Wander walked through the rounds. She lead along the Stronghoof and its load, and threw out some feed for The Stonehoof. She clopped over and lapped it up.
The covered peaks grew more distant, and the snowstorms that surrounded them retreated the other way. The wet dirt she could feel under the snow stopped, and her boots came down on hard rock. The trees discovered a large rolling braid cut through their body, perpendicular to the sun. She reached into The Stronghoof''s pack for her guide, threw it out, and looked up at the sky.
She turned them on to the path.
The road accelerated her pace, and Wander could carry them through the day at a brisk trot. She was stopped up only at one time, when the spring bluster scenting the trees was marked by a crack.
The wingtrees'' ivory trunks and the thicktrees'' branches and twisted and rustled in the wind. Her eye fell on a part of the treeline where the trunks appeared to grow into legs and arms, and a dark swatch of hair marked by flecks of silver, with a white jag tied to its waist. Its hands were joined chest-high.
She approached the spot, padding back into the dirt, and found nothing. So she turned back to the road.
She pulled them to the side when it was dark again, into a rocky overlook of the South. There were no peaks in the distance, but white flats, bushes, and patches of light brown that had begun to speckle it. The sprouts of trees remained constant, but not densely, and she began to see new roots among them. The principle was crooked trees, which rose to a height halfway above hers before sloping down and budding; these buds were now retracted, and popping out as they the warmth circulated through their heads. She lead The Stronghoof over their sifting coils, which ran for and into one another, slicing. She set it down and slid Fragile off its back.
She sat him by a crop of wood. She tapped The Bell, who was sashed around her head like a bandanna, and laid her hand to it for the burn. She inspected his bindings, and her push was confident and grazing.
They ate from loaves of yellow grain. Fragile nipped at his and looked around.
"There is no outness in this place," he said.
Wander let down her food. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"Many days have passed," he said. "And there are Sixbraids. You told me about the Shamin outness. That the dark… it was an incorrect spot. You told me that there were problems there, and hearts that hurt."
Wander saw the boat and the lake she had pulled him from. "I did. You told me your kind did not respect it that way."
He hugged his coldover.
"There are Unders," he said. "And there are Sixbraids. And there are Changers. And there are Pathways… they are kinds. And there is Eldsister Bestplace. Eldsister Virtuous. Eldsister Hithit. Eldbrother Bright. And you."
He nodded quickly. "That is my kind. So – our outness. I do not see it here."
He nipped at his bread again and flicked his eye at her. She ate her own.
"And I do not," she said.
And rustling began in their camp.
It was the same rustling that Wander had been hearing for the ninety nighs past. It wasn''t a beast or a gust of wind or a shaking of the ground. It was Fragile, shambling out from his cover and wrapping himself in effects so that he might move in to the forest.
The first few times this had happened. Wander had gone in search of his refuse, as though the equidistance of his escapes indicated a habit carried on from his days with the Sixbraids. But she had not found any. And she had not been untouched by the growing bags under and blood shooting through his eyes in the morning, or his tendency to fall asleep an hour before she, and the early lucidity this precipitated, preceding dawn''s.
He also took his bag with him. The hoofleather strap and sack clung fast to his shoulder most of the time, but even at those points where he had went without it since their association, he had spoke to no issue of its spot in her watch. One use for it mgiht have been the doll in its keep, or the flower, or the Goalish knife, which had touched him so recently, and by his own hand at one point before. She could not know that he was well.
When he was a suited distance from the camp, on this new escape, Wander removed her boots and other metal ornaments and followed him into the woods.
He hiked from their camp until he was sweaty and breathless. He stopped and rested on an ice-covered log. He laid down his bag and began to gather materials behind a rocky crag which split up the ground. He hauled over sheets of branches and large clumps of leaves, and structured them into a squat, round covering. His footsteps and sighs faded away as he entered, shutting himself in with the ice-covered log. A strange noise came out from inside, and she approached the envelope of sticks and brush. She drew closer, and the noise bounced around, slipping through the gaps in his wall. She took it.
-
"H-here I go, brave one."
"Wander was the fighting one. Bell was the speaking one. Wander knew her name- the name of Wellborn, the wall, and took her body. Wander took the name, her name was Last Farmer- the sower, and took her body."
"W-when the rulersland first emerged," Fragile whispered, "There was darkness in the place."
"When the petal first emerged, there was darkness in the place. When the flower first emerged, there was darkness in the place."If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
"Came fires and first sun, there was no darkness in the place."
"Came stabs and bites, there was no darkness in the place.
"Came walls and dry canes, and there was no darkness in the place."
"There is no darkness in the place. Adore what is received!"
He hit a high note. He coughed.
"There was a dryman, she was named Wander."
"There was a worker, she was named Bell."
"Bell: warm in day, warm in shadow. Wander: daughter of biters and chewers and mountain beasts. Wander, a joyous one. Bell: the keeper of flames, the ringer of chimes, the maker of friends."
"Wander was the fighting one. Bell was the speaking one. Wander knew her name- the name of Wellborn, the wall, and took her body. Wander took the name, her name was Last Farmer- the sower, and took her body."
