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[Arahim]

---

Wreathed in gold
The fires of Daylight licked
along the rounded edges

Strung upon corded silver chain
a single coin of shining ice
Adrift in the cool currents of Night

Here a Father set
a Son's star on high
And colorless carried away his song

[Arahim]

---

Nestled in his home, yet truly apart, Arahim set his hands to the making of a fertile, growing place beyond the touch of everyday. A cloister high above Ashencrosse, or any other place, and well past its cares. His every art went into bringing forth his fecund dream into being, until upon its completion, it became not just a source of peace to him, but an extension of his being, and that of one who was lost to him, but for this quiet place.

Vined ivy wound in spiralling spires around the open aired chamber's many stone columns. Lending the architecture a sense of gravity, and age, while keeping the pervasive sense of vitality, and vibrancy therein.

Small budding flowers of varied colors ran in wavy cascades across the verdant, uniform green of Spring's new growth of grass. Stirred gently on slender stems by the breath of a new day, just barely a whisper. Touched with silver, the ground was still moist with Night's lingering chill, and heavy with dew. The damp of the rich earth mingled with the fragrance of wildflower redolent, without being overpowering.

Slanting shafts of diffuse sunlight fell through the morning mists in angled rays broken up, and scattered by obstruction of leaf and stone. Creating a weave of spun gold that marked out the things it touched in soft, and forgiving detail. Dawn bending light and shadow to Her will, as a painter creating contrast, to make complete her ephemeral gift to the world.

Too often missed by sleeping eyes unaware.

At the center of the chamber was a towering maple tree, untouched by seasons, and young.

The tree's trunk was smooth. Without blemish or knot. Straight it grew until its branches sought their own way, and scratched at the cobalt tapestry above. Roots ran both deep and wide, but did not detract from the growth at its base. Nor did they crest above the living carpet that fed it.

The leafy canopy made the roof of the place. The Sun's glorious ride through the sky crowning its highest branches in circlets of bright flowing flame that could be seen at great distance, and seemed inviting.

Arahim sat alone on a simple wooden bench. A clay mug of white at his side, brimming with tea. Ghosting the air with thin smoky serpents that quickly dissipated in the sudden cool. Its smooth sides daubed with small smears of blood.

Here, no day was ever like the last.

Here, his ghosts were real.

Here, beneath the tree's shade, Arahim fell to reverie.

[Arahim]

---

Strong fingers snatched at his wrist, pulling the heavy silver chain in his hand across the side of his bare neck with a bright flash of pain. Turning, as she held him still, Arahim bit off an angry rejoinder. Unsaid, it died in the air between them, never quite within reach.

"Over the gorget," she said quietly, "The chain will hold."

Releasing his wrist, she roughly turned his head forward, and pushed it down until his chin touched his chest. Releasing the clasp, Sylvan set her gift upon a side table. The sound was like that of falling coins.

"Now stay still."

Arahim maintained his pose. The ritual was new... to both of them. He felt his scalp tighten slightly with her every small movement as she kneeled on the bed behind him. With practiced dexterity, she wove his hair out of his eyes in a thick braid that fell to near the middle of his back.

Without turning his eyes or destroying his semblance of rigidity, he slid the necklace from the table and pooled it into his lap. Gently running his fingertips across the raised carving of a man's face. Beatific, but grim in resolve, and proud. With a mane of hair unfurled and wild.

"He is your god?" Arahim asked.

"No. He is a Saint. I suppose we look to them as gods. We pray to them, ask them favors."

"Will this Saint keep me safe?"

Sylvan stopped her plaiting for a breath, and then resumed.

"No."

"No?"

"No, Arahim. He will not keep you safe. Nor can I."

Tying off the end of the braid with a leather thong, Sylvan crawled around him to sit crosslegged at his side. Her bright green eyes betraying neither sorrow, nor worry, as she lightly fingered her gift in his lap.

"Wear it where the sun can find you," she began, "The song of a battle calls to him, but the light catching his likeness may mark the bearer. Dying well, Arahim, under his gaze, may lead you to heaven when others might have been forgotten. So...over your gorget it goes."

[Arahim]

---

Arahim set his completed work to one side, and sat up straight. Pushing out his chest, and pulling his shoulders back , he felt his bunched muscles stretch, then tense up tightly in turn. The teeter-totter of pain, and relief wrote a litany on the stupidity of single mindedness when place above common sense. One that, hopefully, he would regard with seriousness come the future.

In short, his body was hurt under the monotonous duress of holding one unnatural pose for far too long. A hurt that would likely mutate under the auspices of sleep, rather than abate upon awakening.

The room seemed stuffy, but not overly warm. The breeze he caught in thin draughts through two open windows did nothing to allay the closeness the space seemed to bleed forth. As if it meant to chase him out by exaggerating its confining, four walled qualities.

