What Life Might Be (short story)
Title: What Life Might Be Author: player of Charna Ja'Varrel'Kav
Vast and unending, the Shore of Dreams crooned softly beneath a star-speckled sky of velvety blue-black. Ronan's guests lay mired in the sand with his dreams lapping at their bare feet on the cresting waves. These dreamers ranged from age, sex and race, their bodies cushioned on the glittering sands and their eyes distant as they partook of his gifts.
High upon the beach, the edge of the land of waking met the world of night. The partition between the two worlds was a shimmering dark grey veil of mingled light and dark. Near the very edge she sat, her chin cradled in the cup of her hands with her elbows propped on her knees. She perched in slumber at the junction of waking and dreaming. Her hair flowed with the gentle tide of the two worlds. The rust-red tresses swept across her face towards the vast dreamer's ocean, and then back and away from her brow towards the land of waking. The breath of this world, this world that was not hers just as she was not his, pushed and pulled her with the gentle ebb and flow of the cosmic sea of dreams.
As she was not his, she could not fully enter his land. She was not permitted the sweet taste of his pure dreams, but only the tantalizing touch of a possible dream. When she woke she would only be aware of the vague memory of waters and star-lit skies, that was if the other did not find her and drag her from this place that was peaceful and quiet.
So for now she sat, her own words echoing in her mind as the Lord of Dreams kept the great tides of his domain from claiming her fully; their waters tantalizingly close to her brushing her toes, yet leagues away.
Something deep within her stirred at the Arkati's rebuff, some dark secret that had been given to her against her will, and in the star-strewn landscape of silvers, blacks and blues a crimson light began to burn. The light was not her own, but was some lingering taint from an old wound that was freshly heeled. And like the dog that has tasted fresh blood, it darted greedily forward at the first chance it had to taste it again.
And so it was at the very edge of the Shore of Dreams, in the space between waking and dreaming, that Sheru and Ronan met on either end of a haunted young woman. She slept on, oblivious to anything but the images that echoed in her mind when the waters of Dreams lapped at her sand covered feet and the jaws of Nightmares tried to pull her into his embrace.
Sunlight glittered across the hearth of the large family room and quickly became trapped in a layer of dust that clung to the once shinny mane of a war mask tacked to the wall. Beneath the mask hung a beautifully crafted rolaren blade inlaid with a zorchar crescent moon, its luster hidden under an equally as thick layer of dust and grim. The tip of the once majestic blade caressed a marble mantle that was riddled with tiny figurines, sculptures and carvings while an enormous wrought iron arm swung out from the hearth, a bubbling mixture of porridge thickening in the kettle that lazily swung in and out of the hot ambers.
"Gran'ma'ma," cried a chorus of excited voices from an entryway in the northern wall.
Moments later, the source revealed itself as a gaggle of children darted into the room followed closely by grinning adults. The elders scooped up bowls and spoons, while the children arranged themselves on a braided linen rug before an aged woman seated in a rocking chair covered with thick blankets..
She rocked gently, back and forth, her chair making a slow creaking sound that was punctuated by a wheezing crackle of breath. Sagging folds of flesh hung from the underside of her arms as she lifted the trembling mass to point at the mantle.
"Briaernn, its your turn to pick a figurine." She said in a voice that was young despite the layers of aged flesh that ringed her dull eyes.
Obligingly, the child named rose and approached the mantle. She was red of hair, freckled and slight but her eyes shown with the pride that came from being picked for the prized task. Crawling over her siblings, she moved to the step stool and surveyed the marble expanse.
One of her siblings tried to bribe her into picking the grizzled bear figurine, another the maoral fortuneteller statuette, and yet a third the saffron-stained wooden gorse carving. She ignored them all, her fingers moving with determination to a wide-pawed dusky mastiff carving.
Cradling the precious piece to her chest, the child moved to stand before the elderly woman.
As the two faced each other their similarities were magnified. Beneath the blotted skin of the elder they shared the same chin, the same high-cheek bones, and freckled nose. When the elder lifted her eyes to the child they were wide beneath the wrinkles, as wide as the child's. Yet, the child's were filled with wonder and life, while the elder's were filled with sorrow and dull with loss.
"Very well, Briaernn," She said, her voice thick with emotion.
The child returned to her seat under the teasing and taunts of her siblings, while the parents began to pass out porridge bowls.
"Once upon a time," the elder began as she rocked in her chair. "Or roughly eleven decades ago, I knew a young Tehir who traveled with me beyond the port of Solhaven."
"Doesn't this story have Great Great Granda in it?" Piped one of the smaller children who was too young to remember the carving's telling.
"No," she replied softly. "This story begins five years before I met your Great Great Granda.."
"I wish we could have met him, Gran'ma'ma." Chimed a proud boy who was tawny of hair and hazel of eyes; he reminded her instantly of his thrice removed ancestor and she closed her eyes against the shock of it.
"So do I," she replied. "So do I but he passed two generations before you were born and is another story on the mantle now."
A great tug at her shoulders pulled her from the dream waters and filled her mind with silver-etched crimson light. She drifted in slumber to sound of a hundred voices calling... calling...
Fire lanced across the sky momentarily staining the parapets gold and sanguine. The flow of battle was like the ebb of a great tide lapping at the shores of the high stonewalls. Men and woman fought bravely upon these walls, some dieing in the arms or strangers, others dieing in the arms of lovers. Here and there grappling hooks and ladders were shattered under the heavy weight of the defenders' axes, but for every three cast aside one remained.
All along the Demonwall the defenders scurried like a million ants trying to preserve their tiny mound. Here a medic was called for as the crushing weight of an enormous stone was removed from a silver-wrapped man, who lay broken in his own blood; a discarded soldier in a child's game. There a call for more arrows lifted to the noisy air and a boy newly named a man rushed up from the courtyard below to answer the task; dodging invaders and defenders alike as he went.
Crouched behind the crenellation of the western tower a ballista brigade churned the heavy machinations of a mighty contraption. Above them another group hoisted a sharpened log from the courtyard below and began to load it into place.
Working among the men and woman as she was, she could have blended in with them and become unnoticed in the press of bodies, the sweat and the tears. Except for the mask that graced her face.
A wild mane of ebony hair streaked with crimson and cerulean locks rose from the impassive features of the mask, marking her different among her fellow workers. Yet, it was more then the mask that marked her as different, it was the fire in the eyes that were glimpsed through the leather piece.
Gnarled and monstrously huge, a blackened hand cupped the edge of the wall and hoisted itself onto the wooden floor of the tower. Several of the workers recoiled, but many more rushed to the task and clutched the great machinery. Those that shifted in fear were quickly seized by the behemoth and hurled from the walls into the frenzied horde below.
Though the lips of her mask never moved, a thunderous cry issued from deep within her and she flung herself at the leathery beast that threatened the team of workers. At the ballista someone, unnoticed to her, scurried to take her place.
A blurring mass of grey fur joined her frantic struggle to send the demonic messenger back into the writing hordes below, its attacks lightening quick and piercing. Green ichor seeped from a myriad of wounds that riddled its hide, and slowly the creature lost ground before the onslaught of the pair. Launching her body at the demon, she and the mastiff managed to trip it across the crenellation but she was too slow, her footing uncertain upon the blood soaked floorboards and when its clawed hand seized her ankle she felt herself falling from the parapets down into the waiting hordes. Down.... Down... Down...