It was a late winter evening, when Wraen appeared at her final resting place. The moon was shining brightly at first, the air was cold and brisk and everything was eerly quiet. No one save for the ghostly figure of an elderly wolf was around and even she was faintly visible. Unlike the first days of her arrival, when she had been so eager to seek out her friends and family members and therefore fuelled by their life energy, the last days of the month saw it drain away from her. Either because she no longer wished to encounter anyone alive or the time for the ghosts was running out, the veil was closing and they had to return.
Hours went by, while she sat in solitude and reminisced everything she had gone through. Slowly thick clouds gathered and aided by gentle wind the first snowflakes began to fall. Wraen looked up at the Christmas card worthy scenery around her - snow-capped trees and bushes, the hilly terrain and mountains in the distance - it was beautiful. Reminded her that these had been one of her favourite kind of evenings in the past. It was the stillness, the just enough cold to sense it in your toes and on our cheeks, but not have it uncomfortable for you, and the victorious feeling that you belonged to something brilliant and delightful. It was the best time to snuggle up next to a good friend or sibling, watch the snowfall and swap stories sometimes all throughout the night to greet the breaking dawn.
"I wondered, if you would come," Wraen told me, greeting me with a welcoming smile and a cheerful glint in her eyes. Hands tucked in my coat pockets and snow crunching under my boots, I came to sit next to her. After a moment of silence I said: "I thought you would want me to see you off." She did not reply to me right away, giving into a whimsical attempt to catch a snowflake. I watched her amused, pulled one of my hands out of my pocket and extended it to catch some of the ice crystals in my open palm. "Beautiful, ain't they?" she asked me, looking at them. It seemed that she was in no hurry to have this second encounter of ours to end, therefore we sat in a peaceful and mutually comfortable silence for a long time. I envied her a little for having an opportunity to live here in the nature and explore its secrets daily, while I could admire a forest only from a distance most of my time. Between streets, concrete buildings and traffic I often yearned to be somewhere else. Far away from the noise and the people.
"Did you enjoy your brief journey here again?" I finally asked. "I am not sure," she shrugged. "I got to meet some friends and family, I even got to know the young generation and made contact with some strangers, but... had I never returned here, my pocket of paradise would be still intact," she concluded, her tone serious. "How so?" I did not understand. After all she had left on her own terms, she had chosen the heaven she deserved. "I got to feel alive again and it made me realize, how very bleak my existence had been up until then. It was a pale reflection of, what life actually is," Wraen told me. "I do not want to forget about it and somehow still be part of it. Yet, I do not know, how..." she said.
"I learned a bit from every ghost I met and I know each had their own story and reasons of being, where they were," she told. "I met Rannoch briefly after his passing and he refused to accept an afterlife without his wife. And at the same time I visitted Maia and did not have the heart to shake the foundations of her life she had rebuilt. It is a very good life. A full one," she explained and I saw that she was a little bit disappointed by the fact the she no longer played any role in it. That there were new chapters in Maia's life without Wraen being in them. And she wished to know, how her life would turn out and at the same time she did not, because flipping those pages and reading would remind her even more of the things she had lost.
"I do not wish to hang on waiting, because they no longer need me. And when their time comes to make that final step it will be their own journey. Dying after all is a private matter," she chuckled. "I met Ibis, who had willingly chosen to forget all the bad things in her life. And I encountered Niamh briefly and I sensed something powerful and very dark in her. I... do not want to lose the memories and the knowledge I have had, but I know that, if I linger here for too long that envy of them still living and me being gone will corrupt me eventually. I do not wish to hate anyone. Life is precious, beautiful and... I just not want to lose that light and warmth it provides," she finished. She did not mention seeing Arcturus, but he had saved her from drowning in despair and put her back on shore again. Shaking and unsure, but no longer unhappy. Able to look out in the world with calm again.
"There is something that Towhee said," she began after a long pause. Not the exact words, but she had implanted the idea and she had developed it further over time. "About nothing after death. Your spirit dying with your body. But her living on in her children and grandchildren and thus becoming eternal," Wraen smiled at the memory, the talk between the two hags must have been really good then. "I believed that the dead live as long as the stories and memories about them live. And I really wanted that, but I know that it is a very - for a lack of a better word - a living wolf thing to think. Why should it be so important for a ghost to be remembered? I know that, even if that memory keeps me tied to this world and I return here every year... there will come a time that all, who have known me will be gone... what then?" she said.
