[WP05] Burning Bush

[Minsuil]

Quote:

3. You awaken on a briskly-cold but brightly sunny day on a rocky slope. The vegetation is sparse and the wind is biting, but the air is invigoratingly fresh. If you are a native Totoma, you recognize this as the foothills of your homeland. A strange, smooth-sided tower of black stone rises in the distance. Native Totoma may or may not recognize it as a landmark.

The first thing she knew was the cold bite of the wind in her bones. The second, was the brightness of the sun on her eyelids. Burning Bush opened her eyes and was not entirely surprised to find herself in a place that she did not recognize. Rock and snow stretched on before her endlessly. Above her the sun rose, and though Burning Bush could see its light, she did not feel its warmth. The wind swept everything away. Behind her the hills rose up higher and higher until they became mountain slopes. In front of her she could only see the gentle downward sloping of snow and grass. She stood there and took in the scenery before moving onwards. Whether this was real, or a dream, she did not even ponder. In the end, time would tell.

As she climbed higher and higher, the snow became deeper and deeper. The cold wetness of snow seeped against her fetlocks and her hooves, and Burning Bush summoned the memory of a far away desert that she so often dreamed of. The memory of warmth filled her, but it did not change the cold. She laughed a little at her own foolishness. If thinking alone could solve material problems, then the younglings had no need of her. (Which, of course, was not the case.)

She climbed upwards until she saw the edge of something black rising from the horizon. It felt so unnatural in this land that she had just come to know. So Burning Bush did what anyone else would have done: she walked towards it. It was a long walk, made longer by the depth of the snow. All around her fir trees rose, dark green despite the cold. She saw the paw-prints of animals that she did not recognize. And she heard the screech of eagles above. This land was the antithesis of her desert dream, of her swamp homeland, and yet still it felt familiar. It was as if the great cold of this land, the stone and ice, where somewhere deep within her bones. A memory, a dream, a reality, from a time that she could not remember. How odd, she thought. But then she realized it was nothing new at all.

She had always been dreaming of distance lands. She dreamed of the sands often enough, and sometimes she dreamed of the swaying grasses. Now she was dreaming, maybe, of an icy mountain. What was next? The deep underground? The bottom of the sea? The sky above? Burning Bush reached the base of the great black tower and stared up. She walked a circle around it, pondering what it could be or what could have put it here.

Burning Bush pressed her head to the great black pillar, the smooth stone ice cold against her skin. She thought of her son, and she thought of home. She had been away from Westfen for so long, and though she was prone to wanderlust, she found herself thinking of home. Alone in a foreign land, she wished that this dream, if it was one, would end. She curled up at the tower's base and fell into an uneasy sleep.  

[Minsuil]

Quote:

3. Snow begins to fall in thick, heavy flakes. You feel a strong, unbearable need to shelter under the tower. As soon as you lie down, you are beset by powerful sleepiness, and unable to get up.

Burning Bush woke a short while - or perhaps a long while, it was hard to tell - later. She was still in the land of snow, and she could see the black of the rocks of the cliff. So she was still here. Still in a dream, or in a real place, she did not truly know. She stood up, stretching, and looked around her.

White flakes fell around her, and soon the snow came. Heavy, thick, flakes fell from the sky and she could feel them fall against her skin and melt in her fur. The stinging coldness had still not penetrated her skin. She shuffled under the tower until it covered her in its entirety. Already she was within the tower's radius, and though it blocked most of the snowfall the wind still blew stray flakes into her face. Burning Bush knew, without a second thought, that the snow would not stop any time soon. She settled down beneath the tower. Around her the world was deadly quiet. She could not help but feel that she was the only living thing here. It was an odd feeling, one that only added fire to her burning lonliness.

The doe lowered her head again and nestled it between her legs. Her ears were beginning to go cold. Sleepiness settled into her bones along with the cold and Burning Bush could not stay awake. She fell, once again, into a dark and troubled sleep.

She dreamt of Nightfall, of all her children she loved and worried for him the most. He alone inherited her sight, and as a result she doted on him. She wanted to teach him everything, anything. As a mother, she dreamed that one day they might dreamwalk together through distant lands. But Nightfall did not love the sight. It haunted him even in his waking life and images of people, things, followed him whereever he went. Now, Burning Bush looked back and knew what she should have comforted him. She should have been his mother, his friend, the one person he could trust and lean on. Instead her fervent teachings had driven him away. Now, he was out of her reach. Burning Bush dreamt of him now and then, but it was only a glimpse here and there. He was nothing but a shadow between the trees, a stranger in the mist.

Sometimes she wondered if her family, Westfen, was just a replacement. A filler for the hole her son had left. No. She thought. They are my family. Now. Always.

The shadow in her dream whispered otherwise. It whispered all sorts of half-truths that she could not acknowledge or deny. Burning Bush wanted to wake up. But she could not. The darkness surrounded her.

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She awoke under a tree. A dream, she thought. I have had a long, long dream. And try and she might, Burning Bush could not seem to recall anything. She remembered a black tower rising into the sky, a shadow she seemed to know darting between trees, the quiet whisper of her doubts. As she stood, she felt her legs burn and did not seem to notice the last bit of snow falling from her black pelt.