Post by TrinitySilph on Aug 1, 2022 16:02:22 GMT -7
Well. That had certainly been an unpleasant way to die.
Mina opened her clear blue eyes and saw only grey. She lay there for a moment in a state of mild, bewildered confusion as she tried to parse the stillness and lack of colour all around her. She remembered dying, of course - the fever, the sores, the delirium - but where was she now? Had Calayo dragged her somewhere? The colour of the world was so strange… was it pre-dawn? Just after dusk? The roan mare lifted her head and looked around, a faint frown marring her perfect brow.
Dew on the grass… but it did not fall. There was no wind, no leaves stirred in the trees. There was a pool of water nearby, but it was glassy-still, as if frozen. What a strange place…
”Surely, then, this must be the world of the dead,” she mused to herself, and was interested at the curious way her voice fell flat in the still air. ”Mmh… time has died here, and even sound…”
She had no way of knowing how right she was, of course. The stories her people told of the afterlife were full of much more fire and brimstone, so her thoughts now, in this odd, still greyness, were, at best, guesses. Still, there was no sense in just lying there, stagnating to match the frozen world around her, and so she rolled to her feet (easily, without pain for the first time since Izamuel’s birth) and began to walk. What did it matter what direction she chose? It seemed every direction was like any other, and she was very ready to see what life beyond life had to throw at her. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she might stumble right into Hell itself, and if she couldn’t manage that, then at least she might come across a clue as to how to find its gates.
Soon enough, as she marched on and on, with no sun or moon or stars to guide her path, she found the earth began to dip beneath her feet, and the trees began to tower above. The mountains became nigh-impenetrable, and as she passed through a vicious ravine and into a bowl-like valley, she felt rather like she was coming home.
”Oh, how lovely,” she murmured to herself. This was, after all, a sign - certainly this place, where the echoes of the lingering dead bounced around inescapable walls, where darkness loomed and lingered from ages long past, was to be her stage. Here, she would meet her Lord and lover once again. Had he met Izamuel yet? Did he care? He had other things to do, of course, than bother with such a young colt… but Izamuel would grow, and he would learn, and Calayo would train him to make his father proud. He would live up to Xerxes’ name, and to Mina’s.
Mina walked and walked until she reached the centre of the valley, and stopped at the lowest point she could find, where the mountainous walls reared equidistant around her, like some small echo of the darkest pits.
”I call upon the rulers of the Underworld!” she cried. ”I offer thee my eternal soul, so long as I might walk by your side!”
A z z y Roman