Saturday. March 20, 2010.
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown ?
Who ponders this tremendous scene ?
This whole Experiment of Green ?
As if it were his own!
-- Emily Dickinson
Through the long hours of the winter nights she had slumbered, as was her due. For weeks her dreams had been uneasy, though it was only right to say that dreaming as a course was unsettling on its own. The fae do not dream, it is said, for they are creatures forged from the very fabric of dreams themselves. Not many had such a tie to claim as hers, however. Not many had a child through whose eyes she dreamed the world to be.
Darkness consumed these dreams of hers, as did fear and pain. Always there was conflict. He had spent the long winter nights fighting, constantly fighting. She knew, for her dreams told her so. But there was one more intense than any other.
There was a man who appeared in her dreams at far and distant intervals. His appearances were scarce but poignant. In one there was an unsettling revelation, a conversation, a threat. In another there was agony. She felt the ache as she slumbered as if it were her own. So strong was their connection.
But the darkness that haloed her dreams was something else. This was not the Keeper's doing, not entirely. Though she knew him in her dreams as well, for they were dreams she shared with the boy she had made. As the Son sees, so does the Mother, but she dreamed of much, much more.
She knew him to be sitting on his throne, watching the ensuing chaos from a safe and comfortable distance, drinking up the fear that swelled through the ether with a smug and contented glee. There was also envy. For the Keeper himself could not have conjured such a glorious terror to plague the lands on his own. He never would have -- for lack of a better word -- dreamed of putting such an act in motion. To insert too much of such influence into the mortal world could have dire consequences, and even he had his limits.
They were dark shadows larger than any average man that shuffled about. They hid from prying eyes and waited in the alcoves. They were starving but patient hunters that sought out only one particular sort of prey. They knew where it was, how to find it, by little more than scent alone. And as the dawn hours of the First came trickling into her grove, she knew she would not be waking alone.
On usual occasion, it was her son who came to greet her on the First of the season. Just as he had failed to show on the first of winter to see her to her slumber, she knew he would also fail to show to greet her when she woke. She knew because she could feel them lurking on the fringes of her sanctuary. They had come when the first taste of shifting seasons hit the air and made the Veil around her Grove pulse in preparation.
They were skulking along the perimeter of a field of bones, licking at the curtain of energies that led into her sacred home. The scents in the air were changing as they always did, creeping in subtly to trade places. Spring did not come in a rush, but a trickle, as did the winter before it, as the seasons always did. But these intruders could sense the power of her wakening as well as any of her own kind could.
Sharp claws tugged at the thin fabrics of one reality that separated itself from another. As she stirred out of her slumber, she felt the sharp rend of them as cleanly as if she had flesh to be torn from bone. As the earth shifted and spilled out fine silver to free her from her bed of ice and bones, she moaned and then cried to the rising dawn, pained and terrified at the threat that waited just beyond her borders.
Never had it been like this. Never had she been so vulnerable. Never had she been subjected to pain the likes of which she had only known vicariously through the memories and dreams she shared with her one true living child.
As the dawn came and the First of the season began its course, She Who Tends the Dead awoke in a fury of outrage and terror and agony. Her essence swelled with fire and her voice lamented in a high pitched wail of copper chimes shattering apart. She howled a warning and a plea.
It is not safe here.
It is not safe here.
It is not safe here.
Get me out.
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown ?
Who ponders this tremendous scene ?
This whole Experiment of Green ?
As if it were his own!
-- Emily Dickinson
Through the long hours of the winter nights she had slumbered, as was her due. For weeks her dreams had been uneasy, though it was only right to say that dreaming as a course was unsettling on its own. The fae do not dream, it is said, for they are creatures forged from the very fabric of dreams themselves. Not many had such a tie to claim as hers, however. Not many had a child through whose eyes she dreamed the world to be.
Darkness consumed these dreams of hers, as did fear and pain. Always there was conflict. He had spent the long winter nights fighting, constantly fighting. She knew, for her dreams told her so. But there was one more intense than any other.
There was a man who appeared in her dreams at far and distant intervals. His appearances were scarce but poignant. In one there was an unsettling revelation, a conversation, a threat. In another there was agony. She felt the ache as she slumbered as if it were her own. So strong was their connection.
But the darkness that haloed her dreams was something else. This was not the Keeper's doing, not entirely. Though she knew him in her dreams as well, for they were dreams she shared with the boy she had made. As the Son sees, so does the Mother, but she dreamed of much, much more.
She knew him to be sitting on his throne, watching the ensuing chaos from a safe and comfortable distance, drinking up the fear that swelled through the ether with a smug and contented glee. There was also envy. For the Keeper himself could not have conjured such a glorious terror to plague the lands on his own. He never would have -- for lack of a better word -- dreamed of putting such an act in motion. To insert too much of such influence into the mortal world could have dire consequences, and even he had his limits.
They were dark shadows larger than any average man that shuffled about. They hid from prying eyes and waited in the alcoves. They were starving but patient hunters that sought out only one particular sort of prey. They knew where it was, how to find it, by little more than scent alone. And as the dawn hours of the First came trickling into her grove, she knew she would not be waking alone.
On usual occasion, it was her son who came to greet her on the First of the season. Just as he had failed to show on the first of winter to see her to her slumber, she knew he would also fail to show to greet her when she woke. She knew because she could feel them lurking on the fringes of her sanctuary. They had come when the first taste of shifting seasons hit the air and made the Veil around her Grove pulse in preparation.
They were skulking along the perimeter of a field of bones, licking at the curtain of energies that led into her sacred home. The scents in the air were changing as they always did, creeping in subtly to trade places. Spring did not come in a rush, but a trickle, as did the winter before it, as the seasons always did. But these intruders could sense the power of her wakening as well as any of her own kind could.
Sharp claws tugged at the thin fabrics of one reality that separated itself from another. As she stirred out of her slumber, she felt the sharp rend of them as cleanly as if she had flesh to be torn from bone. As the earth shifted and spilled out fine silver to free her from her bed of ice and bones, she moaned and then cried to the rising dawn, pained and terrified at the threat that waited just beyond her borders.
Never had it been like this. Never had she been so vulnerable. Never had she been subjected to pain the likes of which she had only known vicariously through the memories and dreams she shared with her one true living child.
As the dawn came and the First of the season began its course, She Who Tends the Dead awoke in a fury of outrage and terror and agony. Her essence swelled with fire and her voice lamented in a high pitched wail of copper chimes shattering apart. She howled a warning and a plea.
It is not safe here.
It is not safe here.
It is not safe here.
Get me out.