Broken Glass - Taekook

DREAM #4

At the very edge of the horizon, night begins to give way to day. The sun starts to rise, a golden ball of hope in the east, and the stars twinkle back into invisibility. 

I find myself sitting, cross-legged, alone in the middle of a seemingly endless field of tall, waving grass. The black silhouettes of trees stand proud against the sunrise, seeming to hold out their leaves like graceful dancers in the middle of a complex twist or trick. The world seems almost impossibly flat, as far as the eye can see in every single direction.

As I look at my more immediate surroundings, I start to see something glowing on the ground: a trail of golden light, slowly making its way through the grass towards me. By now, this golden light is familiar. This is something safe. This is the golden river. 

As it passes me, heading away from the rising sun, I get up. The bare earth is soft under my feet as I begin to follow this ribbon of light westward, wherever it may take me. My footsteps are almost silent, and the only other sound I hear is that of the tall fronds of grass rustling against each other in the breeze. The trail moves sedately, almost gracefully, pausing several times when I stop walking for a moment to look around, as if it's waiting for me. 

There's a sense of peace here, and a weight that I didn't know was still resting on my shoulders has gone. I feel lighter, springier, as if I'm carrying less than I normally do. My feet don't hurt, despite the distance I must be going. My throat doesn't get that spidery sense of dryness that it normally does after a while in the heat of the early morning. Even my clothes feel like they're more comfortable than before. They seem to swing slightly with every single movement I make, the fabric soft and forgiving against my skin. 

After a while, the quiet singing of the grass seems to evolve, as my ears become accustomed to the sound. As I focus more and more on that rustle, for want of any other stimulus, it gains the significance of music in my mind. I can hear a melody there, one that leaps and twirls like a bird on the wing, singing merely for the joy of life. 

Slowly, as the song becomes more and more obvious, I begin to hear the other-worldly voice of the golden river, harmonising with the chorus of other sounds in a wild orchestra made out of the natural world around me. It's a pure, gentle sound that I can't pin any single identity on. It seems to flow from high to low, from gravelly to flawless depending on the moment. Shifting with the direction of the wind. 

My gaze drops to the ribbon of light that's leading me forward, and I begin to see something joining the procession. The gleaming edge of an almost translucent wing, the tiny dark shape that could be just the twig of a shrub or the bare arm of a small humanoid creature. Sometimes, if I really narrow my eyes, I can make out the shape of a dress amongst the never-ending blanket of grass strands. The glint of a bone-tooth sword or weapon on a waist the size of my little fingernail. The hint of something black and braided, flickering slightly. 

The looping song begins to have words, lyrics I can't understand, in a flowing language that I only just recognise as Eithyrian. As I continue my trek through the plains, the meaning comes into mind, as if translated by some outward source. With every repetition, I realise that it's a story. A legend, almost. 

Like light, she flew, to find her love,
Like darkness, she knew the meaning of
The stars, the sun, the great silver moon, 
The earth, the sky, all sang the same tune 
Follow the path of your heart, my child, 
Follow the path of your heart

She stopped for the night to rest her head, 
Her heart one part of an ancient thread,
Golden, ribbon, twirling through the night, 
Parent, sibling, the one knowing light
Sings follow the path of your heart, my child, 
Follow the path of your heart, 

She woke to see one sleeping by her fire
A child left alone, curled up by her lyre, 
Smaller than she, impossibly,
A heartbeat passed, and then said she, 
You tread the path of my heart, my child
You tread the path of my heart

Like a mother, she was, to that small one, 
Together they travelled through the shining sun,
Her charge grew with each passing day, 
And each year at the time of their meeting she'd say
You walked onto the path of my heart, my child, 
You walked onto the path of my heart, 

But children will always grow old,
First too young to go, then too restless to hold,
The mother, though she aged, 
Her curse, it was, in which she was caged, 
To lose the path of her heart, forever
To lose the path of her heart

Eventually the two were forced to part,
The child's life being called to depart
A mother, grieving, picked up her lyre, 
And threw it onto the funeral pyre,
Refused to follow the path of her heart, no more, 
To follow the path of her heart, 

She called out for the curse to end
A change, something just round the riverbend, 
A source of emotion, after the loss, 
A new beginning, whatever the cost, 
She changed the path of her heart, my child, 
She changed the path of her heart

Power, she knew, like many you know, 
Her grief had caused her energy to go, 
The death had taught her something new
Something that would destroy others too, 
How to find a new path of the heart, again, 
How to find a new path of the heart

Creatures, monsters, whoever she killed,
Her knife's sharp end, their breath it stilled,
She found a new way to express her pain, 
A way that allowed her to gain, 
Access to the source of our hearts, my child
A way into the source of our hearts 

Where the river runs red, run away,
Where the river is gold, you may stay, 
For pain started a grim tradition 
That others follow of their own volition, 
They reject the path of the heart, my child, 
They reject the path of the heart. 

As the story becomes clear in my mind, my eyes fill with tears, and I think I begin to understand. 

This is how Karulian magic became a thing. This is how people found out that you could gain more power if you killed, and discovered that death releases  more energy than any person could hold naturally on their own. Maybe it's just a legend, and the truth is more complicated. I don't know for sure. 

But it's heart-breaking either way. 

I look up when the trail stops, only to see the distant image of a city in the distance. Surrounded by great walls of stone, which block out half of the sky even from this far away, it seems to shine in the early morning light. As a single tear slides down my cheek, I know. 

These are the Yarolian Plains. 

I've got a queen to visit, I suppose.