18 November 2012
On the tumbling grey mountains of Skye Upon Drint, she stands, tiny and pale; her body thin and frail as a child's. As the wind spirits howl above her precious head, she looks to the silver sky, and takes in the heavenly landscape that spans in every direction around her. Oh, for all the pain and suffering she had seen in her short life, to know that there were places such as this made it all seem worthwhile to have lived through it all. Clouds curve in the sky, like heavenly bodies in a dance of eternal grace and purity, filling the great expanse of blue that is spread on high. She breathes the cool, fresh air into her lungs, and feels it begin to melt away the gritty ashes of her past. A high wind kicks up dust and dry leaves from around her feet, and throws them tumbling and whirling through the air.
She stands, for hours, taking in this great landscape of peace, and waiting patiently until she is cleansed of all that she will not need on the other side. With open eyes, which were now clear pearl-grey, she watches as the sky fills with an inky-thick gold, as the sun plunges deep below the horizon, sending fragments of shimmering light cascading in slow motion across time and space. Laughing out loud at such a euphoric moment as this, she watches her shadow finish its circle, and begin to fade away into the flat, grey stone she stands on. As the top of the sun slips away behind the border of Drint, it sends a scattering of stars shooting up into the heavens, where they find their place, and hang there, swaying slightly in the breeze.
Feeling her heart settle in her body, she closes her eyes, and feels her lungs fill her fragile ribcage for the last time. She lifts her hands to the heavens, and cat-calls to the gods.
"Great gods, I swear by the seven silver strings of heaven that on this night, I give my body to you and this great landscape. I give my soul to the winds of Skye, and my heart to the forests of Lantern. Then, I give my courage to the people, and in this, I wish to give them hope of one day, becoming free people"
The air stills with pregnant silence, and her blowing hair settles around her arms in draping strands. For a brief moment, everything is still, and she does not breathe, her heart does not beat, her eyes do not flicker.
A single star drops like a tear from above. It clatters to the floor next to her feet, and makes a ringing, hollow noise. In the distance, two more drop, and tumble down the sides of a mountain. One by one, the stars whirl and spin out of the sky, making beautiful notes that filled the air as they hit the hard mountains. Millions of them fell, tiny and shimmering, no bigger than coins. They cut her arms and neck, but she cannot feel it: she is suspended in a single moment, watching as this liminal scene unfolds between her.
"Offer your soul to the Gods of Life, And you will end all suffering and strife, And the sky will clear, but the heavens will fall, You will bring the end of repression to all"
Slowly, she begins to feel herself separate. She feels each memory inside of her begin to flake away into tiny white petals, and catch on the wind. They soar high above her head, whirling and dancing in the moonlight. Taking a final look at the ground, she sees the stone she is stood on crack, and release into the night millions of tiny pearly moths which scatter and shiver off into the night. She cannot see the mountains anymore, because the moths envelope her, fluttering in wreaths and boughs, lifting her and releasing her from all life.
All time slows, as if she is underwater, and she feels herself disappear into the eternal abyss.
And so, it came to be.
The Offering • Opuss № I