fury and blades

Eira... The coat of her mother reflected the hopelessness Helovia’s bleeding sky that day: the bleak, black atmospheric heaviness - clouds that appeared to weep grief upon the broken land laid beneath - that all, ultimately, preluded the death of the world. Eira did not understand the gravity of the situation she beheld. The tiny, well-kept foal could not begin to fathom the tragedy and loss as each face, mind and spirit was snuffed from existence before her gaping, fear-struck eyes by the black and teal smoked monster who battled them without mercy, there, in the stinking soup of swamp-mud. Perhaps it was the posture of the stranger who stood like a ghostly silhouette against the black mouth of the earth before her, the cool courage that emanated from her battle-ready frame; or maybe it was the concerned warmth in the eyes that turned with soothing embrace towards her, feminine care and compassion that she’d been without since the loss of her mother all those many months before… Her mother was a hero, nothing less - as was her father who marched forward so valiantly wielding fearlessly the silvery sword upon his skull toward the convulsing form of the devil to riled them. She remembered their image so perfectly, painfully, for both vanished so suddenly in the harrowing seconds which followed, and their orphan children were sucked then from the safety of their parent’s bosom, down into the perils of  Rift. Could a year have passed already? Eira offered a small half-smile: the remnants of determination which had all but frayed and fizzled the moment she’d stepped beyond the brightness of the open. Now she stood in the sombre shadow of the bamboo like the hunted, stepping after the more-radiant, fire-licked creature with bent knees and a twisted heart.  “Will you take me?” Though she couldn’t muster a response into words, she’d made clear her intention to follow with a bolstered nod, and tried her best to keep pace - the griffons dancing and leaping above gleaming steel, ahead, inspired the shy eyes of their audience and cleansed the wavering recesses of her tarnished imagination. The voice of the mare, mellow in contrast, was swallowed swiftly by the guttural roar of the monster who lingered yet in darkness; its voice resonated endlessly around the cold, dank emptiness of the cave grown around them. “Is this… the Metus?” She wondered warily, pressing hot skin firmly against the damp chill of the stone wall - though she knew well that the voice expected better. Reluctantly, she peeled clear of the wall, stepping slowly, fearfully, nearer to the mare. "I am a book of snow, a spacious hand, an open meadow, a circle that waits, I belong to the earth and its winter."

- Pablo Neruda, Winter Garden