A Hymn to Childhood

The world was darkening — and the forest strained for the last moment of light with a weak whimper — like a smothered flame. It appeared to Zera that the woods were abandoned, similar to herself. Her eyes watched the long shadows stretch and yearn for the sweet sun. She could do the same, if only she knew which direction claimed her mother. But she yearned anyway in every direction. She felt as though her heart hung on to the last rib with a dying grip, and the hold was temporary as happiness. Zera was afraid to move, afraid to lift her gaze from the edge of the woods. Afraid that if she did rip herself from the outskirts she'd have no other place and her heart would finally succumb to the depths of emptiness. The forest was just as abandoned as she was.

But a part of her moved to think about other things. She thought about her stomach, which was impossible to ignore just raving with growls and tinging pain. She thought of the others. But how couldn't she? They loomed heavier behind than her dark shadow, existing and demanding like living things tended to do. They required her. She couldn't just slip away like this. She'd be leaving them, leaving what little she had left in her tracks just as Nayeli did, to grow incurably frozen, eventually lifeless. Zera knew it wasn't just winter that made everything so cold. Her father's flame reduced from the roaring fire that kept the pack forging bright hope. He reduced to this bitter thin trail of smoke that swirled sourly into the pack's lungs. Zera couldn't stand the succorance, and chose  to spend her hours away from the Bend where the snow could swallow her in heaps, help hide the guilt. And she hid in it, better than anyone else could. Zera found her way through the ominous cold like there was an old friend waiting somewhere on the outskirts of familiar territory. As though she could meet new faces, that would console the girl's tumultuous heart, distract her from everything she'd been carrying behind her yellow eyes. As though one day a passerby might be blessed with the white diamond blaze and clear eyes. As though she might find what she was looking for.

But the forest was abandoned now, raped of light and the frail warmth by the cold that crept in. They were both forsaken twins, each with the same loneliness. Only Zera had forsaken herself.

zera tainn

(This post was last modified: Feb 05, 2015, 10:43 PM by Zera.)

Back-date to 1/21...?

It would be growing dark soon, but Nayeli did not yet want to call it a night and make her way back to the heart of the pack's lands, despite how glad she was to finally be back here. To some, the predominately oak woodland may have seemed cold and dead in winter's grip, but now she moved knowingly through the growing shadows, each tree and rock and snow-obscured curve of the hills and old friend. Sstarlit eyes pierced the deepening shadows, probing the darkening forest for the form of another. @Triell had told her that Zera had been spending more and more time alone out here by herself, gravitating away from the Bend, and though her body was silently demanding rest and recuperation, she could not let herself lay ildle, not when she had not yet laid eyes upon her daughter.

Every few moments the dark lady would stop to inspect a scent here or there - winter had stripped the land of it's vitality, but to Nayeli's nose there was life and comfort in the familiar scents she did detect - Triell's here, Jessie's there, and didn't this one on the fern belong to the woman called Spieden...? Fortunately, Nayeli had not yet scented any of the duplicitous loners who had waylaid her near the borders of the Bend, but only time would tell, and in the interim, she vowed to see her daughter safely home. It was long due time their family was reunited. Unfortunately, she had not picked up Zera's scent yet, either. Thoughts of those who might try and pursue her here haunted the back of her mind, and she had to wonder when, or if, they would track her to the Bend. She suppressed  a snarl at that thought - whether or not they came here for her (and she would make certain they regretted it if they did), the most important thing in this moment was to account for the one final, vital part of her soul that she had not yet found.

Nayeli scanned her surroundings once more - and noticed the trace of prints in the distance, winding along the snow-covered ground. Hope leapt in her chest, but she warned herself not to let it burst into flight just yet - she surged toward the spot, her fluid gait impeded by the slight limp she did her best to ignore for now.  She thrust her muzzle at the tracks, drinking in the scent.

There was no mistaking it - she pushed her nose into the freezing snow again, stirring it about to awaken the smell, though there was little need. Nayeli could not have ever forgotten that aroma. "Zera! Are you out here?" She called out, voice ringing through the falling light. She was racing along the trail now, the dull pain of her front paw ignored as she rushed headlong through the trees, afraid that if she did not move fast enough, the trail would evaporate as it had so many times before, in her dreaming mind. But this simply could not be another dream, or she wouldn't be able to stand it. She must be getting close now. "ZERA!"

