Dreams of Imahken

Cherishes these lands and all around,

Slivers of sunlight crept into the shed through the chimney cap, the long awaited day finally arrived. Illus rose, his back popping the whole way up from that barely-padded marble bench. He tossed his pack over his shoulder and stepped out into the full light of day, the ruins in their usual quiet tranquility.

A year it had been of monotonous fishing, eating pears, climbing the mountain, and waiting. Waiting for this very day. Distant voices quickened his pace toward the roses, which parted at Illus's kind request. The first thing he saw were the dark eyes of Anilee as they filled with tears, which rushed down her freckled cheeks. She raced to him, and wrapped him in a hug.

"Ani- what-" Illus was caught in confusion, happy confusion, but something wasn't making sense.

Anilee's gleeful eyes cured his confusion. She gently wrapped her hands around his. "For all I've done, for everything I've caused..." her tears crashed free like the rivers around the ruins, "all I ever wanted to be was your betrothed. I just want you, so let us go and start anew."

Anilee took his hand and walked with him down the hill toward the dried river.

"I banish thee, fox!" Ciun's voice cut through the shimmering hazy world before Illus, his feet at the edge of a cliff where the rocky dried riverbed would surely be his death. What he could see of her expression was heartbroken, impossibly betrayed. "If you so desire her still, then cast yourself into the rocks. I don't want to see your face anymore. Go on. Our love will never be like before."

Illus's mind crashed full of memories. Memories of him and Ciun intimately sharing their days atop the mountain, between the rows of the orchards, in the shed on every rainy day. Grief took hold of him, an overwhelming guilt which tore through him, calcifying his heart in an empty senseless void. His foot stepped forward as his empty expression leaned forward.

"I banish thee, fox!"

The cliff before him shimmered, blue haze clearing into rushing water. Illus was up to his knees in the rapids, about to step to a point which would surely sweep him away.

The hollow suffering he had just experienced quickly faded, confusion overtaking his mind. He stumbled backward and fell, hands trembling, breath lost, eyes unable to focus, mind aching.

In his stupor, he found Ciun over his shoulder, far back atop a pillar, not stepping beyond the maze of roses. The mask interrogated his lost eyes, but her chin was trembling, like the sight pained her.

His head fell into his hands while he caught his breath and Ciun's voice wafted over him. "That dastardly fox keeps getting you with this one. I'm sorry I couldn't be faster."

For nearly two months, this had been how every sunny morning started. Several times she found him at the entrance of the catacombs. A few times about to leap from the mountain's lower ledge where the poem had washed away. But most of the time, the fox lured him close to the river, rarely this deep in before Ciun reached him.

Illus nodded slowly, his exhausted, strained mind feeling none of the sleep he had gotten. "I saw Ani again. Then the vision broke inside another mirage where you told me to leap to my death."

Ciun leapt from the column, landing near Illus, the center part of the nightgown askew, showing far more of her chest than usual. Her breath became heavier. "I would never tell you to die for me, Illus, so..." her hands caressed the soft, shiny nightgown on her thigh, "I want to make it up to you, if it's not too big a fuss."

Illus's mind was reeling, the change not making sense at all. Why would she come onto him so quickly, so suddenly? His heart raced, a strong urge to step forward and take her hand.