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We strut and jeer through the woods, heads high and shoulders squared, Fere’s short blade knocking out a perfect switch rhythm on the dead-wood trunks of the tight-spaced trees. The sky above catches our well-trained eyes: darkening, laced through with ragged, tired sunlight - pale and bleeding through the canopy. As we walk, the churned and muddied ground sprouts up new and green, purple flowers blossom in our unfaltering footsteps and the long-shed leaves find life once more.
A good day for all ... we have grown, and shared, and given birth to greater things still. And, of course, like any artists, we have lanced wounds, cut away the weak, the narrow and the tired.
Seb ranges ahead as always, his deep eyes ever scouting for what we can take next. He meanders through the trees, legs idly kicking up the mulch into deep-shade rotted rainbows, and snaps us back a raised-brow, bright-eyed glance, tongue tip held in grinning teeth.
“I feel it!”
The shout, as always, stirs the broken air around. A breeze picks up, snapping cloaks and hair - sharp, clear sounds amongst the dead, lifted and carried away with Seb’s eager laughter. He stops and turns to us, arms wide, head cocked, and nods off three little bows, one for us each.
“And here ... of all places.”
And he dances off, rubbing his hands together, spinning and skipping up a twisted path amongst the growing litter, following that feeling which finds us, too, now. I shrug deeper into my furred clothing and breathe deep of vivid scents bloom through to colours, images, scattered emotion of the awaiting event ... shiver slightly as the tingle runs its course around my spine, and join the loose, wide-lipped smile we share as one.
My arm, hand pocketed and tight-clenched around ink-pens and lead, is tangled with another as Talia slides in beside, stride for stride. Her features are obscured, as always, under her hood, but the air around speaks up of beauty, and the perfect, knowing soul beneath. Closer, I hear her song, gently pushed on velvet lips into the woods to match and make the steady beat still Fere drags along the timber. Notched blade lines, streaming back, form up a perfect pattern shape he sees with sightless eyes and knows the power gave to dreamers - the weaker, binded, spectrum-seers.
Whoops and cheers, and Seb flicks and fades between the trunks, the feeling risen to a knotted breath deep in his chest, soon to twist ours up behind, even now as we follow his green-shot footprints, warm tendrils sneak in, promising something new to craft.
We break into the clearing, an ever-rain of leaves spiralling down twisted and broken to meet the decaying mulch building deeper and deeper underfoot. Seb, wading in the centre, drags himself around a single point, slowly stroking his pointed chin.
White amongst the brown, fingers marked and bleeding - a hand thrust up pale and trembling from the ground.
We gather round, knee-deep into this wasting soul’s detritus and examine close the stretched and tired skin, almost glowing as the sun slips further away above.
Seb notes first, the angle of the wrist and the spread of the fingers ... Tallia nods slowly at the red raw lines of string and key ... Fere and I both take in the long-set marks of ink and pencil ...
“Too much ...”
Seb sighs, feet slipping further into the muck and rot. He wipes his brow with the back of a hand and takes each of us in by turn, adding our agreement to his own. The flash of a smile, and his eyes are aflame.
“But, my friends ... still, something we can work with ... “
So high the damp and clinging litter reaches now, he does not have to stoop as he stretches for the shaking hand, weary and beginning to curl and turn back towards the earth. Leaves rain down all around, and the sun slips from the sky. Skin touches skin.
“You leave her be.”
We four figures, half-buried and eager for the challenge, turn as one to take in the speaker. He stands, stooped and gnarled on the edge of the clearing, supported half by trunk and half by stick, his face as worn and knotted as both. His eyes, hidden under heavy brows, are fixed to the floor, where his feet sit gently atop the leaf litter that has dragged us all in.
“My good sir,” Tallia begins, words soft but laced with condescension, somehow still singing as she speaks. She pulls away from me, but keeps a hand steady on my arm. “This is none of your concern.”
The old man slowly shakes his head and leans away from the tree, taking his walking stick in both hands and thrusting it deep through the mulch to the churned ground beneath. His head snaps up and the shining eyes of a soul-driven man strip Tallia’s confidence back to nothing. Her hand tightens white around my forearm, and I feel her stumble slightly amongst the dead and dying leaves.
Seb raises a finger straight into the air, turning slowly in the silence to present his straight back to the man, his chin titled further up, relishing the moment.
“Power indeed, stranger. Perhaps, if your senescence allowed it ... “
The man barks a stout laugh, mocking smile twisted on his lips.
“What? You’d ask me into your troupe? The world-famous, all-conquering, uncontested masters of the arts? Please, please.”
“Then on your merry way, my well-eschewed patriarch, you have no business here. We are ...” He throws his hands to the shrouded sky, “... performing.”
“To what end?” The old man’s voice is a humourless vacuum: cold, unyielding. “Your own, no doubt. No doubt.” His eyes become as bright and fierce as a thousand suns, burning a hole of pity into Seb’s silken capes. Of everything he knows inside
Seb’s eyes flare up as well, violent red and muddied orange tumbling with the gift he so proudly shares. He begins to turn back, all enjoyment frozen from his face, ever-confidence forming up to dead, barbed point. One word holds him back ... for the lure of another creation.
