Aeolia

33: Falling River

Frost pondered. Ravine thrashed on the blanket of moss, whimpering and knotting her hands in her hair. Her eyes dilated behind closed lids. She had seen things, and learned things, and now she was paying for it. Frost curled his tail around his paws, deep in reflection.

     "And she is still seeing things," the Dreamfisher observed, commentating on Frost's thoughts.

     The whisperer shuddered. Having his head infiltrated without warning was not on his list of Aeolian joys.

     The bird prodded Ravine's body with its beak. Ravine's eyebrows contorted but she made no further signs of consciousness. Spire lay immobile beside her—both were entangled in a dark, unnatural coma.

     Frost's voice was hushed. "The Viper has ensnared her, too?"

     "Yes," the bird said after a moment of worried contemplation.

     "How—how is that possible?"

     "Can you read her?" the Dreamfisher asked, indifferent to Frost's question.

     "No," the whisperer confessed, flattening his ears.
     "My sister Haze can, because she has been tutored by the Mist. I cannot decipher humans; they are too complex.
     I can only scrounge meaning from their emotional auras—and only if their exudings are strong enough."

     The Dreamfisher was slow to speak. "Well, then," it finally said. "I suppose I'll have to. But I need you to take the songbird. It will be easier for you to, after you are properly acquainted with Dreams' Lattice."

     "What does that mean?"

     "Frost," stated the Kingfisher, "I need you to come with me. The Lattice is light, leafy, sure—but not unstable. It has held the weight of the sky upon it for eons, eons, and has never once crumbled. Walk with me."

     Frost frowned.

     Seeing his hesitation, the bird said, "Are you familiar with the river?"

     "Yes, I know the river. But—but, Dreamfisher, I'm afraid I am not the most knowledgeable of my kind. See, I am a Member of the Outskirts. We are the smallest group, the weakest, in a way. I know of the river, yes. But if you aim to take me to it—then—"

     He faltered, feeling humility pummel him with its many fists. Why was he speaking so poorly? Why wasn't his speech poetic anymore? He could tell that, in the mind of the listener, his words were no longer looped and staggered—that they stood blandly upon the backdrop of the eyes in plain sentences. He repressed tears.

     "Kingfisher," he managed, "I'm afraid I don't deserve this."

     The Dreamfisher took no notice of poetry impediment. "Your reluctance is normal," it said. "But Frost, if there ever was a whisperer who deserved to wash itself in the waters, it would be you. Come."

     Frost shook the shame from his fur and followed in the Dreamfisher's steps. The leaves and moss blossomed new stars around his paws as he walked. The hollow chimes rattled and thumped in primal drumbeats—crude and fragile, thudding, thudding, thudding. He saw emerald mountains rising up, up, closer and closer, slicked with throbbing veins. The veins inside of him throbbed as well, syncopated with the windchimes. Soon a dull rush filled his ears, drowning out all sense of composure and perception. Water. It was water. All the way up here?

     The Lattice began to shift as the river's humming intensified.

     Now the thick carpet of leaves dipped down to a large basin of sorts, while the trunks swerved outwards and continued their ascent from there. As he perched on the lip of the basin, Frost felt a gasp slip from his mouth.

     The river was not a river here, but a waterfall.

     And the trees curved to make way for it.

     He tilted his head up, impossibly so, but could not see where the waterfall began. All that lay above were pale brown trees—with an occasional scatter of their fruit—buffering water, and an impenetrable cloak of mist.

     Yes, the river began in the Mist.

     "Now," commanded the Dreamfisher, "go to it."

     Frost started and turned to the Kingfisher. Go to the river? He hesitated, but the drums in his veins had increased in both volume and rapidity. His uncertainty wilted as his paws brought him to the edge of the waterfall's bowl, and crashing mist clouded his fur. He closed his eyes and walked into the river's body.

     Thunder. He was tossed in the whirling winds of a storm.

     Water. He was tugged in the swirling eddies of a vortex.

     The falling river doused his exterior and pounded at the cage of his form. A dam broke and the water rushed in, looping through the workings of himself. It invaded every mechanism and gear, sweeping clear the cobwebs that had been spun behind his eyes.

     Yes, no matter what force the Mist harbors itself upon, or where it is brought along to, the effects are the same.

     Frost felt himself lighten. His bones were weightless, his body new, his mind shouting. Every piece of his being cried and laughed, joining in with the incessant thrum and din of the forever falling river.