writing_shadows

When we were children, Drew and I used to speak our own language. Apparently it’s quite common amongst twins. It used to drive our mother insane. Sometimes, late at night, we still speak it. Harper once told us it sounded a little like the bastard child of Spanish and Russian; all rolling ‘r’ sounds and then soft ‘th’ sounds in-between.

It’s the language we speak to each other in the astral.

And it’s the language I always speak in my dreams.

***********************

A man and a woman sit hand in hand, in a sparsely furnished room. They are alike; more so now than ever. In this place, you can’t be distracted by her fondness for brightly coloured shawls, or his tendency to wear suits. Instead they are both clad in jeans and matching shirts, the line of jaw and nose identical in repose. Two sides of the same coin.

In the womb, they shared the same dreams.

And so it seems right that once again, they step together into a shared dreamland.

***********************

“You know,” Drew says wryly, “this is giving me flashbacks to your My Little Pony collection,”

If I were human, I’d stick my tongue out at him. Anyway, I didn’t have that many My Little Ponies. Well, maybe some. Look, at least I never had any Barbie dolls! Our mother didn’t allow them. Thought they encouraged…something. Probably dressing in sparkly leotards and wearing too much make up, which just proves that all children are intrinsically contrary.

Sadly, I can’t say that either, so I just curl an equine lip at Drew and drop to one knee to let him up on my back more easily.

My dreams, it seems, are as wide as the wind and filled with horses who gleam beneath a bright green sun. Everything smells clear and bright but the wind is sharp with saltwater and I know that I’m running towards the sea.

Drew settles onto my back with a comfort born of long familiarity. He doesn’t bother trying to hang on to my mane; he’s well trained and just clasps his hands lazily behind his head as I lift my head up and sniff at the air.

Then I begin to run.

***********************

Inwards and upwards they run, through a thousand dreams of horses. Golden Arabs, black stallions, glossy chestnut thoroughbreds, great battle horses who’s hooves shake the earth. They run further up and further in, across land which sometimes shifts to cloud beneath them, as they run for a while alongside the beautiful white pegasi of the skies.

On and on they run, the white mare never faltering, never slowing, but running ever onward until finally there is nowhere left to run and the great empty land of the horses ends at the Omphalos, the naval of the dreamtime.

***********************

The Omphalos, for those of you who haven’t been there, is a giant worked stone. When you’re coming to it from my particular subconscious, it seems to be sunken into the grassy plain around it, blocking the path forward. Then it stretches off into mist up above you. You can’t see all the way round it when you’re up close, and if you try and find your way around it, it’ll take an hour or more to circumnavigate this stony beast. Intricate patterns cover every inch of the stone, changing any time you look away from them. From the bottom of the stone, a gentle mist rises.

I reach out and take Drew’s hand, almost automatically, as soon as I shift back. I need to hold on to him now. He’s always been the strong one, always been the one to stay his course. I’m not strong, or brave. I’m as constant as spindrift and with all the strength of smoke.

God, he smelt of smoke.

But I won’t remember that for much longer.

Drew squeezes my hand lightly. I look at him sideways and smile, crookedly.

“Asayeth?” I say.

Together

He nods.

“Asayeth,”

And we step forward towards the stone.

***********************

Two voices raise in unison, reading out ancient texts in wordless sound. The woman’s voice falters, but the other’s voice sings true, and a tiny gap at the base of the stone twists and turns. Bright gemstones and glorious carvings give way as the great stone itself tears itself apart, rising up, spreading out, until there is a doorway before the two of them.

They stand there for an instant, looking into the darkness. Then, without need for word or consultation they let go of each other’s hands. The air whips itself up around them, smoke and screams about him, and the glorious rush of the fast rolling waves breaking into white horses all about her. Then they walk forwards, together.

***********************

“Tirenshaki Ayoruba,” I say wryly.

I’m still afraid of closed spaces.

Drew grins at me, through the thick smoke wreathed around him.

“Aleysha Asa, keyta,” he says.

You’ll be alright, darlin’ with a faint touch of the words that mean ‘together’, because when we were children, that was an essential component part of being ‘alright’. It was inconceivable that we couldn’t be alright if we were together, or that anything could ever be right if we were apart.

That’s changed now, I think. I don’t need Drew like I used to. But I still stick close to him as we make our way through the narrow tunnels and passageways, hemmed in by the dank stone walls.

***********************

It’s a tough journey, this one. Stone passages give way to a desolate wasteland. Then there’s the climb upwards, over treacherous ground, then through poisonous plants which burn and blister the skin they touch. Thick black dust fills the air, fills the pores, fills the lungs.

It’s a long and nasty climb. And all about the travelers, the wind tears and screams, tugging at the shields they have made. The shadows and smoke hold fast, but with every step it seems like a little more of the glorious white horses of Lir that wreath the female traveler are being swept away by the merciless wind.

***********************

I’ve loved a lot of people in my life. And there’s no shame in that. I’m glad I have. I don’t think that love is smaller for giving it away. I loved the girl with skin as soft as feathers, and the boy with the warrior’s flame in his eyes. I loved the man who taught me how to lose my form and I loved the man who taught me how to find it again.

I’ve loved in summer and winter and in dreams.

God help me, I even loved the man who gave me a knife and taught me how to kill.

Not for much longer. Not now.

I loved them all. Yet when all is said and done, there’s something to be said for family.