“Change.”
Fere speaks bluntly, his clouded eyes staring - as they always have - at the small, pale hand thrust up from the ground. His short blade, once dancing endless perfect patterns in the air, is slid back away. Arms crossed, he waits, confident for another victory.
Tallia falls silent and pulls me slowly around from the conflict to face the delicate object, moving now in the centre of the clearing. Another squeeze on my arm, this time in excitement.
The anger fades from the other sets of eyes, and we five join watch and wait together, four already adding to our well-bound books of mastery. Another inspiration, another notch for them to bow.
The fingers slowly close in, ragged work-worn nails to the palm and, shaking with effort, the tiny fist draws back, sliding back under the cloying mulch.
Seb jumps forward as much as he is able chest-deep in litter, lunging for the hand before it disappears only to find the old man’s stick hard across his shoulders, holding him back.
“You will not save her.” The man whispers his order, voice loud and crafted in the silence. He stands tall on the decaying leaves that have dragged us under. “This is not your victory to claim ... nor your defeat. Take credit for neither.”
The dead wood beats out the growing seconds in the darkness.
And all the scattered leaves - the broken skeletons of discarded ideas, die away into the soil, join and grow again together. We are left standing free, feet firm on a bowl of cracked dry earth leading down to the centre of the clearing, where lies uncovered a young girl, curled tight into a ball. She stirs, and the bare earth stirs with her. Grass shoots twist and stretch into the twilight, a dense, lush carpet dimming the well-set pools of life sprung up by our paces to dull and ageing wither-wilt.
The trees creak and swell in place, trunks shedding dead, gnarled bark, pushing smooth, light skin outwards to the living air. Limbs flail and split towards the waxing moon, roots sigh up thick and fresh from the soil and the shedded leaves are born again on the branches, bright-veined diamonds of the darkest green, strong and rich and new.
She stirs again, wreathed around in gold and silver flowers, and pushes herself up onto her knees. Breaths come slow and deep in her narrow chest, and in one shaking fist she clutches a single sheet of paper, blotched and tattered, tight-rolled to a thin tube of hidden theme.
Slowly, she rises up, keenly aware of us all but catching no-one’s eye, head lowered in our presence. On shaking feet, firmly placed, she walks from the soft green bowl, trailing gleaming gem-blooms behind. Seb straightens further as she draws near, staring hard at her lowered eyes - he can see, as us, the brightness shining there, through even weary half-shot lids, and wants to know, and cut and shape and claim the power burning there.
She simply, briefly reaches up and places a hand on his barrel-chest, not even turning to face him, then is past and up. The old man, cheeks glistening, stands humble on the edge of the bowl. leaning heavily on his stick, eyes cast to the floor.
She draws in close, a hand on his shoulder, the whisper of a kiss on his cheek, and the parchment is pressed firm into his hand. The man blinks back another brace of tears and returns the kiss with trembling lips. I see her mouth move in hushed speech and for a second their eyes raise and lock together. They share a smile so deep and pure, my own assured smirk falters on my lips and I draw in closer to Tallia for support, but find her silent, still and the air around her wavering through uncertainty.
The girl smiles again, the blooms of the wood straining towards her as she does, and walks away without another word, pale fingers bound with smooth and perfect skin lingering entwined with the old man’s as she goes. As she moves further from us, her shoulders square and her head lifts ... she gazes around at her creation, step light and sure, enjoying only the moment, not her influences elsewhere.
Fere draws out his blade again - a dull, grating bark in the darkness - and his over-trained eyes dart maniacally over every detail of the woods, taking in something beyond him. He resumes his slicing of the air, but now stumbles, the patterns warped and caught up in the atmosphere, insulting counterfeit of a perfect creation. Confidence waivers and falls, the blade along with it, and he is still once more, a steady beat of failure knocking calm into his chest.
Seb, one hand tight to his chest, fingers working around the place she touched him, stares into the centre of the clearing. Her flowers of gold and silver grow on, out-shining all in the weak moonlight ... so delicate, but beautiful, holding much more than their shape ... the blooms yawn further into the night, the delicate trace and flow of the multitude petals whispering promises at anyone brave enough to listen.
We four are joined again, as a common feeling finds us all. Another shared smile touches our lips, and Tallia slides in closer, an arm looped through mine, where my pocketed fist loosens around my pens and lead. We set our shoulders a little less square, and our footsteps a little less sure, but all, now, breathe a little more deep.
The old man grasps his walking stick in both hands and thrusts it down through the grass to the rich, new soil below. He speaks, then turns and leaves, tracing another path back through the woods, admiring everything along his way.
“A good day indeed.”
A good day for all ... we have grown, and shared, and given birth to greater things still. And, of course, like any artists, we have lanced wounds, cut away the weak, the narrow and the tired.
