Hung the Moon

Seek Alone To Hear The Strange Things Said

Pepper and Wensley ran towards the beach of white sand, acting on instinct. The sand didn't shift and pull like normal sand; nothing to turn your foot or steal your shoe. It felt endless, the pure bone color against the dark sea. Land of many colors. Tir na Nog had delivered on that title.

She might not be of this particular otherworld herself, but Pepper had felt an all-encompassing welcome suffuse her as she'd explored. It had yet to let her go and she snuggled into it like a quilt fresh from the dryer. Perhaps no one's gods or ancestors could afford to be picky. The borders between realms had stretched, maybe, thinned to the point where they were no longer strictly divided.

They came to a halt at the edge of the sea. Pepper watched Wensley out of the corner of her eye as his gaze magnetized to the water. The mirror-like water that defied any real-world example. She paused.

Land, sea, and sky.

"Did you know that the salmon is one of our sacred animals?" Wensley offered, prodding her out of that strange, still space where the divine could speak to her as it wished.

Pepper wondered if Wensley's newly awakened mind was providing him with ancestor-memories of the coast of Kinsale as it once was, rich with life and teeming with energy. Back before shops and tourists and restaurants. Wensley chuckled, though it was a mirthless sound. "Actually, I don't know how I know that."

"You could bring the salmon back, you know," Pepper pointed out, scanning the horizon. "With just a wave of your hand, probably."

Wensley turned to her as if she'd just said something profound, his eyes serious and dark.

"I could," Wensley whispered, awed at his own powers. As if he hadn't let himself consider what he had truly been gifted, before now. "I could do just about anything, right? You too."

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her baggy dungarees, hunching her shoulders. Her jumper - bright green and too small as many gifts from her grandmother were - felt itchier than usual.

"I could," she echoed, feeling all of her scant eleven (almost twelve, thank you very much) years. She'd never felt incapable before, nor so daunted by a task. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

"Spin a globe and pick a spot," Wensley said, looking up at the sky. It made the lenses of his eyeglasses bright cerulean. "There's war everywhere."

Pepper looked out across the waves, picking out a dock in the distance. A human-shape stood there. In contrast to the idyllic spot she and Wensley were standing on, this figure stood wreathed in storm winds. A god, she knew. Another one.

"Do you think they'll try to come back?" She asked, her neutral tone a mask for the way her chest had tightened up with anxiety at the thought. "You know. The horsepersons. They're never really gone, are they?"

"Not as long as humans make war, steal food from one another's mouths, and insist on ruining the very earth that was made for them."

"For them? Wensley, we're still human," she protested, disliking the shrill quality in her own voice. Ever since he'd picked up the bough, he'd been the most touched of all of them. Often it felt as if he weren't even speaking with his own voice, and it was all too easy for him to get lost in daydreams. Sometimes, she didn't even recognize him.

"Are we?" He asked, coming a step closer. Only then did she see the murder of crows at his feet, silent and ominous as they rarely were back home. "I don't know if I feel very human, now."

Pepper suppressed a shiver. She wished she had Wensley's conviction.

One moment to the next she could feel the sword in her hand as if she were back at the airbase, as if the memory had arisen to remind her of her own courage. When she glanced down, the hilt was clenched in her fist. A lick of fire jumped along the length, a whiplash of burning destruction.

"Well. Let them come. We'll handle it." She said, standing ramrod straight. The sword had reminded her of her victory, and it heartened her. "Especially when Brian and Adam get their powers."

The seafoam undulated and changed shape; Pepper could swear she saw the outline of a horse's head picked out in the spray. Only for a moment, true, but maybe it was a sign they were in the right place after all.

"You're right, of course. But...well. Do you ever wonder why we got these gifts?"

"Defeating the horsepersons, I expect," Pepper said. Was that the body of a horse taking shape now, as if the beast were striding free of the water?

"Is it random chance?" Wensley asked, frowning. "That seems quite impossible. Of course, chaos theory states that - "

"Shh," Pepper commanded, putting her arm across Wensley's chest as if she were trying to keep him back from something dangerous. "Look."

A massive horse continued to take shape, his mane, tail, and long legs emerging as he walked towards land. One moment and he was a blown glass, see-through thing that more properly belonged in an old lady's collection of curios. The next, his wings unfurled and he tossed his be-horned head, coat and feathers flooding with color.

"An alicorn," Pepper said, fixed to the spot as she watched. The animal's hide became detailed, a dark buckskin brown. That brown was mottled heavily with dappling that glimmered like an intricate mosaic laid at the bottom of a fountain. Its wings were black, but unlike Crowley's onyx-colored crow feathers, these were the still-hot ashes of a recently extinguished fire.

"Sky," Wensley whispered.

Before Pepper could walk towards it, it took off running in a cloud of kicked up sand. Dread hit her as though someone had tossed her into the cold sea waters from which the mount had emerged.

"How will I ever catch that?" She exclaimed. Even as an adult, she could never hope to outrun a regular horse, let alone a magical one that could fly.

Before she could feel despair, a little reminder flickered on and off in the back of her mind like a faulty neon sign; it took her a long moment to decipher it.

You are championed by not just Persephone, but the great ruler Obatala. Let your deeds define you. You have ashe. Use it.

Like Wensley, she didn't have to wonder what the words meant. Ashe. Life-force. Energy. Heart.

She remembered what Adam had told them, the way Crowley had said, the world will listen to you right now.

Finally, her mother's voice: musubi. the interconnected nature of everything. Spirit, human, animal. Elements, ancestors.

She turned and hit the path running.