I’ve been blessed, I think, by my family. Well, maybe cursed as well. But mostly blessed. And what a family!

Grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, brother, cousin.

Men who can’t talk straight, and women with nerves of steel. Christmas presents like nothing else, and a home that no one can take away. Blood that binds, come hell or high water.

Yeah, I’ve been blessed by my family.

I probably shouldn’t have been musing on them however. If I hadn’t, I might have heard the wolves sooner.

***********************

Snarling, snapping, tearing. Teeth stained with blood and lips stained with foam, running, chasing, closer now.

The wolf pack tears after the swift white horse, faster and stronger by far now. The horse is tired, and her passenger weighs her down. The wolves are swift and their will is strong.

The attack, when it comes, is sudden and brutal. One wolf moves a little faster than the others, moving out ahead of the pack. He shouldn’t be so fast, for he is heavy and dense about the shoulders, thickset in the jaw. But still, he is, and he’s the one who makes that first leap, hurtling through the air.

Claws connect, ripping into the soft white flank of the mare. She stumbles at last, going down in a flurry of hooves and mane with a whinny of pain. Her rider falls too, rolling across the ground and landing with a pained grunt in a small huddle.

The wolf pack falls back for a second, regrouping now and beginning to circle, waiting for the signal from some unnamed alpha. Waiting to feast.

***********************

They say that when you’re near death, your life flashes before your eyes. I think I can safely say these days, that this is not the case. I mean, who really has the time, when surrounded by rampaging wolves, to start thinking about the minutiae of your existence.

Leave me in a pub and give me some decent whisky, and I’ll wax lyrical about the time that Drew tried to ground me when we were both fourteen. Late at night when the fire is burning low, I’ll remember each and every lover I’ve had, and smile when I think about how David used to look at me first thing in the morning. In the quiet of the morning, frying bacon in a pan, I’ll remember how my mother always used to grumble about cooking bacon for Harper on his rare visits, because she was a vegetarian, but he refused to eat tofu.

Drop me on the ground with a wolf pack circling and I don’t give a toss whether or not I spent enough time dancing in the moonlight. The only thing rushing through my mind is how the blazes my brother and I are going to get out of here.

And thankfully, even if my legs are aching, my lungs feel fit to burst and I’m going numb where the claws went into my skin, my brain still keeps going.

And wolves have never been able to fly.

***********************

Two hawks fly high, carried by the astral winds.

Up here, the Ecstatic Wind is strong, and both hawks can feel their Amnions growing weak. Time itself does not flow in a linear fashion here. There have been those who have wandered here for what felt like centuries, only to discover that nothing home had changed. There are those who have returned to find a century passed.

The two hawks carry on; one dark and sleek, one touched with flashes of colour at the end of her feathers.

They will fly until they find the ocean at the end of the universe, the ocean at the end of time itself.

They will fly until they find the Ocean Ouroboros.

***********************

“Rowan!”

There’s a long silence, and then that same anguished cry.

“Rowan!”

And it’s only then that I realize that that’s my name.

Is this what it feels like to die? Every last part of yourself fading away, as the darkness rises up. That great and final exhaustion overcoming you, and that final realization that it’s time to let go.

“Rowan!”

Oh god, his hands are rough, pulling at me without gentleness. And bloody hell, the bastard just slapped me.

“Bastard!” I splutter, in sudden indignation, and try and slap my stupid brother back. Unfortunately, my stupid legs chose that moment to give way again and I sag into his arms again, only to be hoisted back onto my feet without ceremony.

“Caraniath ryovl,” he says cheerfully.

Stand up straight.

I wrinkle my nose at Drew, as consciousness returns slowly. He’s grinning now, bright with relief. He probably shouldn’t be that relieved. We’re standing at the edge of the ocean at the ends of the universe. The sea is black, and the beach is the colour of rust. Pillars and rubble from buildings that never existed on Earth litter the beach, some half covered by the viscous, black water. Then there are the creatures; strange, multilegged blind things, with umbilici leading back to the water which slither up the beach, groping and grasping for some kind of life.

It’s not a very cheerful place to be. But we’re here. We’ve made it.

My vision blurs again. So Drew slaps me again, which is not bloody helpful.

“Takaryash dyova,” he says firmly.

You need to do it.

Do it? Do what?

And right now I’m so tired I can barely remember why we are here at all.

“The memories,” Drew snaps, in English now, rather than Twin. “That’s why we’re here you useless woman!”

Of course…

***********************

A man and a woman stand on a beach.

He is tall and handsome, still wreathed in shadow. She was once beautiful. Now she is scarred, and her face is wan with exhaustion. About her, the ragged remains of her psychic shields flare up now and then; seaspray and the faint echoes of horses.

They stand there together for a while, hand in hand, before the woman steps forward, kneeling down at the edges of the beach. She stays there for a long moment, perhaps tasting each one of the memories she’s come here to give to the sea. Those memories hurt now, but once they were the most precious thing in her life.

What does it mean, to give up your memories?

Does it mean you give away the person that you once were?

Does it mean that you give away a part of who you are?

And what is left?

She looks back over her shoulder at her brother.

“Love you, you soul destroying avatar of boredom,” she says softly.

He grins, crookedly.

“Love you too, you soul destroying avatar of exasperation,” he says.

And this is enough. She turns back towards the water.

This time, she doesn’t hesitate…