(This post was last modified: Feb 14, 2015, 11:45 PM by Nayeli.)

A lynx has left behind the remains of a deer. +5 Health

Alone there, the girl became aware of her own dying flame, her own hardening heart. She fought this feeling every evening at the boundary of the woods, hoping somehow she could find the courage to turn her tail for the family she knew was waiting for her at the Bend. But frozen, still as the rest of the world, Zera couldn't find it within herself to take her yellow eyes away from the horizon. It was almost like she chased the sun for warmth in the daytime, moving out further and further as the sun sank, her hope dying a little more each day. She waited here where the snow piled in dunes and the wind robbed leaves from the remaining trees. Zera could see out across the wide, endless horizon and hope the black, long gone figure of her mother would emerge from the end of the world. It was all she wished for, anymore. The only thing the poor child could imagine. But there was nothing out there. Not even the sun was here anymore.

The nearly grown pup shoved a sigh out into the blue dusk and shifted her eyes to watch the breath curl up like smoke. She was done waiting. Done bracing herself against the truth. Done with the agonizing act of lying to herself. The truth was right there in front of her all along, Nayeli was never coming back. Zera imagined her mother was probably nothing but bones beneath six feet of snow by now. Gone like the breath from her lungs. Dead. And she wondered for the slightest moment back to the first hunt when she'd seen the powerful buck fall to the jaws of the pack, and thought that maybe it was all like that. Maybe there was something like wolves, not only controlling the forest, but the sky and the wind and the trees. Maybe there was something out there that says when it is right for something else to die. Maybe it controls all of this. Maybe it controlled her and everything that happened to her here and now. What she thought, what she said, and even what she did? The pup remained there for a few more moments, pondering, hoping, just bleeding out in her own head. She had more 'what-ifs' than any god could answer. Than anything could answer.

But she heard it, the answer. It came from the back of her mind, way behind her, almost as though it were real and familiar. It came from the forest, bounding to her ears from the barren trees and the snowbanks. It was faint, bell-like. Echoing from the furthest point in her fragile memory. She couldn't understand what it was saying, but it grew louder as it came. Becoming real. Zera lurched to her paws, tail stiff in the gentle breeze, her gaze swallowed by the dark. She waited, ears straining impossibly into the world. The silence was deafening. It was louder than that quiet little voice, the great familiarity of it more quiet than stillness. She waited, her heart beating up into her throat. She couldn't breathe because if she did, it would be when the voice came again. The woods were hushed and they stayed like that for what felt like forever. Zera dropped her nose to the snow, closing her tear-filled eyes with great hatred. How could she be so foolish? How could she think for one second—

But a second hadn't even passed by before "ZERA," howled out into her ears, loud and real as any memory. Her tiny heart nearly beat out of its cage with wings as fast as a hummingbird's. She ran headlong into the forest, past the seclusion of her snowbank, into the thickening trees. Her eyes were wild as a rabid animal, attempting to pierce the heavy darkness. She listened more than anything else with hope a raging flame in her chest, ignited by the impossible voice. The sound that ended solipsistic thoughts. The voice she never thought she'd hear again.

zera tainn

Her call echoed and died without answer, dwindling away into the dusk. Nayeli pressed on, following her daughter's trail as it wound on ahead into the darkening wilds... away from the embrace of the Bend's lands. Please, don't leave now... too many times in her fevered and addled sleep, she had dreamed of returning home only to find them all dead, or gone. Sometimes a distant but familiar shoreline was here to greet her where home ought to have been, water gently lapping at rocks in mocking laughter and everyone she had hoped to find just ashes washing away because she hadn't been able to reach them in time. As the light faded around her and the forest turned blue-black, she could have all too easily let herself believe that she was adrift once more, trying to fight the tide so that it did not pull her under or separate her from those she cared for, seeking for solid ground. No. She'd finally made it home, and here were her daughter's footsteps before her, no more than a few hours old, her scent still vital and alive

"Please, answer me...." Nayeli's voice rang out once again. Of course, she had considered that perhaps Zera didn't want to be found, didn't want to see her again, after all this time. When she'd reunited with Triell at the borders, @Darrah had hung back, hesitation making apparent a rift despite her desire for them all to be together once again. But she had seen him wither her own eyes, knew for a fact that he was safe and well. The rest would come in time, she needed to believe. Her first concern must be to make sure neither of them ran unprepared into what she feared had followed her home.