"And I figured that maybe I had not made all peace with life, when I died. That the pocket of paradise that I had created for myself was a way for me to hang on and not let go, until I was ready," she said. "And are you ready know?" I asked her, curious to find out, what she was hinting at. "Ghosts cannot die again, but, what if..." she began and I interjected with. "What's west of Westeros?" Wraen cast me a confused glance, not understanding the quote entirely, decided to ignore it and went on: "... there is more? There is Universe, of course, but... what if I can go and stay here at the same time? Not as a ghost - a lonely piece of consciousness cursed to wander forever - but as a part of life?"
"To be reborn?" I asked, thinking about reincarnation (maybe she could be born as Towhee's kid again - the invitation had been already made), but having a feeling that Wraen had meant something different. "No. Not exactly. Not in the same way. I think... that if me was formed and created from the billions of grains of sand, I think I am ready to become that sand again and give a chance for those grains to create something else," she finished. "Me could help a tree grow, a flower bloom. I could be part of the snow that is falling, be a leaf carried by the wind. Be in the song of the bird and a story a mother tells her child at bedtime. The possibilities are endless, just as the number of grains of sand," Wraen said.
"The way I am now - a reflection - I cannot take anything with me and I am fading away regardless. So, why cling so deseperately to, what I was before, if I can be part of life once more? These days spent here reminded me of how very much I loved being here and I never want to be taken away from it," Wraen told and we both sat in silence. Her deep in thoughts and I taking time to accept that she was going to be gone for good this time. The snowing began cease and at the horizon the grey clouds were tinted in light pink at first and then bright orange. Soon the sun would appear and our time together would come to an end. "What now?" I broke the silence again, my gaze fixed on Wraen, who was looking straight ahead with calm determination. "Do you make a wish and it simply happens?"
"Maybe, I don't know," she laughed, rising to her feet and stretching. "Isn't it fun the anticipation of something unknown?" she teased me, but I did not quite agree with her. "A good thing. Not bad. It feels good and right. To do this. I... think... I can't wait to become..." as the first rays of the sun hit her, for a moment there she shone brightly and then her form disintegrated in a whirlwind of snowflakes. The last word I was to hear from her, more like a whisper, a notion: "... eternal."
Hours went by, while she sat in solitude and reminisced everything she had gone through. Slowly thick clouds gathered and aided by gentle wind the first snowflakes began to fall. Wraen looked up at the Christmas card worthy scenery around her - snow-capped trees and bushes, the hilly terrain and mountains in the distance - it was beautiful. Reminded her that these had been one of her favourite kind of evenings in the past. It was the stillness, the just enough cold to sense it in your toes and on our cheeks, but not have it uncomfortable for you, and the victorious feeling that you belonged to something brilliant and delightful. It was the best time to snuggle up next to a good friend or sibling, watch the snowfall and swap stories sometimes all throughout the night to greet the breaking dawn.
"I wondered, if you would come," Wraen told me, greeting me with a welcoming smile and a cheerful glint in her eyes. Hands tucked in my coat pockets and snow crunching under my boots, I came to sit next to her. After a moment of silence I said: "I thought you would want me to see you off." She did not reply to me right away, giving into a whimsical attempt to catch a snowflake. I watched her amused, pulled one of my hands out of my pocket and extended it to catch some of the ice crystals in my open palm. "Beautiful, ain't they?" she asked me, looking at them. It seemed that she was in no hurry to have this second encounter of ours to end, therefore we sat in a peaceful and mutually comfortable silence for a long time. I envied her a little for having an opportunity to live here in the nature and explore its secrets daily, while I could admire a forest only from a distance most of my time. Between streets, concrete buildings and traffic I often yearned to be somewhere else. Far away from the noise and the people.
"Did you enjoy your brief journey here again?" I finally asked. "I am not sure," she shrugged. "I got to meet some friends and family, I even got to know the young generation and made contact with some strangers, but... had I never returned here, my pocket of paradise would be still intact," she concluded, her tone serious. "How so?" I did not understand. After all she had left on her own terms, she had chosen the heaven she deserved. "I got to feel alive again and it made me realize, how very bleak my existence had been up until then. It was a pale reflection of, what life actually is," Wraen told me. "I do not want to forget about it and somehow still be part of it. Yet, I do not know, how..." she said.