"Shaminkat, they walked in. The born saw and met her. Azh Makas. Azh Makas, they walked in. The born saw and met her. Goal of born. Goal of born, they walked in. The born saw an met her. The born saw and shook. They did not have the lines. All is in attack by dry forces. The hiding places are shown. The creators are taken out. The children are reinvented. They did not have the lines."
"''You are not a friend, Dry man,'' said the born. ‘You are not a strong one,'' said the born.''"
"Bell: warm in day, warm in shadow. Wander: daughter of biters and chewers and mountain beasts. Wander, a joyous one. Bell: the keeper of flames, the ringer of chimes, the maker of friends."
"''I create my friends,'' said the Bell. ‘I create my strength,''" said the Dry Man."
"The Dry Man revealed the seekers. Light was thrown upon them."
"The Dry Man sent back creators. Dark was thrown upon them.
"The children have the words. The children have the lines."
"The born celebrate the Dry Man. The born saw and met her. Dry Man will walk out."
"Wander gives gifts to born ones. Wander thunders in. She is the creator of herself. When she returns to her roundseat, the born will be well and joyous. New ways should be found for it, which will rise them."
"She shall remember what she wants. Harmony shall be forgotten by her wants. In this, the meeting is forever."
"Here I go now, brave one…"
"Here it is where born will pass. Here it is where hearts will pass. Here it is where land will pass, where what is young will build. Here it is where Wander was, where it was shown that life was not a wound."
"There is light a while. There is dark forevermore."
-
Fragile continued to recite into the early morning. When he found himself grow too tired to continue, he took a peek outside, into the shy light of dawn. The forest was empty.
He dismantled his hut and started back to their space out of trees, arriving a half step before sunrise. He tiptoed in and saw Wander on her back, her eyes shut. He sighed and crawled back into his sleeping sack. He was soon fast asleep.
She felt his heartbeat slow and his breathing shift as he fell in to the work of slumber. She opened her eyes and stood up, and went out to the horizon.
She went before Am, which carried himself up and looked upon her. She felt the wind on her face. Soon, r
</a> She stood up from the floor of the roundseat, which was hard and wood, and walked through the darkness of her bedplace, into the black of home. She looked around and saw nothing. The doom had gone. There was darkness now, unchanged by sweatsight.
</a> Bright gold entered the sky and produced everything. Night had not ended. But it showed her the trees, the legs of Pars, the danceshape, which held up his head and behemoth. His long snout puffed fire. He was a stonehoof. She wondered if the stonehoofs came from him.
</a> Pars looked up to the sky. There sat Am, his shine confined, offering full expression to all the ones who were scattered over the streams of jewel. She looked past Pars and the trees, toward the hills that they descended. A faint glow sat around the whole world, bringing fire red to the black of pinsized figures standing there, lining the globe of time. They looked at her and they were still, over every horizon.
</a> Pars approached the warrior, and the quiet of his feet belied his enormity. He seemed to grow larger with each step. He planted a hill in front of her; it was his hoof, and Wander craned her neck up to see him.
</a> "You have found the sun," the danceshape whispered. His voice was soft and light and it should not have reached her ears. "You have found its breaker. I can see you again."
The warrior blinked.
Pars knelt down to her. "Is its good lost to you?"
She spoke to him. "And I am carried further from it with each breath."
She stepped to the side and addressed the Firstpeople. "Wisers, lawsmen. Masters. You are all some dirt in my eye. And everything for what I am. Do not return here again."
Pars and Am did not touch her. She reached out and laid a hand on the stonehoof''s nose. He closed his eyes and leaned into it.
"How will you be perfect?" he asked. "How will you complete?"
"I could never find it in your country. But yours is only one."
Pars'' breath passed into the warrior and warmed her. "Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked.
She released him. "Yes. Let me go."
The Secondpeople turned from her, and a mass of them began walking down into the black of the East. They did not all do it at once. They picked down and thinned until they were a veil and not a crowd, and until they were not a crowd but a patch of weeds. They moved down until they were only two. The larger departed, and the other did not. His shade lowered and he sat down. His head could not be told from the edges of the distant peaks.
The sky grew dark again, and she was left with her sense of Pars, the edge of his lines protruding and losing. His face pushed through the shadow, and his body shook. He looked up at her.
"Be well," Pars said. "Wander."
"Wander."
She turned. There was a whisper.
"Wander?"
And there was Fragile.
Her eyes blinked open and flooded with morning light. The sun had risen above he horizon.
The foreigner shivered before her, clutching his coldover. The Stonehoof stood at his side. His brow bent. "Are you o-okay?" he asked.
She squeezed her fingers, and found that she had her hand wrapped around her Kathan blade. Its metal glinted in the sunlight. It faced away from her chest.
She looked up. Her eyes slowly grew in, and lost the heat of the world. She looked back at Fragile, and inspected his color. "I''m fine," she said. "You should be resting."
"I feel okay," he said. "Do you want to move? I''m ready."
She placed the Kathan blade in her belt.
"I''m ready too."