sons could be birds,
taken broken up to the mountain
taken broken up to the mountain
Some time in the night, Nathaniel passed his thirtieth birthday. He celebrated in the usual way: drunk, alone, with the fire smoldering in its grate and the dog snoring somewhere near his feet. Or maybe his birthday passed before the drinking. Or after; hard to tell when your years turn over in the middle of Long Night. There is really only the before and the after. No middle worth remembering. Just darkness, of the sort best forgotten even as it happens.
Nathaniel has never been very good at forgetting.
Even now, with sunlight cascading over his shoulders in fragile waves, his mind is full of shadowed, prickly things. The scrape of nails on wood. The groan of hinges. The rattle of windows. The smell of dead livestock in someone else's barn. He grips the handle of a shovel so hard his knuckles turn red and white.
He does not know why he is still alive.
He cannot name a single reason, except malice on the part of the gods he cannot worship. He is staring at the ground, his hair a dark halo around the aggressive angles of his face. And he is staring at feathers, and splinters of wood. He remembers building this chicken coop. He can still smell the cut wood. The turned earth. The straw, as he bedded it down so carefully before the sun said its last farewell - sweet, warm, safe. Except nothing is safe in Caido.
Teacups, the dog, wanders in lost circle around him and around the house and around the coop, bending every now and then to sniff at feathers or gouges in the mud. But there is nothing left for her to guard. Something destroyed it all in the night. Nathaniel can only guess at what - or why. Maybe it was an accident. Collateral damage. Maybe a strong wind, a sudden storm, a spooked animal from one of the nearby farms. All that really matters is this: the coop is gone, the little building smashed all down one side, the straw blown out and scattered in the newborn grass.
There are feathers, here and there. Two bodies inside. The rest - Nathaniel cannot find the rest. Maybe he will find them later, in the woods. Maybe even alive. But he isn't thinking about that. He's thinking, instead, about how every good thing gets demolished. Every little act of defiance eventually crushed.
He is here, at the end of another Long Night, and he doesn't know why.
(( seasonal cleaning thread in case anybody needs one ))
Nathaniel has never been very good at forgetting.
Even now, with sunlight cascading over his shoulders in fragile waves, his mind is full of shadowed, prickly things. The scrape of nails on wood. The groan of hinges. The rattle of windows. The smell of dead livestock in someone else's barn. He grips the handle of a shovel so hard his knuckles turn red and white.
He does not know why he is still alive.
He cannot name a single reason, except malice on the part of the gods he cannot worship. He is staring at the ground, his hair a dark halo around the aggressive angles of his face. And he is staring at feathers, and splinters of wood. He remembers building this chicken coop. He can still smell the cut wood. The turned earth. The straw, as he bedded it down so carefully before the sun said its last farewell - sweet, warm, safe. Except nothing is safe in Caido.
Teacups, the dog, wanders in lost circle around him and around the house and around the coop, bending every now and then to sniff at feathers or gouges in the mud. But there is nothing left for her to guard. Something destroyed it all in the night. Nathaniel can only guess at what - or why. Maybe it was an accident. Collateral damage. Maybe a strong wind, a sudden storm, a spooked animal from one of the nearby farms. All that really matters is this: the coop is gone, the little building smashed all down one side, the straw blown out and scattered in the newborn grass.
There are feathers, here and there. Two bodies inside. The rest - Nathaniel cannot find the rest. Maybe he will find them later, in the woods. Maybe even alive. But he isn't thinking about that. He's thinking, instead, about how every good thing gets demolished. Every little act of defiance eventually crushed.
He is here, at the end of another Long Night, and he doesn't know why.
(( seasonal cleaning thread in case anybody needs one ))
