WILD THING :

[incipher]

I run. I run because the sky is purple to me, not navy, when it grows dark; and because my bones ache; and because mostly I don't know. I run to places where there's only sand and salt water, and the people have sunshine eyes. I run to the kingdoms made of rock and snowcaps, and the people have limestone for blood and don't know what it means to feel the wind; they've spent too much time becoming stone. I run to the lands of rain and peace, and I came close that once to knowing home, I swear I did – but the people there were afraid of the trees and no, I knew I couldn't belong. I run then, I guess, because I'm searching and searching and searching, but I can't decide what it is that I am searching for. I think I lost something a long time ago that was supposed to have meaning and purpose and everything you hear about in songs. But I run because I can't be sure and because nobody understands – they don't even try – and I'm exhausted and can't breathe, sometimes I don't remember how. Sometimes strangers have to teach me that I'm real and need things, but what can they do for someone who flies and flees and doesn't know anything else? What can they do, except give up? I am not meant to be chained; my ankles are too weak. I am not meant to be bound; my wrists are too fragile. So where do I go when no one knows how to keep me close? What do I do then, except run?

A gray sky promises rain. The forest in summer is a warm place because the heat clings to tree-bark, rising slowly to the canopy tops. The combination is forsworn, though. Thunder crackles, a smart rap to the ear drums and I, I cluster against the looming conifers. They have history and age to their smell, which is comforting, but the roots are thick and I fumble over them. I don't feel confident knowing that I can barely keep a sound foot here when the sky crackles and flashes a malicious leer. Yet there is a long road ahead, if the deer path stays true. I can't go back now that I'm in the midst, tangling my smell with the rosemary and basil and sage – I can't run, either, and I feel skittish because this is foreign ground. It is foreign like a newborn in its mother's hands; the first touch is scalding, but after the third and fourth embrace, it is a wanted sensation: I have no hope of giving this pain time to fade. I need to keep going. I can't stop now. The rain paints a picture of sound, the clouds cracking open and unleashing a curtain of despair; pitter and patter, I become smothered. I become the portrait in watercolors, and it's not like I belong here: I need to go. I need to find a way out. Yet the world is a cage that has snapped shut and the trees smother me against their hard, glass skins. I, what am I to them, these centuries-old entities? What am I, but a coward?
"Damn it, how do I get out of here?" Irritation flickers red in my eyes before I still mid-step, suspended.

It's the first time I've stopped running since you died.

*open to anyone.

[Ember]

The forest and it's mazes were always confusing. Axel felt he had frequented them enough to maybe get out, but still he sometimes had to stop and think of where to go. Occasionally, he knew some poor soul would get lost in here. Oh well, at least Axel was here to come and retrieve them and he got to play hero. This looked good in front of the mares. Well, he had come close to getting to play the white knight once, but it never went anywhere. He would certainly love for the chance to it. To parade in front of the mares and let the sun splash against his black mane. He would sweep in and show them way out and then invite them back to his herd. Yes, his ego was terribly huge.

It did not seem to take long before his walk had brought him across the painted horse before him. Perhaps they were lost as well? Walking confidently up to them, he gave a dip of his head, "Hello, out for a walk? This place sure is good for it." He said to them, though he did keep his distance as to not alarm this stranger. The last thing he wanted was to be met with hooves and gnashing of teeth. The bay stallion wanted to save that for a fight. Would that not be nice too? Fighting and gaining some scars to make himself look like a strong warrior. It would also help woo the mares. They would see him as a warrior who had seen many battles, and therefore strong enough to protect them. Snapping out of his coltish daydream, he waited for the reply of the stranger.

[incipher]

You would know how to get of this mess. You were the clever one, the star. The wind didn't call to you, though, did it? That's why it left your body and your soul, and let you die. You weren't made of cellophane or transparent for the sun to bleed through, the rain to tear – no, I remember the quartz in those bones and it still surprises me that you couldn't make it out. I am porcelain and I am breakable, and yet you are the one that succumbed. You are the one who wasn't strong enough. The wind blew us apart and it's a beautiful thing, too, because then I wouldn't have seen the sights I've come to know; I wouldn't be able to understand the daybreak or a perfect sunset. If I were with you like I had promised, I would be seaweed and coral. I would taste like salt and the sky would soak me into white puffy arms, exhale me into the grass of the earth, or the boulders of the mountain. Somehow, the world would find a way to tear us apart, no matter how many promises I made to be with you, to keep you alive. None of it would have mattered. None of it. Still; it surprises me that I found release in the wind. That you, frightened, imperfect, soul-rendered you, found release in death.