That was when she saw the form - a wolf-shaped shadow that might have been a specter at first, emerging toward her out of the darkness, coming down the very same path. Her breath clouded before her vision as she tried to be sure, her tail sweeping up wildly in the next instant as she bust arrhytmically across the snow

She wanted to lay down and pull the girl into the safe embrace of her front limbs as they'd once done, to hold her warm against her chest, but of course, she could not. Instead she slowed her pace the last few steps, her gaze still half-disbelieving as she looked at the daughter who now appeared almost an adult. With slow deliberation, she carefully took each remaining step needed to close the distance between mother and daughter. Nayeli was equally afraid that Zera might turn and run into the night, or simply vanish into nothingness, a trick of the light or of the mind. "Oh Zera... " she let out the exclamation in a quiet breath, moving forward to embrace her daughter. "I missed you so, so much. Are you...." she searched for what to say, but there didn't seem to be enough words, and so she let her silence carry the question instead. It could not have been alright for any of them recently, but perhaps now finally the healing might begin.

The voice was flint sparks of memory, echoes so hot, so fanciful against the empty of Zera's heart. The very sound was spark kindling the fire that was all too gone. It had to have been gone. She was reduced to the particles in the tailwind of a forest fire, she was hollow as the wind. Motherless and wayward. The woods were crying and she would cry too. Zera ran toward that hot sound, black legs blurring gray against the blue-white snowbanks, eyes yellow as swallowed suns in the dark. Restless, unfeigned. She chased that sound like it was the real thing, knowing the emptiness of the black dusk with every closing pulse, knowing the night was as dense as the truth. Zera knew she would shatter this moment if she so much as whispered to the voice. She knew reality was as thin as a spider's web: delicate as the bond of love yet strong enough to hold the world. She knew her mother was present as the wind, so easy to slice, so easy to ignore. She knew what it meant to break. She couldn't bear how it felt.

Home was broken, it was rightfully hidden in the snow. But the girl was hot enough to warm it, melt away all that buried the layer of pride and honor that was still alive in the Bend. Zera didn't know for sure if this voice was something within her or without her. If it was trying to show her what she was capable of restoring. She wondered for a moment if it even mattered that Nayeli was gone. She wondered if this is what Nayeli would have wanted. Her mother was strong and pure, she was so much of what Zera wanted to be. The voice was a giver of strength and truth. The voice was all she had now.

Zera stopped in the depth of a tree's faint shadow, secluded once more in a shroud of humming silence. She breathed as fast as her heartbeat, spilling cloudy air out into the dark, yellow eyes blaring beyond what they could see. She could listen forever if she had to. She would cling to that small silk of memory until it became real again. She was sure of how real it was. And it was there right in front of her, as real as real gets, like a god had blossomed her from frozen soil. The pure white of her blaze was more radiant than the fresh flurry, more alive than wildfire. Zera felt her body turn heavy as stone and her head spin like a feather in the wind. She watched her mother come from absolutely nowhere...alive and unscathed. Zera waited in her own flesh, too stunned to believe anything, waiting for her to evaporate in the next exhale of white breath. But Nayeli rushed forward with the sweet voice sounding out her name, one letter at a time. Zera.

The girl felt her mother's rich fur press into her own, warmth flooding the hollow parts of her chest. Zera pressed her nose into the thick locks breathing in the sweetest smell of milk and wood. She closed her eyes and remembered sitting with her mother like this beneath the stars, the warmth of summer in the shade of her strong shadow, the days she thought were forever lost.

'I missed you so, so much.'

Me too. But she couldn't say it yet. She could only listen to the memories as they surfaced, only press herself deeper into her mother's chest, into the warmth. Zera felt her breaths come raggedly, felt the brimming of warmth topple over closed eyelids onto the snow-dusted cheeks to freeze into teary glass. Her heart was stinging from how hot she was, from how much she was holding back. She couldn't handle this gift. This blessing. She couldn't do anything but sit there in the puddle of warmth and soak and breathe.

