kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"FromYourMothersSleep.0"

words

FROM YOUR MOTHER'S SLEEP

Soft in the moondark, spongiform vegetation underfoot; she sleeps, and you are her dream. A whisp of chill stirs your soft fur and hastens your step. Your heart warms.

You know not of what she dreams, but you know still that there is only one passing of the moon to find it. Compulsions lead you.

Purple, you sense. Lavendar, or lilac. An odor, then, and then it's gone. You stop; close your eyes and pretend to dream, pretend to know the thoughts that sit in your mother's head. That smell, a memory.

She has lived for so long, though. You have lived many lives, been many children to her, and the memory is too vague to place, shifting, swimming in the darkness.

Stars sparkle behind your eyelids, and you believe she's smiling on you. Kindly, teasing, but serious behind it all. Trusting. The stars pull you forward, and you open your gaze. You find your feet stepping, daintily; water burbles, splashes, sprays gently, twisting and curling around rocks; pebbles glisten in the moondark, and you move from stone to stone, mindfull of the musky moss.

A slight steam plays over the water; it mingles with the spray and adorns your ankles, transiest priceless jewels. Pollywogs swim in shimmery schools; a salamander slips through the brush. A speck of moondark shines it purple, and you jump to follow.

The smell is stronger, but still it's more a thought than substance; it speaks to you of fear and danger, and a knife is in your hand. You bring the blade before you, and instinctively your eyes widen. The ebony of the hilt and the blackness of the blade tell you this dream is no simple finding.

There will be blood--that's when you place the smell.

Fresh blood; fear and sweat, and something sweet.

Still, the salamander scurries, and it flickers purple, red, and yellow, blue and green. You almost don't notice that the dark is shifting on its back, pushing towards you--light ahead registers, though, and you stop, looking up through brush; a glow ahead, your eyes adjust, and you feel the fire--it saps heat and will from you. And something else--a taint. Do they sense you?

You know they can't, but still--

You shake the thought off as based on fear, a firewhim.

Still, you lower your profile to the ground and creep forward. The salamander is gone, though you didn't notice it leave. You wonder if it's gone to them.

Them?

You creep further, and your joints begin to ache from the suspense. The glow seems no closer and you fear that you must be faster, that this caution could cause some failure. You creep faster, and the ache turns to coldness, the coldness of the fire sapping life.

Could they sense you?

Three bright figures walk widdershins around a stone left behind by glaciers. Fire burns in the center of the stone--and underneath the fire is another; dead? You cannot tell, but it registers by vision only. Your heart says dead.

Closer still, and you hear their voices, mumbled. Louder in your mind is the fire, noisy as a wounded bear, and it muddies the meaning of their words.

Your left leg slides in something, and a twig snaps; you can't hear it over the fire, and you can't quite tell if they paused in step; they recover quickly, if they did--perhaps you blinked, firewhims dancing strong.

You pull your leg back to your body, to balance, and wonder that it feels a little odd. Pain? Blood is welling from your calf. How could that be yours?

Your arm stumbles, and you collapse gently to the ground. Visions, now, bright angels, overwhelm. Fingers, arms, pressure all around, and you're lifted up.

Instincts shift the weapon to your other hand, and spin you; the moon's darkness flickers in and quiets flamenoise. You feel a tingling in your eyes and realize they're closed; a force is prompting them, but weak; weak, you force them open.

The acolytes--that is what they are, acolytes of sun; they regard you. One is holding his arm, another his face. The last stands behind them, further; a blade poised against the dead figure. You move towards them, will alone hiding a wince with every shumbling step.

The lock step with you, moving backwards, until you confront alone the one threatening the stone.

Threatening noises rumble from his mouth, twisting thought. He gestures to the figure on the stone, and you see it's you--you but not you, a simulacrum.

A gasp forces itself out of your mouth when you realize what they've done.

Mirrors are a power of your mother, but they've twisted it with fire; a piece of her dream is in the mirror, in the body on the stone, and that is you.

Heedless, now, you enter battle hotly. They were not prepared.

The sun thinks it is the only one that can move with ferocity of spirit; it forgets the sudden silver changes, or disregards them. The berserker numb of sleep. Your body is not your own, you sense, as it's pushed beyond its limits. You feel flesh, your flesh, rip and twist, but still you fight. Your blade dispatches the closest, cleanly, and his own weapon drops to the ground. It nicks the mirror's face on the way, blood sympathetically falling in your eyes.

Shadows, flickers, bite and stab; the two before you shift and sway. Wounds crawl upon your skin, but still the self within you fights on.

Essence fades, casting to the sky, released to dream--and you fight on.

One falls, then, and you jump to end him quickly.

The last turns and runs. With him, flees more knowledge of you and yours than you would wish, but there is nothing left. You push the fire off of the stone, heedless to the burns. Soil lends itself to your hands and you cover the flame, shutting out the light from where it does not belong, purifying the night.

Finally, you collapse, back to the stone, then curl to the ground.

You keen.

She's in your arms now, in your blood; her hands cradle you, caress you; washed in love, you're lifted into the night.