'Hello.' The imagery and sounds are eclipsed by an interlude. The song? I do not know of its throaty hum or bold bravado, but I do know it is a good-natured beginning, and amicability sings through the music of his voice. 'Out for a walk? The place sure is good for it.' I find him to be a quaking structure, a broad-shouldered, sinew-laced skeleton that shakes the ground with figure and voice, and I? I am a skinny thing with skinny legs and a paper-thin neck. I have height, but I run – I ran – and it burns me every time I think it, breathe it, feel it. I ran, but now I can't. I am caught, and he has me here, layered in the thralls of a conversation I cannot begin to understand. "Good? Sure, sure." Small, tentative rasps sweep through uncertain lips and through the gentle pallor of a quiet, afternoon atmosphere. I flick an ear casually while I slowly blink and reflect on the sculpt painted in the back of my eyelids: the bay is a rumbling creature, a ruffian by any judgment, but somehow a gentle beast. It sits well with my soul, but I watch him from under long eyelashes, curious, tentative, and above all else, uncertain.

I tipped my head up. I watched him with strange green eyes.
"You out walking, too?"
And then I waited. (Wished the wind would blow me away.)

[Ember]

It did not seem the other indicated they were lost or not. Axel was curious either way, "Of course. The forest is always a good place to run through. There are plenty of fallen trees to soar over, brooks to splash through." He said to the other with his head still lifted and his ears perked up, "May I ask the name of my companion?" He inquired, his tail giving a swish idly as he stood there to speak to this new companion. Axel was unsure if this new face was aggressive or not, or if they wanted to talk to him or wanted to be alone. It was hard to tell, the expression did not give it away. Well, it did not hurt to talk to them whether or not they wanted to. Perhaps if they did not wish to talk, then he would be told.

The air was getting cold with a nice breeze that moved through the foliage in the forest. It was easy to get lost in here, but Axel felt he had a pretty good handle on the paths. Even if he did get lost, it was easy to get out. Just turn around and walk in a straight path, in one direction, and soon he will be out. Of course, in his exchange of dialogue with this stranger, it did not mean he was not on the alert. He was watching since any movement, any tensing of the muscles could indicate a preparation to strike. One never knew of the souls they may come across in the forest, and it could easily be one that would just want to shed his blood for little to no reason at all except to fulfill some sort of sick blood-thirst in their mind.

((Sorry this took so long!))

[incipher]

Would that the question was defined, and then perhaps I might know the answer. What is it to be lost then? Who am I lost from? Where am I lost within? Why am I lost to begin with? Suppose I am a drop of water in a river, a single grain of sand – in the vastness of the current and the riverbed, am I lost, or am I a single particle amidst a thousand others? The trees know that I am here, though I am foreign to these parts and do not know my way. The wind knows that I am here, though it cannot travel with me with so many breaking points in its shift and flow. The point I suppose is that I am known by many to exist and be; I am a presence they feel even if they do not see – and that alone speaks volumes, does it not? I am not lost. I am found as cliché would have it. But I am unknown and, above all else, if I have to be any one thing, painfully, I am undeniably alone. 'Of course. The forest is always a good place to run through.' Even in this stranger's company, I am alone.

But I digress: 'There are plenty of fallen trees to soar over, brooks to splash through.' All things considered, this hulking obelisk was quickly becoming less intimidating and more and more of a child. Soaring could be performed only by those with wings, and I did not see any feathered ligaments attached to his skin. Yet, it is possible that he chose to describe the event of leaping over felled trees with an avian term, but I don't know. I liked envisioning him as a child. He seemed more relatable and less burly with the image implanted at the roots of my skull – 'May I ask the name of my companion?' – an image that I treasured, for innocence was hard enough to come by, but acquainted with kindness, too? He was a true rarity in the murk of the world and its rivers. I think the wind would like him. I said, "You may ask, yes, but let us cut to the chase," smiling softly, hesitantly, "I am Sabriel. Who are you?"

* COMPLETE; so sorry for the wait! o: