Post by Moira ap Eiluned on Jul 4, 2010 22:07:28 GMT -8
Rienne stood at the top of Skyspire, looking out over the One Forest. The silver tower fell away steeply beneath her; even the roof garden was thirty feet below this highest point. The sun hung above her, pale and huge but without intensity, lighting the tips of the endless spread of trees beneath her – huge old forest giants, hemlocks and cedars, redwoods and pines – like some sort of rich green carpet. Her back was to the one feature to be seen in this endless landscape of green...a narrow black path, starting somewhere out of sight and wending into view before stopping suddenly and rather incongruously at a small white picket gate, attached to no fence, fifty yards from the base of the tower. The path was a break in the purity of the place, and she did not want to see it.
She had stopped trying to guide the visions now; she let them take her where they willed. Someone who walked outside the pattern – Red? Sheehan? Another Scathachan? – had mended it, taking away the visions of cracked mirrors and bloody hands and a task too great for her flawed soul, and gifted her with a task that brought her...peace.
Secret: collector of the lost and forgotten, as she was. White rose with a shadowed heart, the secrets filled that dark center, gave it purpose. No need to change, to become other; no one and nothing telling her that she was not good enough, not...whatever they wanted her to be – more dignified, more friendly, stronger, more independent, less introverted, more social, her ears rang with the words of all the people who had wanted her to be other. But the Dreaming accepted her, and those words faded to hollow whispers, to be carried away and lost on the breeze dancing over the trees. Seelie and Unseelie both, she was sufficient.
Visions came, visions went, and life went on between. Not just future shadows now, but images of the past, near and far. She was content now to let them come, each in their time, to see and hold the secrets the Dreaming whispered to her, to let each be as real to her as the now.
She saw Sheehan, knew his grief and guilt, understood the choice before him. Her heart ached for what he had done, what he might – or might not – yet do. But the choice had been his before, and must be his again. She watched, and remembered, and honored his choices with silence.
Harlequin again, the man he had been, the woman who had destroyed him. Love and passion, soon to be twisted and destroyed. A little more revealed, but nothing that Pan would not soon discover on his own. Pan would be better served by her silence here; her words would give him nothing he would not soon learn, and the better for doing it himself. She wept for Harlequin, and prayed for his redemption.
She was glad for Andais’ machinations, Feline’s mistake. It had ripped open a wound in her own mind, forced the last festering poisonous deceptions away. There was peace in the truth, in accepting it at long last.
Duvall again, and then again; saw dark choices made, and dark redemption chosen. One act, or a pattern? For a moment, a long moment, she was tempted to stay silent. It was a painful secret he bore, and he took no joy in what he did, then or now. But the Autumn King had made her his advisor, and at last, again, she had a proper vessel to pour her knowledge into. What Duvall was doing now could have ripples, for the kingdom, for Concordia. Jerek needed to know what she had seen, as she had seen it; she had learned the error of trying to interpret what came to her. She would pour forth for her King what the Dreaming had filled her with, and trust in his wisdom, his power, to understand.
She saw the Queen of Spring, Mircea kneeling before her, and she saw how the horn and glove came to pass to him, and why. So even the plans of the Dreaming may be guided and shaped in turn by those the Dreaming chooses.... She found joy and pride in the courage of those choices.
She thought of the Summer King, the flawless white rose highlighting the riotous colors of the rest – yellow and dark blue, black and sky-blue, and a dozen other shades – that thrived at his feet. She would always love Koal, could not help but love him, as the flowers themselves love the sun that gives them life. And like the sun, it was a love that separation alone made possible.
Elliot, and Silent Seattle, and Duvall. A fine line, a dangerous game, and the price of loyalty, true loyalty, made clear. Another silent secret for her to keep, and a new sense of respect to match it.
She cherished the memories that Aerene gifted her of Koal, the only knowledge of gentle love she would ever know...a knowledge at one remove. The ritual she had shared with Tamlin had removed the shame, but not the mark that Brand had left on the night of her Wilding. He may have cast the shadow on her heart, shaped it, tended it, but it had flourished in her and it was hers and hers alone now, as much as breath, or hope, or pain.
The forest was restful, was forgiving. Devoid of all that walked, or swam, or flew, it whispered secrets of its own to a land with no ears, of a time that never was.
