The TwiceBorn

Crossing The Great Beyond Of Fear

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."--Leonard Cohen

The fire burned low. Islinn had dropped off to sleep quickly but Alora had been unable to settle down.  The moon slowly glided across the sky as the evening deepened and Alora tracked its progress, her black eyes filled with a dark fire. One moment she was asleep and the next, awake.  Her senses sang beneath her flesh and she felt sharp. Alive. Every muscle within her body was pulled tight like a drawn bow and she marked the progress of the moonlight as it prismed across the trees and grass.   She could hear the nocturnal hunters as they prowled the underbrush some distance away.

Islinn shifted in her sleep and Alora’s head snapped around at the innocuous sound.  The dim glow of firelight feathered itself across the girl’s body and Alora realized she could smell her, smell her essence.  Earth, and sun and everything that lay between help and hope. Alora’s upper lip curled .

But…not yet.  Deep within the velvet cut of the night, there was other work to do first.  She crossed over to Loki, her footsteps feathersoft, and discovered he was awake as well.  His licorice eyes were bright and he pawed the ground impatiently as she approached.

She scrubbed a hand across his sweated neck and smiled.

“You know it’s not a night to be sitting about a fire, right?  There’s mischief for the likes of us.”  She crooned. He butted her with his head and she laughed softly.  Her laughter died away as a breeze rippled the stale, still air. 

  She was being followed.  Tracked.  Hunted like prey.  What she wouldn’t give to be able to find them in the blackness and relieve them of the burden of toting their souls.  Her eyes flicked over Islinn again.  But no, she couldn’t leave her here alone.

Something flew overhead to nest in the trees, and the sound of its wings beat a dry and heated tattoo. A tiny smile creased Alora’s lips.

Islinn moaned slightly in her sleep and the smile turned into a savage grin. Alora turned again to stare at the girl.  The feel of Islinn’s lips against her own suddenly filled her memory.  The soft, yielding flesh.  The taste of her.  The feel of her skin.  And the light. Always that fucking light. In her mind’s eye it lit up the sky and stole away the silky blackness of a perfect moonstruck night.

And now the time has come ‘round at last.

But first things first.  She tore her eyes away from Islinn and walked over to her saddlebags.She rummaged through until her fingers closed around the black handle of her athame.  She studied it  thoughtfully, her eyes far away.The moonlight reflected off of the carved symbols decorating the blade. Her symbols.  Her clan.   She dug through her saddlebags once more until she felt a rounded glass vial.  She pulled it out and studied the gray dust held within.

You don’t have to do this.

It was a rogue thought. One she’d never had before and she paused, puzzled.  Once again, she glanced back over at Islinn who restlessly tossed in her sleep.

No, she didn’t have to do this.

She smiled again, a mocking curve.

She didn’t have to; she wanted to.

Unable to resist, she uncorked the glass vial with shaking hands.  She took a light sniff and the aroma of the graveyard raced through her like a fever.   Images played across the back of her eyelids of dying and death, of burials and tears. Of blackness and lunatic screams.  The emotions awoke and fluttered within her like bats in a cave suddenly exposed to light. 

To light.

Alora re-sealed the vial and glanced again at Islinn.  The girl had kicked the wool blanket aside and Alora stared, momentarily lost.  Standing in the vast silence of the wood, Alora The Twiceborn studied the girl and knew that even though Islinn was only a few feet away by a dying fire, she might as well have been on the other side of some great and unknown precipice.  Alora’s world was one of half-heard whispers, and the final lingering breath of what was to go beyond.  Islinn’s was earth and sky.  The sparkling light of sun on water. The reflection of faith.