Seb ranges ahead as always, his deep eyes ever scouting for what we can take next. He meanders through the trees, legs idly kicking up the mulch into deep-shade rotted rainbows, and snaps us back a raised-brow, bright-eyed glance, tongue tip held in grinning teeth.
“I feel it!”
The shout, as always, stirs the broken air around. A breeze picks up, snapping cloaks and hair - sharp, clear sounds amongst the dead, lifted and carried away with Seb’s eager laughter. He stops and turns to us, arms wide, head cocked, and nods off three little bows, one for us each.
“And here ... of all places.”
And he dances off, rubbing his hands together, spinning and skipping up a twisted path amongst the growing litter, following that feeling which finds us, too, now. I shrug deeper into my furred clothing and breathe deep of vivid scents bloom through to colours, images, scattered emotion of the awaiting event ... shiver slightly as the tingle runs its course around my spine, and join the loose, wide-lipped smile we share as one.
My arm, hand pocketed and tight-clenched around ink-pens and lead, is tangled with another as Talia slides in beside, stride for stride. Her features are obscured, as always, under her hood, but the air around speaks up of beauty, and the perfect, knowing soul beneath. Closer, I hear her song, gently pushed on velvet lips into the woods to match and make the steady beat still Fere drags along the timber. Notched blade lines, streaming back, form up a perfect pattern shape he sees with sightless eyes and knows the power gave to dreamers - the weaker, binded, spectrum-seers.
Whoops and cheers, and Seb flicks and fades between the trunks, the feeling risen to a knotted breath deep in his chest, soon to twist ours up behind, even now as we follow his green-shot footprints, warm tendrils sneak in, promising something new to craft.
We break into the clearing, an ever-rain of leaves spiralling down twisted and broken to meet the decaying mulch building deeper and deeper underfoot. Seb, wading in the centre, drags himself around a single point, slowly stroking his pointed chin.
White amongst the brown, fingers marked and bleeding - a hand thrust up pale and trembling from the ground.
We gather round, knee-deep into this wasting soul’s detritus and examine close the stretched and tired skin, almost glowing as the sun slips further away above.
Seb notes first, the angle of the wrist and the spread of the fingers ... Tallia nods slowly at the red raw lines of string and key ... Fere and I both take in the long-set marks of ink and pencil ...
“Too much ...”
Seb sighs, feet slipping further into the muck and rot. He wipes his brow with the back of a hand and takes each of us in by turn, adding our agreement to his own. The flash of a smile, and his eyes are aflame.
“But, my friends ... still, something we can work with ... “
So high the damp and clinging litter reaches now, he does not have to stoop as he stretches for the shaking hand, weary and beginning to curl and turn back towards the earth. Leaves rain down all around, and the sun slips from the sky. Skin touches skin.
“You leave her be.”
We four figures, half-buried and eager for the challenge, turn as one to take in the speaker. He stands, stooped and gnarled on the edge of the clearing, supported half by trunk and half by stick, his face as worn and knotted as both. His eyes, hidden under heavy brows, are fixed to the floor, where his feet sit gently atop the leaf litter that has dragged us all in.
“My good sir,” Tallia begins, words soft but laced with condescension, somehow still singing as she speaks. She pulls away from me, but keeps a hand steady on my arm. “This is none of your concern.”
The old man slowly shakes his head and leans away from the tree, taking his walking stick in both hands and thrusting it deep through the mulch to the churned ground beneath. His head snaps up and the shining eyes of a soul-driven man strip Tallia’s confidence back to nothing. Her hand tightens white around my forearm, and I feel her stumble slightly amongst the dead and dying leaves.
Seb raises a finger straight into the air, turning slowly in the silence to present his straight back to the man, his chin titled further up, relishing the moment.
“Power indeed, stranger. Perhaps, if your senescence allowed it ... “
The man barks a stout laugh, mocking smile twisted on his lips.
“What? You’d ask me into your troupe? The world-famous, all-conquering, uncontested masters of the arts? Please, please.”
“Then on your merry way, my well-eschewed patriarch, you have no business here. We are ...” He throws his hands to the shrouded sky, “... performing.”
“To what end?” The old man’s voice is a humourless vacuum: cold, unyielding. “Your own, no doubt. No doubt.” His eyes become as bright and fierce as a thousand suns, burning a hole of pity into Seb’s silken capes. Of everything he knows inside
Seb’s eyes flare up as well, violent red and muddied orange tumbling with the gift he so proudly shares. He begins to turn back, all enjoyment frozen from his face, ever-confidence forming up to dead, barbed point. One word holds him back ... for the lure of another creation.
“Change.”
Fere speaks bluntly, his clouded eyes staring - as they always have - at the small, pale hand thrust up from the ground. His short blade, once dancing endless perfect patterns in the air, is slid back away. Arms crossed, he waits, confident for another victory.
Tallia falls silent and pulls me slowly around from the conflict to face the delicate object, moving now in the centre of the clearing. Another squeeze on my arm, this time in excitement.
