long over due dream
laughter echoes through the halls bubbling with mirth to transform each molecule that the vibrations of such happiness touches as only the unadulterated laughter of the Child can do. The Winged one, I, can only laugh in response as the Child runs past heading Pel-mel for the sunlight gallery. Each 30 foot window throws open its own shutters in glorious response as the little one skips past, spilling blinding and cleansing sunlight on to speckled marble flagstones that had forgotten what warmth felt like. Even long after she has left to go embrace another part of the manor with her mirth, the echoes of of that laughter make there way up to here filling each dark and dismal corner, ricocheting and cascading around the ghosts of laughter still working their magic upon the dank tapestries, touching cobwebs and sending them crumbling to the floor in sparkling dust motes flitting through the sunlight.
The Winged one, I, passed a window, and catching a glimpse of her reflection from the corner of her eye, stiffens momentarily then turning relaxes. I, still not used to the change in her appearance especially the shimmer that surrounds her like a nimbus, stare and drink in the image before me. Through the massive gallery windows I take in the Lands stretched out before me. closest to the house are the garden paths, leading from one pocket of earthly beauty to another, beyond that the rolling fields fields, the color of peridot jewels, with trees speckled across them, and the vineyard and orchard, and beyond that the forest with its cool and shadowy but yet unexplored paths. For a moment my eyes focus out even further than that, passing by tens of hundreds of acres to focus out just before the horizon upon the ever changing Labyrinths. These I know, though I have never ventured all the way around, completely encompass all I have ever known on these lands, and sometimes it feels as if they to hold all I will ever know. Slowly my gaze dims and refocuses on something mysterious, beautiful and equally terrifying in the fact that it is the Truth, total and utter truth...Our own reflection.............
I stare, my heart slowly racing, but not in abject horror but in fascinated terror. As a trapeze artist feels that moment before they step of the platform, free falling for a split second before there hands grasp tightly around a thin rod suspended on chains from somewhere out of sight, sending her hurtling through space as if she had wings of her own. I look through the emerald colored eyes of the Winged one and meet amber tones in our combined reflections overlying the vast beauty of the Earth surrounding my haven and prison. The image is glorious. The body poised there standing before the glass is tall and slender but not skinny, all signs of the awkwardness of youth finally honed away, leaving behind a strength and poise in her nakedness that few find ever even in the finest tailored "power suit", clothed only in the shimmer of The Joining, the generous hips curve in at the waist and up to a torso well toned from supporting massive wings that extend upward and out from her shoulders. Powerfully strong and thickly fetched in feathers as have never been seen on a bird on earth, in hues of blue black and brown mottled across fields of creamy white, and where sunbeams curious them each feather shimmers in tones of emerald, amber and pearl. So thick and soft strong do they look, no sign of any laceration or break in the pattern of mottled black and brown to even suggest at the scars that must lay beneath their cover. following the patterns of shimmering color my eyes are brought back down to the face before mine. I see simply the face of the winged one, happy and healthy but still slightly unsure, as if worried that if she lets herself be happy and enjoy life that in a flash it will all come tumbling down as it has in the past, so used to struggling against the current that to let go and follow the river is a fearful thought. But still she holds her head high and looks ahead meeting her own reflection in which the eyes of amber also show. This impression that is simultaneously separate and apart of the winged one just as the child who's laughter still bounces along these corridors, is something different altogether. Somehow seaming to have no solid form but appearing to be more substantial and real than anything found in the Lands around the Manor or in the "real" world as if this where all a dream and she along were the reality of things, and in a way she is. Her skin a darker shade, than that of the creamy alabaster of the angels, finely muscled but not as though from any activity but as if it is the way her body has always looked, and always will. Dark hair cascades around a equally finely boned face with high cheek bones, a smooth tapering nose, a strong brow and defined jawline, all framing a luscious mouth with the quirk of a smile at one corner and intelligent and knowingly mischievous eyes which now reflect speckles of amethyst among the amber iris. All this made even more startlingly erie by the unnerving stillnes of her poise while her hair forever seems to float as if blown around her face by a wind that never seems to touch anything on this plain. As the two sets of gemmed eyes meet, a memory passes between them..of a night log ago when everything began to change.
