PART 3
Twas raven’s wings that took me into the Long Night Realm, and set me on cliffs of Obsidion, above the sea of Never Dawn. A whirling wind caressed me through the thin veil of my black nightgown, featherlight in the crafting of whom I must become. I breathed in the scent of seagrass, deep into my lungs, and exhaled every doubt and worry that had kept me heavy and bound.
Behind me, a forest quivered at the low baying of a thousand soulful hounds. A blanket of black velvet feathers spread across the sky and snuffed out the sinking sun.
Draped in the rich drip of molten moonlight, I raised my arms into the dewy air, swaying to the music playing inside my head. A great flapping swept around me and flaming eyes perused my form. His voice rumbled through my body with the power of an electric storm.
“Alas, you are recreated, by design of what lies within, you are reformed. Step, now, into infinity and know freedom to which you are reborn.”
Whether real or dream, I could not ascertain but my soul reckoned to his call. I released a roar of thunder, my past flashing through my mind, and all the judgements wrought by the unkind, faded into the night.
I dove from the obsidion cliffs, plunging to the sea below, but when I threw back my arms to speed faster, I began to fall no more. Feathered wings of midnight blue replaced the limbs that I once bore. With a laugh I skimmed the water, then swooped upward into a soar.
For hours I played upon the night air with the winged beast never far from sight. He circled ’round above me, dark pleasure lighting his fire eyes. Satiated, I drifted to him and he led me to an mountain alcove, where burned an eternal light. Curled upon a bed of mistymoan flowers with the beast protective at my side. I embraced his touch of darkness, within the Long Night Realm, and lived happily through forever, the place which others had named hell.
THE END