The anger fades from the other sets of eyes, and we five join watch and wait together, four already adding to our well-bound books of mastery. Another inspiration, another notch for them to bow.
The fingers slowly close in, ragged work-worn nails to the palm and, shaking with effort, the tiny fist draws back, sliding back under the cloying mulch.
Seb jumps forward as much as he is able chest-deep in litter, lunging for the hand before it disappears only to find the old man’s stick hard across his shoulders, holding him back.
“You will not save her.” The man whispers his order, voice loud and crafted in the silence. He stands tall on the decaying leaves that have dragged us under. “This is not your victory to claim ... nor your defeat. Take credit for neither.”
The dead wood beats out the growing seconds in the darkness.
And all the scattered leaves - the broken skeletons of discarded ideas, die away into the soil, join and grow again together. We are left standing free, feet firm on a bowl of cracked dry earth leading down to the centre of the clearing, where lies uncovered a young girl, curled tight into a ball. She stirs, and the bare earth stirs with her. Grass shoots twist and stretch into the twilight, a dense, lush carpet dimming the well-set pools of life sprung up by our paces to dull and ageing wither-wilt.
The trees creak and swell in place, trunks shedding dead, gnarled bark, pushing smooth, light skin outwards to the living air. Limbs flail and split towards the waxing moon, roots sigh up thick and fresh from the soil and the shedded leaves are born again on the branches, bright-veined diamonds of the darkest green, strong and rich and new.
She stirs again, wreathed around in gold and silver flowers, and pushes herself up onto her knees. Breaths come slow and deep in her narrow chest, and in one shaking fist she clutches a single sheet of paper, blotched and tattered, tight-rolled to a thin tube of hidden theme.
Slowly, she rises up, keenly aware of us all but catching no-one’s eye, head lowered in our presence. On shaking feet, firmly placed, she walks from the soft green bowl, trailing gleaming gem-blooms behind. Seb straightens further as she draws near, staring hard at her lowered eyes - he can see, as us, the brightness shining there, through even weary half-shot lids, and wants to know, and cut and shape and claim the power burning there.
She simply, briefly reaches up and places a hand on his barrel-chest, not even turning to face him, then is past and up. The old man, cheeks glistening, stands humble on the edge of the bowl. leaning heavily on his stick, eyes cast to the floor.
She draws in close, a hand on his shoulder, the whisper of a kiss on his cheek, and the parchment is pressed firm into his hand. The man blinks back another brace of tears and returns the kiss with trembling lips. I see her mouth move in hushed speech and for a second their eyes raise and lock together. They share a smile so deep and pure, my own assured smirk falters on my lips and I draw in closer to Tallia for support, but find her silent, still and the air around her wavering through uncertainty.
The girl smiles again, the blooms of the wood straining towards her as she does, and walks away without another word, pale fingers bound with smooth and perfect skin lingering entwined with the old man’s as she goes. As she moves further from us, her shoulders square and her head lifts ... she gazes around at her creation, step light and sure, enjoying only the moment, not her influences elsewhere.
Fere draws out his blade again - a dull, grating bark in the darkness - and his over-trained eyes dart maniacally over every detail of the woods, taking in something beyond him. He resumes his slicing of the air, but now stumbles, the patterns warped and caught up in the atmosphere, insulting counterfeit of a perfect creation. Confidence waivers and falls, the blade along with it, and he is still once more, a steady beat of failure knocking calm into his chest.
Seb, one hand tight to his chest, fingers working around the place she touched him, stares into the centre of the clearing. Her flowers of gold and silver grow on, out-shining all in the weak moonlight ... so delicate, but beautiful, holding much more than their shape ... the blooms yawn further into the night, the delicate trace and flow of the multitude petals whispering promises at anyone brave enough to listen.
We four are joined again, as a common feeling finds us all. Another shared smile touches our lips, and Tallia slides in closer, an arm looped through mine, where my pocketed fist loosens around my pens and lead. We set our shoulders a little less square, and our footsteps a little less sure, but all, now, breathe a little more deep.
The old man grasps his walking stick in both hands and thrusts it down through the grass to the rich, new soil below. He speaks, then turns and leaves, tracing another path back through the woods, admiring everything along his way.
“A good day indeed.”
Aye, I can ream off some BS from time to time, but it always smells pretty enough. This was a case of having nothing to write about, and so writing about that ... which I do more often than I think people realise.
Ah well.
I'd hope there'd be someone with style and story out there.
Stryke, usually, bless his little socks. / you / Rick for my top 3, which only leaves you with 1 choice in this case, so bum-de-dah.
Ah well.
I'd hope there'd be someone with style and story out there.
Stryke, usually, bless his little socks. / you / Rick for my top 3, which only leaves you with 1 choice in this case, so bum-de-dah.
Well it has the usual concise extravagance... the usual enchanting ambience. Perhaps not the best story, but the style is there. You've still got it!
Picking a winner is going to give me a headache - do I go for style, or do I go for story.
Maybe I'll give it to CrossBob and scarper into scotch mist, never to be seen again.