'Are you...' she heard her mother say gently, pulling her away from the flooding of memory. I am. I am now, she answered mentally, at once okay. Zera just nodded her head against her mother's fur, breathing and crying. She felt her sobs gently nudge away the stone weight of her bones, the warmth melting her frozen shock. She was still reluctant to speak, but the fire was burning now and it was too hot to ignore. "I never," she started hoarsely, hardly whispering, "never thought I'd see you again."

zera tainn

[sorry about the length and the wait, don't feel pressured to match this]

The failing light wrapped about them both, shrouding their reunion in dusk-lit hues. Nayeli remained leaning against Zera's form, unsure of who needed the support more - she drew strength from the long-due physical contact as if drinking from the spring of life, and her quiet rage grew with each of Zera's shaking sobs. The anger was directed in part at herself, and in part at those who had imposed to keep her away from her family for far too long; each racking shake of the young Tainn's frame a bit of of fuel being added into a long-smoldering fire.

This low-burning fury was a well-known companion by now, and other than the strength it continued to lend her, its only outward sign was a certain glinting spark in her once serene gaze.

Her daughter's rough whisper cut through it all, softening the expression, and Nayeli pulled back the barest fraction so that she could lock eyes with her. "I'm here now. Right here," she assured them both. "I would die before I allow myself to be kept away ever again," she truly meant that, "and I'll do everything to make sure it doesn't come to that, either." Her dark muzzle pressed against Zera's cheek, gently brushing away the tears she saw there. Nayeli was ready to give answers if Zera was ready to ask questions, or just to sit and lean on one another for as long as her daughter wished. Nayeli was beyond thankful to have found her daughter safe, and to be able to feel her warmth and life again, and to her, the moment could have happily gone on forever. How much she would have given to never be gone, to have been here over the last months to see her children grown into the young adults they now were. She couldn't change what had happened in the past, nor foresee what the future held, but she would not let a moment go by idly - she would treasure each moment of time, and make the most of it.

(This post was last modified: Feb 25, 2015, 06:54 AM by Nayeli.)

She felt nothing but every bit of pent, exhausted heat inside circumvolve this moment. The two of them together like that was like a pair of lungs that had breathed smoke for too long, like vision clouded by it. Zera fell into her mother as though she were falling into the ashes of a terrible dream, a burning fear that had almost smothered into truth. She could not part away from her mother's chest despite everything that swirled between them, ripped them apart. It was too long, it was all too long.

The innumerable distance was heavier than anything. Zera cried, and the thoughts did too. She thought of all the steps she'd taken in search of that all-knowing gray gaze that peered with unspoken wisdom from the white forehead mark, and she knew that she'd not taken as many as the woman she aspired to be. The beautiful, impossible goddess of a mother before her. She could not draw back, just pressed a little harder into her mother, wishing somehow all the pain could have happened now in one quick slice to her throat. She was guilty for everything. Zera was guilty for the cold, hardened space she'd set between herself and her family, the way she left the pack at its most vulnerable. There was so much shame. She was ashamed of herself. Without a trace she'd vanished and plumed into the clouded sky, left everyone asking for her before they'd ask for god. Tarnished and scalded, the girl felt her mother's voice rouse between them, soothing and precious in her head.

'I'm here now.'

But she couldn't be. Zera didn't deserve this kind of love for the reckless price of grief they'd spent in turmoil. There was a humming numb that swelled in her, possibly from the scalding of her chest, but then again she was too numb to remember the heat of it. Her mind raced in circles of desolation, always coming back to the start, 'Right here.'

'Right here.'

She felt broken, playing this over cyclically in her head for no purpose other than to believe it was real. To believe it was right here before her, so close she could heat the rattle of her tin can heart. So close she could hear the sound of a mother pleading for comfort, the sound of what it must be like to be so alone for so long. And it sounded familiar, starting from a ring, a cry out so clear it is almost falsified by the surprise of hearing it at the precise time. But Zera could not let her mother say these things after the sound of the metallic clink, the worn out heart. She felt her thoughts churn out no, I would die, but she stopped and pulled away, stung by the rush of cold.

"I know you would," she said at once, forcing the yellow promise deep into her mother's eyes, "and I would too." All at once she felt strong there holding the watery gaze of the grayest nostalgia, so pure and songlike. She felt like she had wings in her soul that beat out a short hymn, just the mere eclipse of something as sweet and broken as innocence. Perhaps childhood was leaving her like a white, snowy breath, saying goodbye in a metallic voice, a sword leaving the heart.

zera tainn

(This post was last modified: Mar 07, 2015, 12:47 AM by Zera.)