Post by Bobbi on Feb 20, 2019 23:38:46 GMT -5
The bits of sky that could be seen between the heavy and low hanging branches had given up their weight, sending soft downy flakes to fall into the crisp air. Those branches were already heavy with what had been given up before, and now there was more to come.
It hurt Solomon Tekal to breathe in air like this. It was so cold that it made the skin of his bare face feel as if all moisture had been sucked straight from his cells, it made every motion around old scar tissue feel like it was all being pulled against with the force it would take to rip open those old wounds. It was daggers to his hands, to his arms, to his legs and his feet. It was the kind of air that could numb you from the inside out with just a single inhale. His lungs felt like they were made of leaded duraglass, but chilled so completely that one false move or one wrong breath and they would shatter. It was the kind of cold that could make an entire body ache with how stripping it was.
And all around him was silence. The snow that fell ate all the noise, it hung on everything and devoured whispers. It took shouts and turned them into the hushed shadows that swept under laden tree branches.
The forest was a deep one, and he was somewhere well within its waiting arms. Barefoot in the frozen world around him, barely dressed against the cold, he was following something. There were no tracks to see, there was no indication that this was the way he should go physically. He knew it, though. He felt it like he felt the cold that dug against his mortal being, and he followed that through snow covered grounds, beneath low bending branches of trees he knew not the names of.
This world, this forest was not one he knew by sight. He’d never set foot in this growth, and yet he knew it like the back of his hand.
The wind blew hard from the west, sweeping through the barren trees, picking up loose snow and causing what was falling to bluster about him as he walked. For miles and miles he went in the winter wasteland, his arms held close for what non-existent warmth he could provide for himself.
He went for hours like that, until he eventually didn’t even notice the cold anymore. The snow fell like heavy rain, and the winds still blustered but he was simply too cold to notice the difference.
It was an odd snow, it was an odd world. For all the bare skin he came with, there was not a fleck of frostbite to be seen. There were no signs that hypothermia was setting it. It should have by the time he got there. He knew he should have been crippled by the cold by the time he found it.
A fountain, large and round with two tiers covered in water that had frozen mid-flow. It sparkled like crystal. It was as smooth as a mirror and so clear of color that he could see the chiseled stone beneath it. He had to climb three steps to see down into it, and tip his head over the lip of the bottom tier to get a good look at the trapped leaves which were stuck like prizes waiting for the summer thaw to rescue them.
Still the wind blew, and the snow fell.
Around the fountain he traveled, toward a low gated path. The snow kept falling, but never piled higher than his ankles, causing them to chaff and ache as if they were falling right out of their sockets but no, he remained in one piece as he took that small path. It led him away from the fountain and toward a tree larger than the rest.
Beneath that tree, he bent and placed his hand over a marker and brushed the snow away. Stretched out beside the marker was a gaping wound in the ground, partially filled in by snow. It was empty otherwise. There was nothing to fill it with. His hand trembled none-the-less as he wiped the snow away. He didn’t have to look to know what it said, to know that one name written there in the barren frost land that surrounded him.
In the drifting surrender of the clouds overhead, Solomon knelt and flattened his hand against that name, obscuring it to his own eyes.
“It should be somewhere warmer. Not here, not where its frozen. You deserve more than this.”
His words weren’t even a whisper in the stillness that ate sound. His lips moved, the syllables falling without a noise, a barely voiced prayer, into the world around him.
It hurt Solomon Tekal to breathe in air like this. It was so cold that it made the skin of his bare face feel as if all moisture had been sucked straight from his cells, it made every motion around old scar tissue feel like it was all being pulled against with the force it would take to rip open those old wounds. It was daggers to his hands, to his arms, to his legs and his feet. It was the kind of air that could numb you from the inside out with just a single inhale. His lungs felt like they were made of leaded duraglass, but chilled so completely that one false move or one wrong breath and they would shatter. It was the kind of cold that could make an entire body ache with how stripping it was.
And all around him was silence. The snow that fell ate all the noise, it hung on everything and devoured whispers. It took shouts and turned them into the hushed shadows that swept under laden tree branches.
The forest was a deep one, and he was somewhere well within its waiting arms. Barefoot in the frozen world around him, barely dressed against the cold, he was following something. There were no tracks to see, there was no indication that this was the way he should go physically. He knew it, though. He felt it like he felt the cold that dug against his mortal being, and he followed that through snow covered grounds, beneath low bending branches of trees he knew not the names of.
This world, this forest was not one he knew by sight. He’d never set foot in this growth, and yet he knew it like the back of his hand.
The wind blew hard from the west, sweeping through the barren trees, picking up loose snow and causing what was falling to bluster about him as he walked. For miles and miles he went in the winter wasteland, his arms held close for what non-existent warmth he could provide for himself.
He went for hours like that, until he eventually didn’t even notice the cold anymore. The snow fell like heavy rain, and the winds still blustered but he was simply too cold to notice the difference.
It was an odd snow, it was an odd world. For all the bare skin he came with, there was not a fleck of frostbite to be seen. There were no signs that hypothermia was setting it. It should have by the time he got there. He knew he should have been crippled by the cold by the time he found it.
A fountain, large and round with two tiers covered in water that had frozen mid-flow. It sparkled like crystal. It was as smooth as a mirror and so clear of color that he could see the chiseled stone beneath it. He had to climb three steps to see down into it, and tip his head over the lip of the bottom tier to get a good look at the trapped leaves which were stuck like prizes waiting for the summer thaw to rescue them.
Still the wind blew, and the snow fell.
Around the fountain he traveled, toward a low gated path. The snow kept falling, but never piled higher than his ankles, causing them to chaff and ache as if they were falling right out of their sockets but no, he remained in one piece as he took that small path. It led him away from the fountain and toward a tree larger than the rest.
Beneath that tree, he bent and placed his hand over a marker and brushed the snow away. Stretched out beside the marker was a gaping wound in the ground, partially filled in by snow. It was empty otherwise. There was nothing to fill it with. His hand trembled none-the-less as he wiped the snow away. He didn’t have to look to know what it said, to know that one name written there in the barren frost land that surrounded him.
In the drifting surrender of the clouds overhead, Solomon knelt and flattened his hand against that name, obscuring it to his own eyes.
“It should be somewhere warmer. Not here, not where its frozen. You deserve more than this.”
His words weren’t even a whisper in the stillness that ate sound. His lips moved, the syllables falling without a noise, a barely voiced prayer, into the world around him.