Picking a winner is going to give me a headache - do I go for style, or do I go for story.
Maybe I'll give it to CrossBob and scarper into scotch mist, never to be seen again.
/splitsides
Not sure if I believe you, though, after wrestling with this bast for so long, going so far as to shout at my computer because THE BAST ENDING WON'T WORK!!11 AND THESE BITS IN THE MIDDLE ARE SHlT etc ...
Ask me again in the morning, punlad, if we're still alive.
Not sure if I believe you, though, after wrestling with this bast for so long, going so far as to shout at my computer because THE BAST ENDING WON'T WORK!!11 AND THESE BITS IN THE MIDDLE ARE SHlT etc ...
Ask me again in the morning, punlad, if we're still alive.
My mind is wrapped - rapt - in a cloak of leaves. Liked it very-very mulch.
We strut and jeer through the woods, heads high and shoulders squared, Fere’s short blade knocking out a perfect switch rhythm on the dead-wood trunks of the tight-spaced trees. The sky above catches our well-trained eyes: darkening, laced through with ragged, tired sunlight - pale and bleeding through the canopy. As we walk, the churned and muddied ground sprouts up new and green, purple flowers blossom in our unfaltering footsteps and the long-shed leaves find life once more.
A good day for all ... we have grown, and shared, and given birth to greater things still. And, of course, like any artists, we have lanced wounds, cut away the weak, the narrow and the tired.
Seb ranges ahead as always, his deep eyes ever scouting for what we can take next. He meanders through the trees, legs idly kicking up the mulch into deep-shade rotted rainbows, and snaps us back a raised-brow, bright-eyed glance, tongue tip held in grinning teeth.
“I feel it!”
The shout, as always, stirs the broken air around. A breeze picks up, snapping cloaks and hair - sharp, clear sounds amongst the dead, lifted and carried away with Seb’s eager laughter. He stops and turns to us, arms wide, head cocked, and nods off three little bows, one for us each.
“And here ... of all places.”
And he dances off, rubbing his hands together, spinning and skipping up a twisted path amongst the growing litter, following that feeling which finds us, too, now. I shrug deeper into my furred clothing and breathe deep of vivid scents bloom through to colours, images, scattered emotion of the awaiting event ... shiver slightly as the tingle runs its course around my spine, and join the loose, wide-lipped smile we share as one.
My arm, hand pocketed and tight-clenched around ink-pens and lead, is tangled with another as Talia slides in beside, stride for stride. Her features are obscured, as always, under her hood, but the air around speaks up of beauty, and the perfect, knowing soul beneath. Closer, I hear her song, gently pushed on velvet lips into the woods to match and make the steady beat still Fere drags along the timber. Notched blade lines, streaming back, form up a perfect pattern shape he sees with sightless eyes and knows the power gave to dreamers - the weaker, binded, spectrum-seers.
Whoops and cheers, and Seb flicks and fades between the trunks, the feeling risen to a knotted breath deep in his chest, soon to twist ours up behind, even now as we follow his green-shot footprints, warm tendrils sneak in, promising something new to craft.
We break into the clearing, an ever-rain of leaves spiralling down twisted and broken to meet the decaying mulch building deeper and deeper underfoot. Seb, wading in the centre, drags himself around a single point, slowly stroking his pointed chin.
White amongst the brown, fingers marked and bleeding - a hand thrust up pale and trembling from the ground.
We gather round, knee-deep into this wasting soul’s detritus and examine close the stretched and tired skin, almost glowing as the sun slips further away above.
Seb notes first, the angle of the wrist and the spread of the fingers ... Tallia nods slowly at the red raw lines of string and key ... Fere and I both take in the long-set marks of ink and pencil ...
“Too much ...”
Seb sighs, feet slipping further into the muck and rot. He wipes his brow with the back of a hand and takes each of us in by turn, adding our agreement to his own. The flash of a smile, and his eyes are aflame.
“But, my friends ... still, something we can work with ... “
So high the damp and clinging litter reaches now, he does not have to stoop as he stretches for the shaking hand, weary and beginning to curl and turn back towards the earth. Leaves rain down all around, and the sun slips from the sky. Skin touches skin.
“You leave her be.”
We four figures, half-buried and eager for the challenge, turn as one to take in the speaker. He stands, stooped and gnarled on the edge of the clearing, supported half by trunk and half by stick, his face as worn and knotted as both. His eyes, hidden under heavy brows, are fixed to the floor, where his feet sit gently atop the leaf litter that has dragged us all in.
“My good sir,” Tallia begins, words soft but laced with condescension, somehow still singing as she speaks. She pulls away from me, but keeps a hand steady on my arm. “This is none of your concern.”
The old man slowly shakes his head and leans away from the tree, taking his walking stick in both hands and thrusting it deep through the mulch to the churned ground beneath. His head snaps up and the shining eyes of a soul-driven man strip Tallia’s confidence back to nothing. Her hand tightens white around my forearm, and I feel her stumble slightly amongst the dead and dying leaves.