"the darkened banquet hall from which a silent call echoed forth pulling at the hearts of the Winged One and the Child. No sound to be heard but the winds whipping through halls and galleries tearing at curtains and tapestries hiding statues and furniture each with its story neatly tucked away. This erie quiet makes the echoes scream all the louder in the heads of the beings that call this place home. Terrified nearly to the point delirium the Child runs head long into the Winged one in her attempt to get away from the cries tearing through her skull. Scooping the flailing Child into her arms the angel realizes she must no longer avoid the pulling at the center of her being and turns and walks resigned to what ever fate awaits them as the Child beats upon her, pulling auburn and gold hair and newly fledged feathers from their sheaths. Entering the Hall, devoid of anything except thread bear tapestries high upon the walls that have long lost all colors that once gave them meaning, and a single mirror standing at the very center. at the sight of the sheet that once covered the Mirror and allowed us to pretend we knew not of its existence laying crumbled on the floor, Our hearts begin to race even faster to the point of making it difficult to breath, each beat catching against the breath we gasp at in near unison. The Child has stopped her flailing, frozen in abject horror at the unknown that we face, gripping so tightly that her nails draw rivulets of crimson along alabaster flesh. I feel as though I have gone through and come out on the other side of madness, and in the clarity that only some forms of insanity can bring, I comprehend that the cries and wailling are but echoes of ourselves, echoes of past despair, echoes of delirium experienced in the dark of night when no one is around to comfort or offer a shoulder. And the pulling sensation so palpable that it feels almost as though it could be grasped and observed, in my momentary delirium , I understand, it is the feeling of flesh pulling and rending itself, tearing great rends, of something else rupturing as though cleaved in to parts by its own hand, all this only backwards. like a child's game of speaking rhymes backwards. And all this seems to emanate from within, around, behind the Mirror. tearing us together, rupturing seems whole, shred fibers of being back into a semblance of what was supposed to be. grasping the child to myself as much for her comfort as for mine, I step up on to the podium before the great gilt frame encompassing the reflective surface of something more crystal clear than any silver backed piece of glass could ever be, and what I see there stops my heart. All function is forgot. The Child's silent scream frozen upon her face. The young and vulnerable angel with scarred and weak wings with patches of stubby feathers still trying to fill out, and the sallow faced child that had not seen the sun for far to long, even when stepping outside the sun never seemed to touch her skin, stood there. and above the left shoulder was a face most terrifying in its absolute beauty, (the look on that apparitions face forever burned into my skull). I looked at them expectantly with predatory glint to its shadowed eyes, as though it has hungered for this moment for ages. We knew truly who she was. The Winged one and the Child had an unspoken alliance of sorts in avoiding all contact with this being with which they shared their existence. In the terror of the moment the cries and rending sounds no longer seamed to take hold in our mind, those eyes and that grin, seemed to encompass all existence even as her arms wound about us encompassing all that we were. And as she embraced us all silent sound stopped, replaced by the horrible reverse rending of a soul. Light exploded from our one shared heart shattering the mirror into a thousand shards, only three pieces remotely large enough to perceive a reflection in. the force of it all lifting us for a moment as we occupied the same space in the vast universe, feeling, as if for the first time, exactly what we were. It felt as though centuries could have passed as flesh and spirit tore together, when in fact it likely was little longer than a second. The first thing that either the Child or angel were aware of was light seeping through their eyelids and warmth seeping into their skin. Opening their eyes they looked into each other and knew that the game of avoidance was over. for now both Eyes of emerald and eyes of sapphire now reflected eyes of amber shot with Amethyst. rising the Angel reached for the little ones hand and noting the new fullness and luster to the light auburn curls that played about her head, and the peach and rose tones of her skin. As she looked up to the face hallowed above hers, she smiled, as if for the first time. As the child grasped her fingers the Angel wondered if such a transformation had overcome her also, and if so what might she see when she looked into the still waters of the lake or a pane of glass. The child brought her back from her revelry, holding up three shards of mirror in which each permanently impressed upon the glass was an image, three faces of the same mirror. The child looked up and without a word took the Winged one by the hand and began to lead her out of the hall and up through flights of stairs and the multiple wings of the building until approaching the last steps leading up to the upper most balconies and widow walks along the very top of the palace, for the Manor too had undergone a transformation. the angel wondered what child was aware of that she was not. Could the little one see something she could not? Just inside the final door the Child turned and held up a piece of the mirror that held in its watery refection an image of a being majestic and grand in her countenance, with wings that took her breath away to realize they were hers!!! Turning she led the way to the roof, looking out over the fields spread out invitingly before her and down to the ground hundreds of feet below. A shimmer of wind seemed to say in a voice as familiar and as forgotten as a mothers lullaby " You must fall in order to fly""
Coming back to the moment the Angel smiled back to her reflection where an older yet timeless smile was returned. The Angel voice was heard to speak,
"You must fall in order to fly!" and at that she threw open the windows so grand no mortal man could have cracked them an inch, and stepped off the ledge free falling until the last moment when she let her wings unfurl and carry soaring hi above all uncertainty.
