[aw] through mushroom clouds and black fields

Siv Helsi · 09-11-2012, 08:24 PM

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The sharpness of the air was that of winter, blowing high and far away in the north. Dark night air breathed it out all fine.

Siv breathed it in.

She tasted the coming days; days of smoke-gray skies and fire-colored trees. It tasted of velvet fallen from the antlers of strong bucks, of thunder, of ozone and atmosphere and somewhere above that the merciless and unfathomable eyes of harvest gods and the frost that chased after them. Autumn was the last great bastion before winter’s hold, and it would not last long in these northlands. The sea would bring them frigid air and batter against the coast, crushing underfoot those brown-turned leaves that struggled on yet.

But winter was a lifetime away, and there was a new scent on the wind. It sparked within her a peculiar thing—instinctively she identified her superior, her would-be queen. The part of her that was stronger, and clever in ways that those wolfish memories were not, it recognized only the resurgence of an old and ancient desire for power.

On her own two feet she came, moving at a slow pace. She did not hurry. She did not dawdle. Her steps were made without fear and without urgency. She walked as if she had somehow known to come. All illusions were made when one believed in them, and Siv Helsi was a woman who found her belief in these ocean-deep smoke and mirrors. One could see hints of it in her storm-colored eyes, which spoke of thunder and promised the heavens beyond. The gods of her kin were warriors and magicians alike, and this steel and silk, it was and was not every part of what she was.

For, as it had been for many moons, Siv Helsi was a woman without faith.

She did not have faith in this apparition before her. She did not have faith that the unspoken words and prayers would be heard by any god. She did not believe because she could not believe, even when the damn thing rose before her.

A shadow moved in deeper shadow. When the firelight finally found her, it made her storm-cloud eyes gleam with an odd, terrible cerise tone. Another illusion. Another lie to place under her tree of bones and tongues. The she-wolf observed with a peculiar sense of distance, as if she was not staring down at a fallen idol. This woman was not a god anymore.

Some peculiar sort of triumph rose from deep within her and glimmered, an endless reflection in the maze of mirrors built up on her face and eyes and being. One of her hands fell to the curve of her belly (it did not show yet, but she knew) and the other rested atop this. The chilly night air ruffled her feathered cloak and long hair, but Siv was unmoved by it. She said nothing and instead lingered behind the phantom, as if she was the real-made form of the Dark Lady’s shadow.

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