Seb raises a finger straight into the air, turning slowly in the silence to present his straight back to the man, his chin titled further up, relishing the moment.
“Power indeed, stranger. Perhaps, if your senescence allowed it ... “
The man barks a stout laugh, mocking smile twisted on his lips.
“What? You’d ask me into your troupe? The world-famous, all-conquering, uncontested masters of the arts? Please, please.”
“Then on your merry way, my well-eschewed patriarch, you have no business here. We are ...” He throws his hands to the shrouded sky, “... performing.”
“To what end?” The old man’s voice is a humourless vacuum: cold, unyielding. “Your own, no doubt. No doubt.” His eyes become as bright and fierce as a thousand suns, burning a hole of pity into Seb’s silken capes. Of everything he knows inside
Seb’s eyes flare up as well, violent red and muddied orange tumbling with the gift he so proudly shares. He begins to turn back, all enjoyment frozen from his face, ever-confidence forming up to dead, barbed point. One word holds him back ... for the lure of another creation.
“Change.”
Fere speaks bluntly, his clouded eyes staring - as they always have - at the small, pale hand thrust up from the ground. His short blade, once dancing endless perfect patterns in the air, is slid back away. Arms crossed, he waits, confident for another victory.
Tallia falls silent and pulls me slowly around from the conflict to face the delicate object, moving now in the centre of the clearing. Another squeeze on my arm, this time in excitement.
The anger fades from the other sets of eyes, and we five join watch and wait together, four already adding to our well-bound books of mastery. Another inspiration, another notch for them to bow.
The fingers slowly close in, ragged work-worn nails to the palm and, shaking with effort, the tiny fist draws back, sliding back under the cloying mulch.
Seb jumps forward as much as he is able chest-deep in litter, lunging for the hand before it disappears only to find the old man’s stick hard across his shoulders, holding him back.
“You will not save her.” The man whispers his order, voice loud and crafted in the silence. He stands tall on the decaying leaves that have dragged us under. “This is not your victory to claim ... nor your defeat. Take credit for neither.”
The dead wood beats out the growing seconds in the darkness.
And all the scattered leaves - the broken skeletons of discarded ideas, die away into the soil, join and grow again together. We are left standing free, feet firm on a bowl of cracked dry earth leading down to the centre of the clearing, where lies uncovered a young girl, curled tight into a ball. She stirs, and the bare earth stirs with her. Grass shoots twist and stretch into the twilight, a dense, lush carpet dimming the well-set pools of life sprung up by our paces to dull and ageing wither-wilt.
The trees creak and swell in place, trunks shedding dead, gnarled bark, pushing smooth, light skin outwards to the living air. Limbs flail and split towards the waxing moon, roots sigh up thick and fresh from the soil and the shedded leaves are born again on the branches, bright-veined diamonds of the darkest green, strong and rich and new.
She stirs again, wreathed around in gold and silver flowers, and pushes herself up onto her knees. Breaths come slow and deep in her narrow chest, and in one shaking fist she clutches a single sheet of paper, blotched and tattered, tight-rolled to a thin tube of hidden theme.
Slowly, she rises up, keenly aware of us all but catching no-one’s eye, head lowered in our presence. On shaking feet, firmly placed, she walks from the soft green bowl, trailing gleaming gem-blooms behind. Seb straightens further as she draws near, staring hard at her lowered eyes - he can see, as us, the brightness shining there, through even weary half-shot lids, and wants to know, and cut and shape and claim the power burning there.
She simply, briefly reaches up and places a hand on his barrel-chest, not even turning to face him, then is past and up. The old man, cheeks glistening, stands humble on the edge of the bowl. leaning heavily on his stick, eyes cast to the floor.
She draws in close, a hand on his shoulder, the whisper of a kiss on his cheek, and the parchment is pressed firm into his hand. The man blinks back another brace of tears and returns the kiss with trembling lips. I see her mouth move in hushed speech and for a second their eyes raise and lock together. They share a smile so deep and pure, my own assured smirk falters on my lips and I draw in closer to Tallia for support, but find her silent, still and the air around her wavering through uncertainty.
The girl smiles again, the blooms of the wood straining towards her as she does, and walks away without another word, pale fingers bound with smooth and perfect skin lingering entwined with the old man’s as she goes. As she moves further from us, her shoulders square and her head lifts ... she gazes around at her creation, step light and sure, enjoying only the moment, not her influences elsewhere.
Fere draws out his blade again - a dull, grating bark in the darkness - and his over-trained eyes dart maniacally over every detail of the woods, taking in something beyond him. He resumes his slicing of the air, but now stumbles, the patterns warped and caught up in the atmosphere, insulting counterfeit of a perfect creation. Confidence waivers and falls, the blade along with it, and he is still once more, a steady beat of failure knocking calm into his chest.
Seb, one hand tight to his chest, fingers working around the place she touched him, stares into the centre of the clearing. Her flowers of gold and silver grow on, out-shining all in the weak moonlight ... so delicate, but beautiful, holding much more than their shape ... the blooms yawn further into the night, the delicate trace and flow of the multitude petals whispering promises at anyone brave enough to listen.