"You have other rooms here you neglect. A garden that praises the crowning advent of the laughing Dawn every morning. A thing not far off mind..."

The reedy breeze splashed Arahim's workspace awash in leaping orange and black. Candlelight swayed like two drunken lovers' last dance of the Night. Sinuous and insistent. In love fully with the moment, but desperate for what would come next. And a little afraid.

Flickering, the shadows thrown around the small chamber were haphazard, and restless, and fluid.

He was tired, and although his stomach did not register the feeling as such, he knew he must be hungry. His time spent hunched over his labors alone dictated a neglected need to eat. A time he could not, for all his worth, put a quantity to.

Standing slowly, reluctant to feel what else rebelled against his return to a more preeminent posture, Arahim worked worked out a tingly sensation that spread with a warm, liquid grace down his legs and into his boots as though to hide from his attentions. A low growl escaping from behind his teeth, he righted himself.

Thinking to forgo the welcoming of Morning in favor of breakfast, and a few stolen hours of sleep, Arahim reached out to collect his finished product. A small ring dappled just so in candlelight that it seemed wet with molten gold, and unfinished. Shavings of the same hue glimmered around it like the refuse of fallen stars left adrift. Beautiful in its wasteful, nonsensical patterns. Winking tiny gleaming eyes at the perfection of the circle in the center.

Given pause briefly, his hand hovering above the desk, Arahim watched the light play across the smoothed curve of precious metal. Making note of every swirl, and line in the grain of the polished wood that was its world.

Lost in the contrasts just past his reach.

Suddenly the notion of missing this new day's nearing ascension seemed a foolish thing indeed.

[Arahim]

---

Winter lay down Her frozen mantle
trailing crystal cobwebs beneath the eaves of forest
nestled in dark recesses untouched

Delighting in the caress of moonlight when
like a game
it found Her

Her musical laughter
lacing the air with stinging frost

Her breath
the small sound of turning pages

[Arahim]

---

Riches unlooked for lay in a fine powder at their feet. The ankle deep white dusted in pale blues, silver, and opal. A mirror for the vast Wintersky that hung like gauzy strips of dark cloth pebbled with bright stones that had no names.

The snow choked forest hid a sleeping life that refused to stir while the wheel turned beneath this hour of the moon. Though natural, this icy tableau, the stars seemed too lonely, the clouds too thin. And while still vital, this world was locked in old secrets, and furtive when spied upon.

A season that did not suffer carelessness.

Christopher ran in spurts out in front of his father when the wild spirits took him, or the shadows just ahead seemed to him deepest. Sometimes he stopped and scanned the untouched ground around him for only-he-knew-what. Sometimes he hopped to a sudden stop and yelled as loud as he could to the lofty winds of Night.

"Ai!"

And everytime, he would turn back to Arahim as he caught up, when the pines answered back in meandering, varied voices. His little face screwed up as if fighting a helpless smile. Mouth a tight 'O' tugging up at the corners.

You could see the handsome man he might become in the lines of his barely contained joy, and how it lit his bright green eyes.

Above, and beyond, the stars broke through the cover of the interlaced tops of evergreens, and past that, the silent range of mountains surrounding Compassion camp. Windswept peaks echoed the music from its roots where its children made nightly celebration with fire, song, and dance.

Christopher pulled on his father's sleeve, pointing with his free hand at the many constellations he had learned. Tracing them with his finger with one eye closed to better line up his cosmic art.

"Every star has a story, but when connected, they have a history."

With an alacrity, and frankness only possessed of children, Christopher retold the story of the Serpent just as he remembered it being told to him. Sparing no detail, or description. Hurrying ahead when the foliage obscured the skylocked beast, and repeatedly poking his fingers at its bejewelled eye - a misted over azure that shone almost too keenly in relation to its neighbors, the boy's story ran breathlessly unabated.

"Are you not tired yet?" Arahim interjected.

"If I was, would we stop here and sleep in the snow?" he chirped back with a slowly spreading grin.

Arahim shook his head, and supposed not. Breathing a laugh that frosted the air in front of his face, he motioned for his son to lead on.

Content to trail in his enthusiasm, knowing he knew the way.

[Arahim]

---

Salt stung the nose and throat of the solitary boy, making his breath catch in his chest before shuddering it loose in clenching fits and starts. The spasmodic lack of rhythm, that easy rise and fall, was painful. It welled his eyes with water.

The sun was no more than a sullen orange smear on the horizon. Burning embers on the western sea. Ashes in the east.

He sat cross-legged, and huddled on the ground at the edge of the world.

Gulls screamed their almost human sounding calls while striving against the wind, but the child took nearly no notice. Still, he shrank just a little bit when he did.

Eyes fixed upon his open hand, he collected a patter of rubies fallen from broken lips. Keeping count in barely a whisper at every drop.