Innocence Belongs to Children
(Ahem. Rating is for mature audiences. Not for the squeamish!)
"It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you have the time of your life."
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life); Green Day
The snow hadn't started again since the appearance of the celestials. Really, it was a small blessing that it didn't. The numbness was beginning to fade and awareness was a mad jumble of lucid, detached hours of lethargy battling with a fiery frenzy of burning desire to beat this.
It was a desire to beat this, eliminate the Hunter...
It was a desire to regain the strength he once had.
And then the lethargy came again.
Distantly, he thought of things like some cold scientist. He thought of the HomeWorlds and their destruction. He thought of his early life and wondered if he could have stayed with the People even as they were killed, slaughtered one by one. The voices rang in his head like glass bells without tune.
He heard every cell in the body of the aged priest Alilli-kyen'temdah dry up, shrivel and turn into dust. He smelled the three New-Children of Panba' Nenberjan when their hair caught aflame and flesh temperature dropped to freeze them solid.
Dust wasn't made of them.
Frozen blue-green blood and ash was made of them, with transparent bones standing like a twisted monument to the carnage.
His mind froze right then and there.
He refused to let his memories go down that ancient path anymore.
The Hunter's voice rang in a distant, whispering laugh.
Renne's mind floundered, melding reality and dream into one sick state of consciousness. It was too quiet and too loud, too bright and too dark. Too hot, too cold. Too sweet and too bitter.
-His back split open down the left side. Flesh tore like a ripped page. Muscle swelled, irritated and flecked with infectious amber. A dull impact struck the lattice-like structure of his ribcage.
He didn't make a sound and for that, fury met him.
Then he felt hands. Cool, confident hands. They were strong, capable and assuring. Roughened by years of work yet soft in their mercy. They held him by the wrists and from somewhere, Renne knew what blue was.
He knew blue, gold and green.
The hands gestured, teaching. They shook with pride.
The hands instantly, protectively swept him behind something as thunder split his ears.
And then the hands let go.-
Renne had by now, gotten accustomed to shivering again. Violently so, he shivered; teeth chattering beyond his control. His mouth moved, forming silent words. Names lovingly, reverently spoken in the unforgiving cold. Mouthed words were names and an uncharacteristic act of begging.
Mercy.
Justice.
Hope.
Home.
No mortal heard him in his muted cries but he hoped someone divine might. He prayed to all he knew -- the One-God, Odin, the Krishna and the Mohammed he read about in books, his own native creators. He prayed to the Elf he saw as a brother. He prayed to the sea elf/human he called Bonded. He prayed to the places themselves, those that had ever been called home.
And he prayed to the humans he called heroes.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the stars, my soul to keep
And if I die before I wake
Family, Home, stronger make.
(Ahem. Rating is for mature audiences. Not for the squeamish!)
"It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
I hope you have the time of your life."
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life); Green Day
The snow hadn't started again since the appearance of the celestials. Really, it was a small blessing that it didn't. The numbness was beginning to fade and awareness was a mad jumble of lucid, detached hours of lethargy battling with a fiery frenzy of burning desire to beat this.
It was a desire to beat this, eliminate the Hunter...
It was a desire to regain the strength he once had.
And then the lethargy came again.
Distantly, he thought of things like some cold scientist. He thought of the HomeWorlds and their destruction. He thought of his early life and wondered if he could have stayed with the People even as they were killed, slaughtered one by one. The voices rang in his head like glass bells without tune.
He heard every cell in the body of the aged priest Alilli-kyen'temdah dry up, shrivel and turn into dust. He smelled the three New-Children of Panba' Nenberjan when their hair caught aflame and flesh temperature dropped to freeze them solid.
Dust wasn't made of them.
Frozen blue-green blood and ash was made of them, with transparent bones standing like a twisted monument to the carnage.
His mind froze right then and there.
He refused to let his memories go down that ancient path anymore.
The Hunter's voice rang in a distant, whispering laugh.
Renne's mind floundered, melding reality and dream into one sick state of consciousness. It was too quiet and too loud, too bright and too dark. Too hot, too cold. Too sweet and too bitter.
-His back split open down the left side. Flesh tore like a ripped page. Muscle swelled, irritated and flecked with infectious amber. A dull impact struck the lattice-like structure of his ribcage.
He didn't make a sound and for that, fury met him.
Then he felt hands. Cool, confident hands. They were strong, capable and assuring. Roughened by years of work yet soft in their mercy. They held him by the wrists and from somewhere, Renne knew what blue was.
He knew blue, gold and green.
The hands gestured, teaching. They shook with pride.
The hands instantly, protectively swept him behind something as thunder split his ears.
And then the hands let go.-
Renne had by now, gotten accustomed to shivering again. Violently so, he shivered; teeth chattering beyond his control. His mouth moved, forming silent words. Names lovingly, reverently spoken in the unforgiving cold. Mouthed words were names and an uncharacteristic act of begging.
Mercy.
Justice.
Hope.
Home.
No mortal heard him in his muted cries but he hoped someone divine might. He prayed to all he knew -- the One-God, Odin, the Krishna and the Mohammed he read about in books, his own native creators. He prayed to the Elf he saw as a brother. He prayed to the sea elf/human he called Bonded. He prayed to the places themselves, those that had ever been called home.
And he prayed to the humans he called heroes.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the stars, my soul to keep
And if I die before I wake
Family, Home, stronger make.