We four are joined again, as a common feeling finds us all. Another shared smile touches our lips, and Tallia slides in closer, an arm looped through mine, where my pocketed fist loosens around my pens and lead. We set our shoulders a little less square, and our footsteps a little less sure, but all, now, breathe a little more deep.
The old man grasps his walking stick in both hands and thrusts it down through the grass to the rich, new soil below. He speaks, then turns and leaves, tracing another path back through the woods, admiring everything along his way.
“A good day indeed.”
A good day for all ... we have grown, and shared, and given birth to greater things still. And, of course, like any artists, we have lanced wounds, cut away the weak, the narrow and the tired.
Seb ranges ahead as always, his deep eyes ever scouting for what we can take next. He meanders through the trees, legs idly kicking up the mulch into deep-shade rotted rainbows, and snaps us back a raised-brow, bright-eyed glance, tongue tip held in grinning teeth.
“I feel it!”
The shout, as always, stirs the broken air around. A breeze picks up, snapping cloaks and hair - sharp, clear sounds amongst the dead, lifted and carried away with Seb’s eager laughter. He stops and turns to us, arms wide, head cocked, and nods off three little bows, one for us each.
“And here ... of all places.”
And he dances off, rubbing his hands together, spinning and skipping up a twisted path amongst the growing litter, following that feeling which finds us, too, now. I shrug deeper into my furred clothing and breathe deep of vivid scents bloom through to colours, images, scattered emotion of the awaiting event ... shiver slightly as the tingle runs its course around my spine, and join the loose, wide-lipped smile we share as one.
My arm, hand pocketed and tight-clenched around ink-pens and lead, is tangled with another as Talia slides in beside, stride for stride. Her features are obscured, as always, under her hood, but the air around speaks up of beauty, and the perfect, knowing soul beneath. Closer, I hear her song, gently pushed on velvet lips into the woods to match and make the steady beat still Fere drags along the timber. Notched blade lines, streaming back, form up a perfect pattern shape he sees with sightless eyes and knows the power gave to dreamers - the weaker, binded, spectrum-seers.
Whoops and cheers, and Seb flicks and fades between the trunks, the feeling risen to a knotted breath deep in his chest, soon to twist ours up behind, even now as we follow his green-shot footprints, warm tendrils sneak in, promising something new to craft.
We break into the clearing, an ever-rain of leaves spiralling down twisted and broken to meet the decaying mulch building deeper and deeper underfoot. Seb, wading in the centre, drags himself around a single point, slowly stroking his pointed chin.
White amongst the brown, fingers marked and bleeding - a hand thrust up pale and trembling from the ground.
We gather round, knee-deep into this wasting soul’s detritus and examine close the stretched and tired skin, almost glowing as the sun slips further away above.
Seb notes first, the angle of the wrist and the spread of the fingers ... Tallia nods slowly at the red raw lines of string and key ... Fere and I both take in the long-set marks of ink and pencil ...
“Too much ...”
Seb sighs, feet slipping further into the muck and rot. He wipes his brow with the back of a hand and takes each of us in by turn, adding our agreement to his own. The flash of a smile, and his eyes are aflame.
“But, my friends ... still, something we can work with ... “
So high the damp and clinging litter reaches now, he does not have to stoop as he stretches for the shaking hand, weary and beginning to curl and turn back towards the earth. Leaves rain down all around, and the sun slips from the sky. Skin touches skin.
“You leave her be.”
We four figures, half-buried and eager for the challenge, turn as one to take in the speaker. He stands, stooped and gnarled on the edge of the clearing, supported half by trunk and half by stick, his face as worn and knotted as both. His eyes, hidden under heavy brows, are fixed to the floor, where his feet sit gently atop the leaf litter that has dragged us all in.
“My good sir,” Tallia begins, words soft but laced with condescension, somehow still singing as she speaks. She pulls away from me, but keeps a hand steady on my arm. “This is none of your concern.”
The old man slowly shakes his head and leans away from the tree, taking his walking stick in both hands and thrusting it deep through the mulch to the churned ground beneath. His head snaps up and the shining eyes of a soul-driven man strip Tallia’s confidence back to nothing. Her hand tightens white around my forearm, and I feel her stumble slightly amongst the dead and dying leaves.
Seb raises a finger straight into the air, turning slowly in the silence to present his straight back to the man, his chin titled further up, relishing the moment.
“Power indeed, stranger. Perhaps, if your senescence allowed it ... “
The man barks a stout laugh, mocking smile twisted on his lips.
“What? You’d ask me into your troupe? The world-famous, all-conquering, uncontested masters of the arts? Please, please.”
“Then on your merry way, my well-eschewed patriarch, you have no business here. We are ...” He throws his hands to the shrouded sky, “... performing.”