The child clapped to see the joy of flight at last but smiled to herself, knowing that she need not worry about the angel not returning, for they were one in the same. Turning she walked back into the palace and tilted her face to the stirring of air that let her know that every door and window was now thrown open to the winds of change that were long over due. Yes , indeed, all the doors, even the ones that had been locked for years, maybe even ever. At that she skipped off in search of the source of a laugh that rendered images of kind eyes and a generous and beautiful smile, that she had not heard before. She idly wondered at what curiosities and playmates she might find?
As always I apologize for my spelling and grammar, but this is free flowing thought.
The Winged one, I, passed a window, and catching a glimpse of her reflection from the corner of her eye, stiffens momentarily then turning relaxes. I, still not used to the change in her appearance especially the shimmer that surrounds her like a nimbus, stare and drink in the image before me. Through the massive gallery windows I take in the Lands stretched out before me. closest to the house are the garden paths, leading from one pocket of earthly beauty to another, beyond that the rolling fields fields, the color of peridot jewels, with trees speckled across them, and the vineyard and orchard, and beyond that the forest with its cool and shadowy but yet unexplored paths. For a moment my eyes focus out even further than that, passing by tens of hundreds of acres to focus out just before the horizon upon the ever changing Labyrinths. These I know, though I have never ventured all the way around, completely encompass all I have ever known on these lands, and sometimes it feels as if they to hold all I will ever know. Slowly my gaze dims and refocuses on something mysterious, beautiful and equally terrifying in the fact that it is the Truth, total and utter truth...Our own reflection.............
I stare, my heart slowly racing, but not in abject horror but in fascinated terror. As a trapeze artist feels that moment before they step of the platform, free falling for a split second before there hands grasp tightly around a thin rod suspended on chains from somewhere out of sight, sending her hurtling through space as if she had wings of her own. I look through the emerald colored eyes of the Winged one and meet amber tones in our combined reflections overlying the vast beauty of the Earth surrounding my haven and prison. The image is glorious. The body poised there standing before the glass is tall and slender but not skinny, all signs of the awkwardness of youth finally honed away, leaving behind a strength and poise in her nakedness that few find ever even in the finest tailored "power suit", clothed only in the shimmer of The Joining, the generous hips curve in at the waist and up to a torso well toned from supporting massive wings that extend upward and out from her shoulders. Powerfully strong and thickly fetched in feathers as have never been seen on a bird on earth, in hues of blue black and brown mottled across fields of creamy white, and where sunbeams curious them each feather shimmers in tones of emerald, amber and pearl. So thick and soft strong do they look, no sign of any laceration or break in the pattern of mottled black and brown to even suggest at the scars that must lay beneath their cover. following the patterns of shimmering color my eyes are brought back down to the face before mine. I see simply the face of the winged one, happy and healthy but still slightly unsure, as if worried that if she lets herself be happy and enjoy life that in a flash it will all come tumbling down as it has in the past, so used to struggling against the current that to let go and follow the river is a fearful thought. But still she holds her head high and looks ahead meeting her own reflection in which the eyes of amber also show. This impression that is simultaneously separate and apart of the winged one just as the child who's laughter still bounces along these corridors, is something different altogether. Somehow seaming to have no solid form but appearing to be more substantial and real than anything found in the Lands around the Manor or in the "real" world as if this where all a dream and she along were the reality of things, and in a way she is. Her skin a darker shade, than that of the creamy alabaster of the angels, finely muscled but not as though from any activity but as if it is the way her body has always looked, and always will. Dark hair cascades around a equally finely boned face with high cheek bones, a smooth tapering nose, a strong brow and defined jawline, all framing a luscious mouth with the quirk of a smile at one corner and intelligent and knowingly mischievous eyes which now reflect speckles of amethyst among the amber iris. All this made even more startlingly erie by the unnerving stillnes of her poise while her hair forever seems to float as if blown around her face by a wind that never seems to touch anything on this plain. As the two sets of gemmed eyes meet, a memory passes between them..of a night log ago when everything began to change.
