The stables were damp with the fresh morning rain. A melancholy affair, as the droplets pattered down from the heavens like lost tears.
The precipitation that engulfed the new dawn was not vengeful. It didn't shake the Earth like it might just rattle the bones of those who withstood it and it didn't flood the acreage of Arrow House like it wanted to wash away any evidence of life in its fields.
Thunder did not swarm the cloud coverage of impenetrable grey, but rather the harmless rush of falling droplets and the haunting songs of the blackbirds far off in the distance. Lightening ceased to slash through the haze, allowing the morning fog to encompass the land and swell at your ankles, until your flesh blistered with the rise of goosebumps, like a chilling exhale sliding over your skin.
The rain trickled down in slow streams, rich with the scent of the Earth wafting upwards from the soil, soaked by precipitation that nearly promised to breathe life back into its winter ridden soul. It was a cold rain, not numbing enough that the droplets froze in mid-fall and became a fluttering display of glistening flakes, but when they danced along your skin and blew like ice laced kisses against your cheeks, it was a kind of cold that made you long for the spectacle of such snow.
For there was no redeeming beauty in this rain, there was no glittering waltz of December snow fluttering to the ground to soften the blow of the formidable cold. It was simply sadness, weeping down from the open heavens. For such misery belonged not amongst angels and the very notion of salvation, but down where the tainted and troubled souls lingered below.
The air carried something within its wind that early morning, as you stood immersed in the stables from the very moment dawn whispered its name over the sorrowful land. It was palpable in the way it felt as though you might just run your fingertips through the chilled and moistened air, and the tangible evidence would linger there on the flesh of your bare hand.
It was a perplexing blend, a bewildering sensation that enveloped the atmosphere that cold January morning, as though it demanded to be felt one way or another.
For there was an inexplicable sense of peace that traveled along the slowest of currents, an exhaled breath of relief that you could identify in the chilling whisper of the morning, the very breath that trickled over your exposed flesh and brought shivers to the surface. Something tranquil in the fall of the rain that coated the land in a simple bathing of cleansing droplets, the soft echo of gentle trickles and the way it met the roof made of thick wood looming above your drying frame.
Perhaps, there was something in that sense of unnerving peace, that felt as though it met your own tears with open arms and invited you into its somber embrace. As though to say, within its cast of melancholy rain and depressingly grey skies, that you too could cry until the ground beneath your boots was soddened and muddy.
But with the sensation of peace that you couldn't quite explain, came an overwhelming notion of pain that lingered throughout the atmosphere. Each and every inhale that soared through your shakily expanding lungs, tainted and tarnished by the grasp of the anguish that resided there amongst the land.
They were two sensations that were never created to meld, opposites pulling apart like oil and water and yet, there was something about the two of them blending together in the breath of your soul, that simply made sense.
Goodbyes were laced with pain, a type of anguish one could never quite escape. But the knowledge that it was to come and that it was what was meant to be, brought a certain degree of peace to the mind.
A soft blow recaptures your drifting thoughts, like a net cast out into your meandering abyss and pulling you in before the tide can carry you to the sea. An exhale heavy in the morning air, hazing over faintly like the fog that rolls over the land like an ominous breath. But with a soft curl of your lips, you smile as your eyes refocus on the gentle creature who'd called you back down to the frigid reality.