"I learned a bit from every ghost I met and I know each had their own story and reasons of being, where they were," she told. "I met Rannoch briefly after his passing and he refused to accept an afterlife without his wife. And at the same time I visitted Maia and did not have the heart to shake the foundations of her life she had rebuilt. It is a very good life. A full one," she explained and I saw that she was a little bit disappointed by the fact the she no longer played any role in it. That there were new chapters in Maia's life without Wraen being in them. And she wished to know, how her life would turn out and at the same time she did not, because flipping those pages and reading would remind her even more of the things she had lost.
"I do not wish to hang on waiting, because they no longer need me. And when their time comes to make that final step it will be their own journey. Dying after all is a private matter," she chuckled. "I met Ibis, who had willingly chosen to forget all the bad things in her life. And I encountered Niamh briefly and I sensed something powerful and very dark in her. I... do not want to lose the memories and the knowledge I have had, but I know that, if I linger here for too long that envy of them still living and me being gone will corrupt me eventually. I do not wish to hate anyone. Life is precious, beautiful and... I just not want to lose that light and warmth it provides," she finished. She did not mention seeing Arcturus, but he had saved her from drowning in despair and put her back on shore again. Shaking and unsure, but no longer unhappy. Able to look out in the world with calm again.
"There is something that Towhee said," she began after a long pause. Not the exact words, but she had implanted the idea and she had developed it further over time. "About nothing after death. Your spirit dying with your body. But her living on in her children and grandchildren and thus becoming eternal," Wraen smiled at the memory, the talk between the two hags must have been really good then. "I believed that the dead live as long as the stories and memories about them live. And I really wanted that, but I know that it is a very - for a lack of a better word - a living wolf thing to think. Why should it be so important for a ghost to be remembered? I know that, even if that memory keeps me tied to this world and I return here every year... there will come a time that all, who have known me will be gone... what then?" she said.
"And I figured that maybe I had not made all peace with life, when I died. That the pocket of paradise that I had created for myself was a way for me to hang on and not let go, until I was ready," she said. "And are you ready know?" I asked her, curious to find out, what she was hinting at. "Ghosts cannot die again, but, what if..." she began and I interjected with. "What's west of Westeros?" Wraen cast me a confused glance, not understanding the quote entirely, decided to ignore it and went on: "... there is more? There is Universe, of course, but... what if I can go and stay here at the same time? Not as a ghost - a lonely piece of consciousness cursed to wander forever - but as a part of life?"
"To be reborn?" I asked, thinking about reincarnation (maybe she could be born as Towhee's kid again - the invitation had been already made), but having a feeling that Wraen had meant something different. "No. Not exactly. Not in the same way. I think... that if me was formed and created from the billions of grains of sand, I think I am ready to become that sand again and give a chance for those grains to create something else," she finished. "Me could help a tree grow, a flower bloom. I could be part of the snow that is falling, be a leaf carried by the wind. Be in the song of the bird and a story a mother tells her child at bedtime. The possibilities are endless, just as the number of grains of sand," Wraen said.
"The way I am now - a reflection - I cannot take anything with me and I am fading away regardless. So, why cling so deseperately to, what I was before, if I can be part of life once more? These days spent here reminded me of how very much I loved being here and I never want to be taken away from it," Wraen told and we both sat in silence. Her deep in thoughts and I taking time to accept that she was going to be gone for good this time. The snowing began cease and at the horizon the grey clouds were tinted in light pink at first and then bright orange. Soon the sun would appear and our time together would come to an end. "What now?" I broke the silence again, my gaze fixed on Wraen, who was looking straight ahead with calm determination. "Do you make a wish and it simply happens?"
"Maybe, I don't know," she laughed, rising to her feet and stretching. "Isn't it fun the anticipation of something unknown?" she teased me, but I did not quite agree with her. "A good thing. Not bad. It feels good and right. To do this. I... think... I can't wait to become..." as the first rays of the sun hit her, for a moment there she shone brightly and then her form disintegrated in a whirlwind of snowflakes. The last word I was to hear from her, more like a whisper, a notion: "... eternal."
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