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[Arahim]

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The sacred sites in Cove remembered by its people were passed down in story and rhyme. They were not marked -- not by stone, nor sign. One could pass by them, or through, without so much as a pause or lingering thought if you did not share the pulse of the land, and its history.

There were groves that saw the Sun seldom, and came alive under the starry canopy of Night.

Arbors that held great age, and memory.

Hidden pools of silvery water.

Echoes of elder days carried through time and sounded cleanly in such places.

Arahim lay his head upon the soft heather of one such a place. Cloistered away from the larger noise of the world where the heavy sighs of the distant sea swept through shaking leaf and bough with somber, and gentle allure.

His clever little Lyset curled in the crook of his arm sleepily. The scent of her hair fading like dim recollection. Her small, knowing smile cut like fire as her secret was spoken aloud. That reassuring weight and warmth he felt in his child dwindled. That light faded.

Arahim said his goodbyes with eyes closed tightly.

In the distance, Sylvan ghosted through the breaks in the forest clad in phantom white. With firm hands, she brushed buzzing, clicking insects from the Night dappled trees, and made all that was as it should be. Strange green eyes marked his sorrow at another parting, but offered neither apology, nor explanation.

It was always her way when things were clear.

Arahim said his goodbyes, and forgave her one last time.

"Awake." spoke Christopher.

He had walked these paths at his father's side with a wide eyed wonder. He knew its magics as well and naturally as he did breathing.

Christopher, who loved green and growing things. Who loved the awful beauty of Winter, and heard the language of wind and snow...

Arahim made to say his goodbyes to his only son...

But Christopher would not hear him. He stirred him from reverie, allaying what mounting despair he felt.

"Awake." he repeated, and taking him by the hand, would not be sundered from him.

Not like this.

And so before Arahim awoke, a green eyed boy who loved him, spoke to his father a promise, and made him give one in return so that he might find a happiness in his life which was far from over.

[Arahim]

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Alone he awaited the trumpeting of a new day.

The life he had so recently lived fell away like a curtain of shattered glass. Its jagged pieces reflecting so many missed moments.

Etched at the edges in grades of electric blue.

The palest, most diffuse shades still caught his eye, and refused to scatter even under the feathery touch of Dawn's first light.

A cold pit set in Arahim's stomach that he knew would scar. He would carry it into his later days.

He would bear its weight with the hope that the keen loss that made it would not feel so heavy as time drew on. That the moments of truth and clarity while under the wispy skein of dreams would not go unrecognized.

Perhaps his burden would oneday not feel so heavy even as the bright wooden mask he now loosely held, that had so strangely, so suddenly, gone silent.