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[Christopher Sherwood]

---

The wind blew lazily, in gusts and short spurts, drawn with invisible purpose from the west. New scents and old upon its buoyant, airborne path.

The slow, but beautiful death of Summer.

Christopher sat close to his father, eyes drawn skyward. His shaggy red hair caught in blown tangles, and his belly full of thick-cut bread and blackberry jam. In perfect imitation of Arahim, he held his little thumb arm's length away, one eye closed and intent upon placing the digit on different clouds as they danced slowly by.

"That one is a lion." he said matter of factly, "A lion with no legs."

"A lion with no legs?" Arahim asked.

"Mhm. He lost 'em."

"And that one?" Arahim smiled.

"Wyvern."

Without blessing the perception with comment, Arahim laid back, placing an open palm at the edge of the cloud, and following it as the wind blew shape and size along its way across the bright painted blue.

Settling himself under his father's outstretched hand, Christopher giggled at what seemed so pretend, but felt so real.

"Stop pushing that wyvern! He'll bite."

"Fine," Arahim conceded, "I'll find something else to play with. Like that one."

Framing the large, bilious mass of mist between his two hands, Christopher paused, and answered slowly.

"Not that one, daddy. He's the king."

"The king of clouds?"

"The King of Clouds."

"-That- one!?" Arahim scoffed, "I doubt it."

"He's high up. An' he's the biggest so far," said Christopher sitting up as though to get a more thougtful view, "So he's the king."

Also sitting up, as clearly weight matters were at hand all of the sudden, Arahim turned his son's head to very next procession.

"That one."

"He's too little," Christopher chuckled, "He'd get beat up."

"No. See how the sunlight streaks through him in rays, to the clouds just below? That's a king."

His child's mind caught in curious thought, and stilled, Christopher watched intently as sky and cloud and earth turned and moved heedless to his heady self-debate. Quiet for long moments, before settling down into the grass, hands locked behind his head.

"That grey one there, with the tail?" he said at length, "He's that one's friend from a long time ago."

Laughing helplessly, Arahim could not find it in him to disagree.

[Arahim]

---

Steadfast holes torn in the fabric of dark velvet dreams dot the sky. Winking down upon the earth it's argent musical secrets. Day a far shout away, but inevitable.

No one soul sees the nightsky through the same eyes.

Dressed in wool breeches, a long coat hugging close to his frame, and buttoned to his throat, Christopher followed his father closely to their spot. Their breath coming in rhythmic puffs of silver, ghostly vapors hanging like faint ice sculptures before drifting away ephemeral.

Through meandering, upward paths, father and son left the warmth and light of the gypsy camp far behind in nightly ritual. Losing themselves beyond autumn touched forests and arbors. Their leafy drapery still clinging with obduracy to it's reds and yellows, yet faded brown at their dry edges, and dying.

These gave way to towering evergreens, and the cloying scent of fresh pine hanging upon the close air as they ascended. Pine cones, and soft nettles springy carpetting their egress. Hiding a hundred yesterdays, and holding fleet footed dew within the dark soil just beneath.

Below, and below again.

Their trail ended without preamble, opening to a rocky outcropping jutting oddly away from the well wooded mountain. A large, flat rock, squared by winds and rains, shaded a dark sea-blue, set alone and prominent amidst broken silt, and smaller, lighter rocks and boulders. A sheer drop off a mere ten yards from said stony seat.

In the distance, below and beyond, an ocean of dark, dark green pulled by invisible, implacable will to the very horizon, and then further. Though that point, in space unmeasured, was swallowed and hidden completely. Primordial forest, largely untrod upon, and unspoilt, riding in waves along hill and down creating a many tiered effect. As though not one single woodland, rather a collection of set growth clumped helplessly together, edges bleeding over.

In night, as they were, untouched by the rose fingered Dawn, Arahim and Christopher saw below and beyond in no hues save roiling, wavy black. A blank canvas awaiting the insistence of Life, and it's persistent artistry colorfully arrayed.

Clambering quickly, Christopher stood tall upon their rock, facing expectantly to the east. His teeth chattering every so often, gazing skyward with squinched up eyes. Stretching bright rays from the static stars above with his purposefully impaired vision, until it seemed to him he could reach out and grab the celestial in his outstretched hands.

"Are you cold?" Arahim asked.

Smiling, his bright green eyes alive with starshine, Christopher shook his head. His shaggy red locks bouncing, and fiery next to his flush, pale skin so akin to that of his mother's.

Arranging himself cross legged next to his boy, Arahim pulled wide his thick, dark cloak with an unspoken promise of shared warmth.

"Come on," he said, "It's nearly time."

Compliant, and nestled close to his father, under comfortable cover of cloak, Christopher waited excitedly, without another word.

And so did Arahim.

[Arahim]

---

The world held it's breath for unyielding, and incessant moments. A cyclopeian still swallowing sound and scenery. The dizzying brink of change; hesitant, recollected, and smartly anticipated.

Maintaining this tenuous pause with a well manicured patience, Arahim absently fought a growing grin as he felt Christopher's little feet wiggle next to him with scarce contained excitement. His gaze locked eastward, and wide eyed.

The woods, the hills, and vistas yet further than that. Distance like time, to the very edge of creation. So far removed, and yet perfectly reachable.

Their's entirely.

Here was a grand and heady solitude felt by both man and child.

Like so many things, it began quietly.

[Arahim]

---

The moon, a porous white stone hung adrift in stilled waters untouched by taint or illumination.

Further than a voice could float, even it's embers of imagined echo, miles removed from Arahim and son, Day momentous began.

A subtle, sudden tear in Night's gauzy veil shone in low intensity for the right now, rose petal red. Ghostly glow topping the tips of the forest in blood, and fire.

The Daystar's chromatic heralds.

Above, black shifting to blues and purples.

Christopher held his hand away from his body, arms length and sight aligned. One eye closed as he used thumb and forefinger to 'squeeze' out the stars as Day's march outshone the sky's lonely, scattered jewels. Winking each out by turn, as if sweeping away remnants of dream just before waking.

Adopting a like pose, Arahim, too, snuffed out the last bits of cosmic candlelight using his fingers in a flicking motion and and tracing his thumb along the horizon, smearing the dawning light along the treeline.

The forest, etched out in wan yellow and crimson as if not truly there but for the scant risen morning blessing it. Lucid shafts piercing through leaf and bough.

Waggling his fingers like strokes from an unseen brush, Christopher arranged the dark blue clouds in feathery, upswept patterns as a large swath of azure crept up, colliding with petulant, lingering Night. Further chasing stars into memory.

Looking quickly to his father as events progressed just so, he sidled closer and began to outline the distant treeline in tandem. Each using thumb and forefinger as the weave of the world, born anew, took on distinct and familiar shape.

In fiery finale, moving cloud, and sky, scattering life in every direction below, the Sun climbed high to take it's seat majestic.

It's passage as though webbed with zephyrous string and pulled aloft, yet made that much more possible by that of a small, green eyed boy whose cupped hands held it's warmth and light...and prodded it on to take it's rightful place.

Father and son, content with their work, sat quietly until their lengthening shadows painted the rocks behind them with yesterday, and the long grasses around them shone like burnished golden spears.

With a respect and reverence uncanny for his five years, a smiling Christopher, lost in the moment stated a flat, simple honesty to no one in particular,

"That was a good one."