“To what end?” The old man’s voice is a humourless vacuum: cold, unyielding. “Your own, no doubt. No doubt.” His eyes become as bright and fierce as a thousand suns, burning a hole of pity into Seb’s silken capes. Of everything he knows inside
Seb’s eyes flare up as well, violent red and muddied orange tumbling with the gift he so proudly shares. He begins to turn back, all enjoyment frozen from his face, ever-confidence forming up to dead, barbed point. One word holds him back ... for the lure of another creation.
“Change.”
Fere speaks bluntly, his clouded eyes staring - as they always have - at the small, pale hand thrust up from the ground. His short blade, once dancing endless perfect patterns in the air, is slid back away. Arms crossed, he waits, confident for another victory.
Tallia falls silent and pulls me slowly around from the conflict to face the delicate object, moving now in the centre of the clearing. Another squeeze on my arm, this time in excitement.
The anger fades from the other sets of eyes, and we five join watch and wait together, four already adding to our well-bound books of mastery. Another inspiration, another notch for them to bow.
The fingers slowly close in, ragged work-worn nails to the palm and, shaking with effort, the tiny fist draws back, sliding back under the cloying mulch.
Seb jumps forward as much as he is able chest-deep in litter, lunging for the hand before it disappears only to find the old man’s stick hard across his shoulders, holding him back.
“You will not save her.” The man whispers his order, voice loud and crafted in the silence. He stands tall on the decaying leaves that have dragged us under. “This is not your victory to claim ... nor your defeat. Take credit for neither.”
The dead wood beats out the growing seconds in the darkness.
And all the scattered leaves - the broken skeletons of discarded ideas, die away into the soil, join and grow again together. We are left standing free, feet firm on a bowl of cracked dry earth leading down to the centre of the clearing, where lies uncovered a young girl, curled tight into a ball. She stirs, and the bare earth stirs with her. Grass shoots twist and stretch into the twilight, a dense, lush carpet dimming the well-set pools of life sprung up by our paces to dull and ageing wither-wilt.
The trees creak and swell in place, trunks shedding dead, gnarled bark, pushing smooth, light skin outwards to the living air. Limbs flail and split towards the waxing moon, roots sigh up thick and fresh from the soil and the shedded leaves are born again on the branches, bright-veined diamonds of the darkest green, strong and rich and new.
She stirs again, wreathed around in gold and silver flowers, and pushes herself up onto her knees. Breaths come slow and deep in her narrow chest, and in one shaking fist she clutches a single sheet of paper, blotched and tattered, tight-rolled to a thin tube of hidden theme.
Slowly, she rises up, keenly aware of us all but catching no-one’s eye, head lowered in our presence. On shaking feet, firmly placed, she walks from the soft green bowl, trailing gleaming gem-blooms behind. Seb straightens further as she draws near, staring hard at her lowered eyes - he can see, as us, the brightness shining there, through even weary half-shot lids, and wants to know, and cut and shape and claim the power burning there.
She simply, briefly reaches up and places a hand on his barrel-chest, not even turning to face him, then is past and up. The old man, cheeks glistening, stands humble on the edge of the bowl. leaning heavily on his stick, eyes cast to the floor.
She draws in close, a hand on his shoulder, the whisper of a kiss on his cheek, and the parchment is pressed firm into his hand. The man blinks back another brace of tears and returns the kiss with trembling lips. I see her mouth move in hushed speech and for a second their eyes raise and lock together. They share a smile so deep and pure, my own assured smirk falters on my lips and I draw in closer to Tallia for support, but find her silent, still and the air around her wavering through uncertainty.
The girl smiles again, the blooms of the wood straining towards her as she does, and walks away without another word, pale fingers bound with smooth and perfect skin lingering entwined with the old man’s as she goes. As she moves further from us, her shoulders square and her head lifts ... she gazes around at her creation, step light and sure, enjoying only the moment, not her influences elsewhere.
Fere draws out his blade again - a dull, grating bark in the darkness - and his over-trained eyes dart maniacally over every detail of the woods, taking in something beyond him. He resumes his slicing of the air, but now stumbles, the patterns warped and caught up in the atmosphere, insulting counterfeit of a perfect creation. Confidence waivers and falls, the blade along with it, and he is still once more, a steady beat of failure knocking calm into his chest.
Seb, one hand tight to his chest, fingers working around the place she touched him, stares into the centre of the clearing. Her flowers of gold and silver grow on, out-shining all in the weak moonlight ... so delicate, but beautiful, holding much more than their shape ... the blooms yawn further into the night, the delicate trace and flow of the multitude petals whispering promises at anyone brave enough to listen.
We four are joined again, as a common feeling finds us all. Another shared smile touches our lips, and Tallia slides in closer, an arm looped through mine, where my pocketed fist loosens around my pens and lead. We set our shoulders a little less square, and our footsteps a little less sure, but all, now, breathe a little more deep.
The old man grasps his walking stick in both hands and thrusts it down through the grass to the rich, new soil below. He speaks, then turns and leaves, tracing another path back through the woods, admiring everything along his way.
“A good day indeed.”