She sought nothing for herself now, because she had purpose again, and place, and peace. Future and past and now, blending, weaving, and she was a thread within it. She let go of the rest, let her regrets and follies and hungers loose upon the breeze, to mingle with the secrets of the forest, to become lost in its vastness.
She remembered Koal’s lost wife, and hoped that, with so many other ancient dreams finding their way home, she might, too.
Eventually, she goes down the stairs and back to life, leaving the faintest murmurs still lingering on the deaf wind.
She had stopped trying to guide the visions now; she let them take her where they willed. Someone who walked outside the pattern – Red? Sheehan? Another Scathachan? – had mended it, taking away the visions of cracked mirrors and bloody hands and a task too great for her flawed soul, and gifted her with a task that brought her...peace.
Secret: collector of the lost and forgotten, as she was. White rose with a shadowed heart, the secrets filled that dark center, gave it purpose. No need to change, to become other; no one and nothing telling her that she was not good enough, not...whatever they wanted her to be – more dignified, more friendly, stronger, more independent, less introverted, more social, her ears rang with the words of all the people who had wanted her to be other. But the Dreaming accepted her, and those words faded to hollow whispers, to be carried away and lost on the breeze dancing over the trees. Seelie and Unseelie both, she was sufficient.
Visions came, visions went, and life went on between. Not just future shadows now, but images of the past, near and far. She was content now to let them come, each in their time, to see and hold the secrets the Dreaming whispered to her, to let each be as real to her as the now.
She saw Sheehan, knew his grief and guilt, understood the choice before him. Her heart ached for what he had done, what he might – or might not – yet do. But the choice had been his before, and must be his again. She watched, and remembered, and honored his choices with silence.
Harlequin again, the man he had been, the woman who had destroyed him. Love and passion, soon to be twisted and destroyed. A little more revealed, but nothing that Pan would not soon discover on his own. Pan would be better served by her silence here; her words would give him nothing he would not soon learn, and the better for doing it himself. She wept for Harlequin, and prayed for his redemption.
She was glad for Andais’ machinations, Feline’s mistake. It had ripped open a wound in her own mind, forced the last festering poisonous deceptions away. There was peace in the truth, in accepting it at long last.
Duvall again, and then again; saw dark choices made, and dark redemption chosen. One act, or a pattern? For a moment, a long moment, she was tempted to stay silent. It was a painful secret he bore, and he took no joy in what he did, then or now. But the Autumn King had made her his advisor, and at last, again, she had a proper vessel to pour her knowledge into. What Duvall was doing now could have ripples, for the kingdom, for Concordia. Jerek needed to know what she had seen, as she had seen it; she had learned the error of trying to interpret what came to her. She would pour forth for her King what the Dreaming had filled her with, and trust in his wisdom, his power, to understand.
She saw the Queen of Spring, Mircea kneeling before her, and she saw how the horn and glove came to pass to him, and why. So even the plans of the Dreaming may be guided and shaped in turn by those the Dreaming chooses.... She found joy and pride in the courage of those choices.
She thought of the Summer King, the flawless white rose highlighting the riotous colors of the rest – yellow and dark blue, black and sky-blue, and a dozen other shades – that thrived at his feet. She would always love Koal, could not help but love him, as the flowers themselves love the sun that gives them life. And like the sun, it was a love that separation alone made possible.
Elliot, and Silent Seattle, and Duvall. A fine line, a dangerous game, and the price of loyalty, true loyalty, made clear. Another silent secret for her to keep, and a new sense of respect to match it.
She cherished the memories that Aerene gifted her of Koal, the only knowledge of gentle love she would ever know...a knowledge at one remove. The ritual she had shared with Tamlin had removed the shame, but not the mark that Brand had left on the night of her Wilding. He may have cast the shadow on her heart, shaped it, tended it, but it had flourished in her and it was hers and hers alone now, as much as breath, or hope, or pain.
The forest was restful, was forgiving. Devoid of all that walked, or swam, or flew, it whispered secrets of its own to a land with no ears, of a time that never was.
She sought nothing for herself now, because she had purpose again, and place, and peace. Future and past and now, blending, weaving, and she was a thread within it. She let go of the rest, let her regrets and follies and hungers loose upon the breeze, to mingle with the secrets of the forest, to become lost in its vastness.
She remembered Koal’s lost wife, and hoped that, with so many other ancient dreams finding their way home, she might, too.
Eventually, she goes down the stairs and back to life, leaving the faintest murmurs still lingering on the deaf wind.