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『 xxxxxxSo tight, so tight you feel trapped by your own skin. You'd pant, but there's no air. All you can hear is presences, not really sounds, not really there, but the tingle of something bigger than you, you're surrounded by lives-that-could-be. Four of them in this case, you only know them as a group of lonely little ones who were fighting and bucking to be the one to survive, and you are in the running. The noises of the world outside are muffled, a wind storm maybe, and you hear the faint ｃｒｕｎｃｈing of branches as they come off the trees... Nothing is as loud as the not-voices alongside you, begging for life. Not quite alive, so never reborn even when they test time for an opening. You turn yourself upwards towards the warmth of the sun and...
xxxxxxWeeks pass, months, years,you have no knowledge of time. No knowledge of the complexity of thoughts beyond you, you can only hear the whispering. Long soft susurrus, cradling all of you together as you wait. Then, a deep heartrending sigh of giving up and letting go of chance without patience...
xxxxxxThere are less lives-that-could-be and somehow more of yourself...
xxxxxxTime passes quickly enough, and your dreams match reality so well... you see colors sometimes, flickers of things. So down to earth you know that nothing fanciful will be enough for you. Another sigh of relief echoes in the packed tight chamber, and you feel the life force of another life-that-could-have-been seep into you and the last few parts of your personality. You feel more now, more... there, real. Maybe you can make it this time.
xxxxxxCold cold nights, hot hot days, the crickets chirp and the fireflies dart and you are blind, but not blind. You sense the world around you moving and shifting in a blur of too fast life and lights. Things you'll never see again, and it passes you. You feel sorrow for things you will never see, for rivers that will never ever be the same for the water always runs... the ｃｒｕｎｃｈ of jaws, a crocodile takes its prey from the muddy bank in a shrieking bird cry as the death rolls turn dirt to muddy slick and blood...
xxxxxxAnother soft sigh echoes the death as if chasing it down to give it comfort, and you are glad that that life-to-be chose not to go alone to the Fathermother, and that maybe it would return someday with another who feels wrong in its body, too many legs, not enough feathers. Maybe, if they were lucky, maybe it could happen within millions of years of spans of time.
xxxxxxThe fleas and ticks lodged in the dark murk above move slowly overhead, a spinning blur of long lights cradling the dome above for one who knows things so innately slowly. So calm, and peaceful... curled up warm, against someone, latched onto the last life-that-could be so tight not quite ready to let go. Don't let me grow up alone sibling-that-could-be. They sigh with regret and martyrdom, and you know more of yourself than ever as they never leave you, none of them did completely, but you are still alone in your egg sac as the dreams go deeper into the real dreams instead of these shoddy half baked dreams.
xxxxxxYou are the-life-that-was-chosen, and you will grow. The lives of your sacmates will feed you to maturity, you know who you are now as you never had before. A male, a buck, a...
xxxxxxToo deep in the knowing, the scene changes in your dream. The swamp-life that influenced your birth and strength have faded to a new place. Darkness, and haze. Panting breath at your muzzle lights up the air ahead in mist, your hooves neatly mince the ground into finer steps. You walk, eyes open almost afraid. A chilly feeling despite the warmth of day still lingering in the depths of rocks and ground, a cold across your spine like you are lost to the nightfall while waiting for day. The darkness is blue and purple, and deep and dark, and you do not fit in the angles just right. But you love it here nonetheless and as long as you are humble maybe the night spirits, fireflies, will recognize that despite your colors you belong. Because in the darkness, your fur is like their lights. You belong because it is the swamp, and you were made for the swamp, day or night.
xxxxxxCrackle... ｃｒｕｎｃｈ...
xxxxxxThe limbs of trees torn away are turned to splinters of dry and damp wood, too long limbs, gangly and awkward like you will always be even when you've grown solid and strong. You duck your head, horns scratching against another fallen limb much larger than the last, and let the bark scrape away... so much destruction, but you take it apathetically. It happens, without the chaos of storms there would be no where for the slugs to grow, no where for the frogs to hide, and spawn and breed. Destruction happens, and to your pragmatic life outlook it is nothing. At least someone will be fed for this, there is meaning in all the little things.
xxxxxxYou trot along the ways you know, (Will know? Have known? Knew since all the times that ever were?) and look up at the stars again, longing. You know the sky, you feel it like a brother. They don't realize, it always moves, and it will never be exactly the same. You mourn for the times when you did not see it, for the times when you missed the cloud cover, the perfect full moon, the cast of shadows on leaves that would never grow again. Another branch ｃｒｕｎｃｈes in your path. Why so often, it feels important like a niggling feeling of where you're meant to go.
xxxxxxStep... Ｃｒｕｎｃｈ... Step... Ｃｒｕｎｃｈ...
xxxxxxSo weird, like, like a beat deep inside you, just a little off of what you wanted it to be. It's wrong, and it makes you almost petulant in your fur. Your pelt ripples as if bitten by an errant fly and you take your anger elsewhere. You growl at a frog, and it croaks in your face. You roll your eyes and shakes a weary head towards the ground. Not scared of the big old buck. Sounds like a song from your younglinghood.
"Who's afraid of the big bad buck,
do you think he'll take your luck?
Stomp your hooves to make a way!
Drive that big bad buck away!"
do you think he'll take your luck?
Stomp your hooves to make a way!
Drive that big bad buck away!"
xxxxxxSilly really, you'd run around in a circle around a youngling in the center, and suddenly stop. Then they'd try to pick out who was standing behind them. If they picked the right voice, they won. Your voice was so bass they could pick you out of a lineup with their ears gone. You could feel your voice rumbling low and deep and long, a musical quality if tuned just right...
xxxxxxＣｒｕｎｃｈ...
xxxxxxUgh that noise, it makes the insides of your body tremble with need, like you needed to be closer. So hungry to be in that place where crunching made sense, where your steps weren't so muddled. The sky changes far too fast as you look upwards, sun rising, setting, falling, moon up, moon down, two at once, crossing each other. The Gate, the moon pushing a hole through the sun to the darkness beyond to let the lives-that-could-be loose from the Fathermother's body.
xxxxxxYou step forward.
xxxxxxxxxxxxStep, step, ｃｒｕｎｃｈ ｓｔｅｐ.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWait.
xxxxxxIt all dissolves in a snap of realization that is who you are, that is who you were meant to be. Ｃｒｕｎｃｈｓｔｅｐ, it makes so much sense now! How could you have missed this?! It's been with you all your life! You rear up, the sound from your voice melodious as it careens across the Swamp, into the land beyond like a rolling wave of water, a bass thud-thudding as you exhale a breath filled with life beneath the Hawthorn trees you have come to rest under. This is home, this is where you were meant to be! This is everything you have dreamed and more! You are free!
xxxxxxYou roar, a voice so monumental it shakes the world down into cracks, and your hooves thud into the ground hard, in rhythm, and crush the branch under your steps with a loud ｃｒｕｎｃｈ, like an old skull left to bleach in the sunshine. Ｃｒｕｎｃｈ, like a fresh bite of new strawberry. Ｃｒｕｎｃｈ like a spinal cord in a croc's jaws. Ｃｒｕｎｃｈ, like you, like you. Ｃｒｕｎｃｈｓｔｅｐ.
xxxxxxThe sounds of the swamp are back as the last breaking shatters of your mind settle, the dream over with for now. You are eager, eager to meet the light and the breathing for the first time. Eager, because you will breath the air and everything will change as you watch it and you will never miss another thing. 』
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