"the darkened banquet hall from which a silent call echoed forth pulling at the hearts of the Winged One and the Child. No sound to be heard but the winds whipping through halls and galleries tearing at curtains and tapestries hiding statues and furniture each with its story neatly tucked away. This erie quiet makes the echoes scream all the louder in the heads of the beings that call this place home. Terrified nearly to the point delirium the Child runs head long into the Winged one in her attempt to get away from the cries tearing through her skull. Scooping the flailing Child into her arms the angel realizes she must no longer avoid the pulling at the center of her being and turns and walks resigned to what ever fate awaits them as the Child beats upon her, pulling auburn and gold hair and newly fledged feathers from their sheaths. Entering the Hall, devoid of anything except thread bear tapestries high upon the walls that have long lost all colors that once gave them meaning, and a single mirror standing at the very center. at the sight of the sheet that once covered the Mirror and allowed us to pretend we knew not of its existence laying crumbled on the floor, Our hearts begin to race even faster to the point of making it difficult to breath, each beat catching against the breath we gasp at in near unison. The Child has stopped her flailing, frozen in abject horror at the unknown that we face, gripping so tightly that her nails draw rivulets of crimson along alabaster flesh. I feel as though I have gone through and come out on the other side of madness, and in the clarity that only some forms of insanity can bring, I comprehend that the cries and wailling are but echoes of ourselves, echoes of past despair, echoes of delirium experienced in the dark of night when no one is around to comfort or offer a shoulder. And the pulling sensation so palpable that it feels almost as though it could be grasped and observed, in my momentary delirium , I understand, it is the feeling of flesh pulling and rending itself, tearing great rends, of something else rupturing as though cleaved in to parts by its own hand, all this only backwards. like a child's game of speaking rhymes backwards. And all this seems to emanate from within, around, behind the Mirror. tearing us together, rupturing seems whole, shred fibers of being back into a semblance of what was supposed to be. grasping the child to myself as much for her comfort as for mine, I step up on to the podium before the great gilt frame encompassing the reflective surface of something more crystal clear than any silver backed piece of glass could ever be, and what I see there stops my heart. All function is forgot. The Child's silent scream frozen upon her face. The young and vulnerable angel with scarred and weak wings with patches of stubby feathers still trying to fill out, and the sallow faced child that had not seen the sun for far to long, even when stepping outside the sun never seemed to touch her skin, stood there. and above the left shoulder was a face most terrifying in its absolute beauty, (the look on that apparitions face forever burned into my skull). I looked at them expectantly with predatory glint to its shadowed eyes, as though it has hungered for this moment for ages. We knew truly who she was. The Winged one and the Child had an unspoken alliance of sorts in avoiding all contact with this being with which they shared their existence. In the terror of the moment the cries and rending sounds no longer seamed to take hold in our mind, those eyes and that grin, seemed to encompass all existence even as her arms wound about us encompassing all that we were. And as she embraced us all silent sound stopped, replaced by the horrible reverse rending of a soul. Light exploded from our one shared heart shattering the mirror into a thousand shards, only three pieces remotely large enough to perceive a reflection in. the force of it all lifting us for a moment as we occupied the same space in the vast universe, feeling, as if for the first time, exactly what we were. It felt as though centuries could have passed as flesh and spirit tore together, when in fact it likely was little longer than a second. The first thing that either the Child or angel were aware of was light seeping through their eyelids and warmth seeping into their skin. Opening their eyes they looked into each other and knew that the game of avoidance was over. for now both Eyes of emerald and eyes of sapphire now reflected eyes of amber shot with Amethyst. rising the Angel reached for the little ones hand and noting the new fullness and luster to the light auburn curls that played about her head, and the peach and rose tones of her skin. As she looked up to the face hallowed above hers, she smiled, as if for the first time. As the child grasped her fingers the Angel wondered if such a transformation had overcome her also, and if so what might she see when she looked into the still waters of the lake or a pane of glass. The child brought her back from her revelry, holding up three shards of mirror in which each permanently impressed upon the glass was an image, three faces of the same mirror. The child looked up and without a word took the Winged one by the hand and began to lead her out of the hall and up through flights of stairs and the multiple wings of the building until approaching the last steps leading up to the upper most balconies and widow walks along the very top of the palace, for the Manor too had undergone a transformation. the angel wondered what child was aware of that she was not. Could the little one see something she could not? Just inside the final door the Child turned and held up a piece of the mirror that held in its watery refection an image of a being majestic and grand in her countenance, with wings that took her breath away to realize they were hers!!! Turning she led the way to the roof, looking out over the fields spread out invitingly before her and down to the ground hundreds of feet below. A shimmer of wind seemed to say in a voice as familiar and as forgotten as a mothers lullaby " You must fall in order to fly""
Coming back to the moment the Angel smiled back to her reflection where an older yet timeless smile was returned. The Angel voice was heard to speak,
"You must fall in order to fly!" and at that she threw open the windows so grand no mortal man could have cracked them an inch, and stepped off the ledge free falling until the last moment when she let her wings unfurl and carry soaring hi above all uncertainty.
The child clapped to see the joy of flight at last but smiled to herself, knowing that she need not worry about the angel not returning, for they were one in the same. Turning she walked back into the palace and tilted her face to the stirring of air that let her know that every door and window was now thrown open to the winds of change that were long over due. Yes , indeed, all the doors, even the ones that had been locked for years, maybe even ever. At that she skipped off in search of the source of a laugh that rendered images of kind eyes and a generous and beautiful smile, that she had not heard before. She idly wondered at what curiosities and playmates she might find?
As always I apologize for my spelling and grammar, but this is free flowing thought.