“Mastery of life is found in stillness” The voice says.
All is silent and your movements are slow…Dreamlike.
Bird song filters through the gauzy silence from a distant meadow. You float.
…A coiled serpent strikes…white fangs. Droplets of blood explode through the air like liquid shrapnel from a source just beyond your site…
.
Loamy, earth smell fills your nostrils. You’re standing on the edge of a meadow.
The low, orange orb of sun creates a golden spray of mist which hovers and drifts ghost like over the grasses. Creeping at a glacial pace the shimmering, vaporous veil silently weaves itself among branch, bowl, leaf and stone.
…knot-work carved into a stone…distant lightning...A dragon/serpent slowly coils on a stone…lightning flashes from it's eyes and booming thunder...only knot-work on stone remains...
Aching exhaustion weights your limbs but a far away voice calls your name. There! Through the trees something moving... The golden haze parts briefly to show a sun drenched series of buildings. A silhouetted figure stands facing away from you in a darkened building. Beyond the figure a high fitted stone wall with sculptural relief. The figure turns to face you and a sharp glint of light flashes briefly from where the eyes should be. The face begins to lighten just as the rolling, golden mists reclaim the vague imagery.
…The serpent again...coiled about a column of white segments…peaceful now…satiated...
...small, smoldering red coals for eyes...It’s head rests against one of it’s coils…
...spring like...patient..
The golden orb is gone and the mist with it. More commotion from the darkened, far wood line. Several birds fly from the shadows. An old looking crow observes you from a high branch. Ice water races through your veins.
A whisper, barely audible, tickles the hairs on the back of your neck.
“Be still now...I would have your eyes”
The old crow spreads huge black wings like a cloak of fear and on a draft of malevolence it drifts down directly towards you. Growing larger and larger it's black wings finally block out all light and all life. You feel sharp stabs of pain. Something like worms crawl on your skin. All is black. You feel nothing.
Within the abyss, a growing sensation. Refreshing...cool. A liquid. Morning dew. Creeping between your lips it finally touches your parched tongue. It tastes of earth and sky…and blood.
Through the dark haze of fading sleep you hear a distant ringing in your ears as dreams fade and the memories of desperate battle return…Something moves on your chest.
You come to the surface of consciousness quickly and fling yourself over and into a crouch startling a half dozen crows as you do. The left side of your head throbs with pain. Exploring with your fingers you find a patch of flesh missing from your scalp. Dried and caked blood is in your hair and on your face. Feeling dizzy and vulnerable you take in the surroundings. Though it appears that you are not in immediate danger, your heart fills with sadness and dread at the scene. Family and friends lie about pale, cold and unmoving.
"Oh, no..." Not far away, among still smoldering ruins, you see familiar forms.
The couple lay together. The arm of the larger wrapped protectively around the shoulders of the smaller. Your father still holds the weapon of his fathers in his other hand. His wounds are many and deep. Looking about the immediate area you see the bow carried for years by your mother. Highly ornate, it lays broken and trampled. No surprise to you, they had both gone down fighting. From the marks on the ground your mother had likely crawled to the side of her husband and they had passed on together. You speak softly to them your goodbyes.
After a good search, your brother's body is nowhere to be found which gives you hope but the loss of so many of your kin is overwhelming.
“No bodies of our attackers..?” you croak.
Fleeting memories...What attacked us? Your head is aching, you run through the bits and pieces of memory and then you hear your father’s words again.
You replay the moment: There is commotion, shouting and screams in the background and he is telling you to run to the Mountain of the Sun.
"Climb the eastern side at dawn and find the golden thread. The rest will be made known to you but you must escape these lands of our heritage until such a time that it will be made whole again."
He kisses your forehead and looked you in the eyes for a second. With the weapon that was passed down for many generations in his hand, he stepped through the doorway. Confused you decided to stay and fight. All of your memories beyond that are sketchy.
"What am I going to do..?" You ask.
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