AM (This post was last modified: 07-22-2016, 09:45 AM by Neverwas.)
I know you're trying to fight when you feel like flying.
I should be afraid. I have never faced much by way of physical pain, and I know that is about to change. I should quake with fear, my body trembling at the thought of facing the all too familiar depths of mental anguish. I have been so far down, and the initiation is meant to drag me deeper than I have ever been. But looking into my father’s crimson eyes, a calm knowing washes over me. No matter what, he will be waiting for me on the other side of this journey.
I am not the first to answer his call. I stand witness, watching and waiting and breathing, just breathing. I should know the faces of everyone who walks into the cave, but almost all are strangers to me. I suppose if all goes well, they will not be for long. Mari, though, she walks into the darkness and emerges the first of the Sisters. I smile at her, love and pride shining from my dirt-brown eyes, and that smile falters a little at the lingering distance between us.
Now.
As another unfamiliar girl walks back out into the light with a complex and beautiful scar on her shoulder, I feel a gentle pulling, like a rope wrapped around my heart drawing me forward. I look to my father, meeting his gaze once again with a solemn nod, and then answer the call and step into the entrance of the cave.
Ah, the dark, the sweet, gentle dark. It wraps its arms around me, so familiar, so cool and soothing as it swallows me down. I walk deeper, feel a sudden sharp slash of jagged rock against my skin, one little stroke of knife to flesh and blood begins to trickle down my shoulder. Neverwas. a voice I can’t place croons gently in my ear, and I flinch more at the sound of my name than I did at the parting of my skin. Another shallow slice along my flank, and I gasp as blood seeps from another wound. Neverwas.
“I’m Nevi,” I mutter back, denying the name and all that it ever meant. Another step forward, another shallow slash, and the voice returns. Neverwas. A flash of a face long forgotten, a woman who didn’t deserve the title of mother, a stranger who stitched sorrow into my soul with the weight of the name she gave me. The only thing she taught me was that I was never meant to be.
Another slice, deeper this time and colder, and I bite back a quiet whimper. Hazel eyes stare through me, a familiar stranger’s face dispassionate as she takes in my whisper-thin form, shadows and mist, dirt and ash, little more than a wraith. That one’s not meant to last. Never was. It cuts me again, and another jagged rock reaches out to dig through my skin and spill my blood. The cuts come faster and faster, my name echoing in my head with every touch of ice and rock to flesh. Tiny trickles of blood, each just a tasted, just a taunt, and then one cuts deeper.
Neverwas. An innocent little boy voice, speaking my name for the first time in three years. Black as the dead of night, with legs that look like he lept into a puddle of starlight. I remember each star in those constellations, each dot’’s fixed pattern on his skin seared into my brain in the space of that short first day. He’s not my brother, that little boy voice continues, growing into a man even as he says the words. His voice distorting, deepening, getting richer and darker and somehow so Rile’s. He never was. A stab to my chest, an icicle wedged in deep and blood streams from the edges of the wound, its flow stemmed by the ice that breaks off the wall and remains lodged there, slowly melting, the pain searing me with every step.
“I’m Nevi,” I say again, and the words come out louder. Sharper. More desperate. Neverwas neverwas neverwas is a constant hiss in my ear, two voices now that my twin’s has joined my mother’s, and every time they speak my name another cut slices through my skin, another whimper creps past my lips, and I start chanting my nickname like a ward against evil.
“I’m Nevi, I’m Nevi, I’m Nevi,” I murmur, dragging myself forward through the dark toward a faint glimmer of light. The end of this tunnel. Step after step, and each one bringing a new dagger-sharp slice of agony along my face, my neck, my shoulders, my sides, my hips until red hides the dirt and shadow color of my coat and saturates the ash and mist of my mane. And still that endless hissing whisper, neverwas neverwas neverwas.
I’m shaking and sobbing by the time I reach the light, countless tiny slices and great gouges and jagged gaping wounds pouring out more blood than should fit inside a body as small as mine. The ice and the rock dig deeper, resisting as I try to push the last of the way through, and I scream, scrambling at the ground and trying to break free from the last of the spikes. “I can’t do it,” I sob, and I would fall to the ground if I weren’t being held up by jagged shards of ice and rock piercing my flesh. Blood begins to pool beneath me, and I choke on the weight of my failure.
It’s not your fault, little love. It never was. I raise my head, looking up into angel eyes, and feel her boundless love washing over me. And on her lips, my name means something new. Something clean and whole and finally unbroken, and I want it so badly I can’t breathe. So I try one more time. The whispers drown to nothing, shadows chased away by the light in her eyes. And I step toward my mom, the only mom who has ever mattered. The only one who has deserved to be called mine. With one last wrenching, desperate pull, I tear free of the jagged rocks holding me captive and stumble into her embrace.
It is a long time before I can pull away from her soothing touch, but when I finally see where we are, something shifts in my chest, a wide-open tearing that lets Mom’s light into all the dark places. The cave opened out onto the craggy peak I climbed to after the wolf attack. The day I almost ended everything. “It’s not your fault,” she murmurs again, stroking my hair with gentle little touches of love and acceptance. “It never was.”And this time, when I stand at the edge of oblivion looking down into the dark...for the first time, I start to believe.
* * * * *
I slowly come awake, light just starting to filter through the entrance of my little cave to dance along the floor and in my eyes and coax me to wakefulness. Today is the day. I will join the Tundra, enter the cave and come out a Brother, and make my father proud. The moment he calls, I head to the gathering at the entrance to the cave that will leave me scarred, that will mark me as a man of the Tundra for the whole world to see.
I should be afraid. I have never faced much by way of physical pain, and I know that is about to change. I should quake with fear, my body trembling at the thought of facing the all too familiar depths of mental anguish. I have been so far down, and the initiation is meant to drag me deeper than I have ever been. But looking into my father’s crimson eyes, a calm knowing washes over me. No matter what, he will be waiting for me on the other side of this journey.
I am not the first to answer his call. I stand witness, watching and waiting and breathing, just breathing. I should know the faces of everyone who walks into the cave, but almost all are strangers to me. I suppose if all goes well, they will not be for long. Mari, though, she walks into the darkness and emerges the first of the Sisters. I smile at her, love and pride shining from my dirt-brown eyes, and that smile falters a little at the lingering distance between us.
Now.
As another unfamiliar girl walks back out into the light with a complex and beautiful scar on her shoulder, I feel a gentle pulling, like a rope wrapped around my heart drawing me forward. I look to my father, meeting his gaze once again with a solemn nod, and then answer the call and step toward the entrance of the cave.
I am half a length from entering when that tug vanishes as if it never existed. I stop, confused, and look to my dad. Something has changed, between one step and the next. It ripples through the air, through the land itself, shaking and tremoring and nearly knocking me off my feet. The magic in the caves drains away, all the initiation scars both new and old fade into nothing, and I have no idea what to do. “Dad?”
