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 Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:21 am
  The first posts of this will be almost journal-style. Just a warning. smile
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:34 am
Sometimes the world below taunts me. Here I am! it cries, spinning and twirling under the cloudy grasses of the angeni world. I am real, and I taunt you with the things you lost here, and you will never return to me to know any better.
When I was a child, I lost myself there. I almost died- maybe I did. How would I know? They say that some of my kind can perform great acts- holy magic, to guard against the evils underneath.
Maybe my entire life since that day is a lie, and I am living my life for my sister, who vanished that night. My mother says her spirit is tied to mine- the same way we were born, light and dark, each a shadow of the other.
I remember, when I was young, Odile would be called the candle, and I the wick. I would burn brighter in the eyes of the other angeni, our father murmured, but she would be the guide that held me steady on my course. He was always droning on and on with his strange two-legger terms. She was beautiful, but eyes would be drawn to my flicker.
It used to be upsetting to Odile. She never realized he was telling her she was the stronger of the two of us, and giving her strength in the only way he knew how, clumsy as it was. Our parents loved each other deeply, and Odile was always a strange one, as I recall. She would prank, and wreak havoc on the others in our herd, and they never quite loved her for it. It made things difficult for our parents, and so when I came along, I became their excuse.
Her resentment tore at me.
I shouldered it though, and loved her as I knew how. She was my world, from the moment I was born. She was my big sister, my idol, and my candle.
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:40 am
One of the strongest emotions in my life has been sorrow.
Strange, that the angeni, said to be merciful, and benevolent, and noble, sem to have so much of it in their lives.
Yet we are free, same as our wingless brethren, to find jealousy, and to sin; those of us who are blessed to reach outside of heaven are called Fallen by some.
I could call them Blessed.
Some of them have truly Fallen, turned to vile things. But from my observations, a good number of them have merely learned to shoulder the burden of their sins. They desire, they obtain, and they pay the price with their only coin- mortality. Should the bells still ring for them, when the choice is made to fall from Grace as it is hidden in the clouds?
I ache. My wings hurt, and I can feel every broken bone that was Healed when Odile died. They say she died, at least, but I cannot believe it.
She would not be so cruel as to have left me before we could flicker together.
Light and Dark.
I feel like a madwoman.
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:55 am
The entire world had been dead to me since I landed here first. Nowhere to be heard for me were the bells that rang the tones of forgiveness. I had denied them for myself. Sweet last memories of a bloodied cherub, wrapped in leaves and speared with branches, killed by the world that had so fascinated her, and the sister she had so blindly loved and trusted.
First thoughts haunted for days- relief, that the little flame that took eyes from me was gone. Horror that I had lost the only one who loved me more than life itself. I had lost a limb, I had lost a friend.
I had killed the only half of my soul that could have avoided damnation and Falling.
The realization was a weapon as it struck, cutting through grief and flesh to strike my core.
The only thing I loved, I had led astray with my own hooves, and my own failings had destroyed the tender parts of her.
All that was left was the useless lump of shell.
Punishment was quick, decreed by the only authority I had to myself, here in this barren landscape. Banishment, never to seek the light of heaven, or beg the redemption I craved, the forgiveness I so sought. It would be meaningless were it not her lips.
Useless were her eyes not open, washing away all of my self-censure.
Of course, with time, things grew wearisome. I became the shell of my former self, and everything I had been stripped away.
With time, I found Angel.
She showed me how to forgive myself. And one day, I will find my courage as well, and go home, to face my family.
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:24 am
I dream of the night I died. I see Odile flying through the stars, higher than I would ever have dreamed possible, her voice calling down to me to come higher- Will I let her beat me without even trying? Am I that afraid to lose to her?
I am a child, and I go higher until I can't breathe, and I gasp and I gag for air and beg Odile to come down; how can she stand this pressure? and she says no and taunts me into continuing.
And then I am falling, unable to get my wings out, tumbling through clouds and falling until I can hear the wind whistling around my ears, and I see her diving after me, laughing, thinking it is all a joke; I see the look of horror when she realizes it's real, and I feel the hard back of her under me for a second before I bounce off of her with the first CRACK! of a bone.
The first scream made her turn ashy gray until we both realized she was falling too, a wing useless at her side and it wasn't my screaming we were hearing, it was hers, in pain.
I closed my eyes.
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:34 am
Memories are a heavy burden to bear, and one I would gladly give up if I thought it would do anyone any good. But my memories are useless things of self-mockery and self-mutilation, and murder.
But I forget myself; what happened was not murder. It was "an accident."
It was no accident. I wanted her hurt; I wanted the others to see her as less than perfect.
I never wanted her to die. Some callous corner of my mind purrs dissatisfaction at its "miscalculation" and I shudder in fear of myself. I had hurt myself that day, and I loved it. I had my revenge, and I wept for my lost innocence.
The truth of the matter is as lost in my mind as the lies. The border is blurred; I can barely remember what happened. I just remember satisfaction watching her fall, and abject terror when I realized she wasn't stopping.
I see flashes of things- blood, broken limbs, a foal dragging her way towards me, blood streaking her face.
The sound of a wolf growling, and the feel of my hooves striking solid flesh- must protect her, there is nothing that matters more.
My body is covered in silver swirling scars that somehow melt into the patterns that had decorated my hide. I think the gods must have decided to immortalize my pain in beauty, gild it onto my hide so that no one who sees me can forget.
I have trouble seeing from my left eye. If I look closely enough into the water, I can see where the scar goes over the eye. At least the eye is not lost.
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Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 1:05 am
Odette stepped through the trees gracefully, feet making no noise even as she crushed small leaves into the dirt beneath her golden hooves; the dead walking made few noises. She was a mortal ghost, haunting the earth as was her wont on the anniversary of her sister's passing.
A soft sigh passed her lips, hanging on the still air. The entire world was paused, waiting for the dawn's rays to hit and the Earth song to begin.
And then the rays spread, turning the black velvet sky a deep blue, then purple even as she watched. In the tree next to her head, a bird opened his beak and began to sing.
HARK! hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise!
Arise, arise!
She let the day pass slowly, dreamily, humming as she leaned against the dry, brown trunk of an old sycamore, thinking and remembering.
**poem attributed to Shakespeare; I just had to steal it.
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