He stood among the standing stones.
They had not changed since he'd last been here and broken, they remained, crumbled boulders across the sacred circle.
Having entered through the looming arch of the Pilgrim Stone, Merrit now moved around them like the shadows they used to cast beneath the midday sun. He couldn't remember all the names of those buried beneath. Those memories were sealed up with mother, who he came upon now as hazel eyes met the rough rock of the stone that had crushed her.
He had not been here since that day. And slowly, Merrit made his way towards the Mother Stone, until his paws brushed the tall grass that had grown up around the fallen rock in the many months the land had laid fallow.
Merrit stared for some time. Tired eyes, unblinking. Wind whispered around him in a hushed cadence making little sense to his ears. Some otherworldly chorus, he might have believed, if he believed in ghosts.
He lowered his head, and touched his nose to the stone.
Take me back.
Eyes sprung open. He staggered away.
I need to get to my children, the wind, surely the wind spoke to him. Surely the wind -- he was imagining things -- false things -- and yet he could not compel himself to move any closer to the stone.
Instead, he heard his voice. Detached. Because he recognized her voice.
"... mother?"
Silence. What did he expect? But his mind turned. Unable to make sense. And then, his whole body. Hair on end, and whipped by the wind, Merrit left through the Pilgrim Stone the way he had come, but he would turn himself westward as his thoughts continued in their fragmented stream, and they would glue together into something whole the closer he would come to the Sunspire Mountains.
They had not changed since he'd last been here and broken, they remained, crumbled boulders across the sacred circle.
Having entered through the looming arch of the Pilgrim Stone, Merrit now moved around them like the shadows they used to cast beneath the midday sun. He couldn't remember all the names of those buried beneath. Those memories were sealed up with mother, who he came upon now as hazel eyes met the rough rock of the stone that had crushed her.
He had not been here since that day. And slowly, Merrit made his way towards the Mother Stone, until his paws brushed the tall grass that had grown up around the fallen rock in the many months the land had laid fallow.
Merrit stared for some time. Tired eyes, unblinking. Wind whispered around him in a hushed cadence making little sense to his ears. Some otherworldly chorus, he might have believed, if he believed in ghosts.
He lowered his head, and touched his nose to the stone.
Take me back.
Eyes sprung open. He staggered away.
I need to get to my children, the wind, surely the wind spoke to him. Surely the wind -- he was imagining things -- false things -- and yet he could not compel himself to move any closer to the stone.
Instead, he heard his voice. Detached. Because he recognized her voice.
"... mother?"
Silence. What did he expect? But his mind turned. Unable to make sense. And then, his whole body. Hair on end, and whipped by the wind, Merrit left through the Pilgrim Stone the way he had come, but he would turn himself westward as his thoughts continued in their fragmented stream, and they would glue together into something whole the closer he would come to the Sunspire Mountains.
with quiet words I'll lead you in
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can you tell me the way the story ends? - by Merrit - March 24, 2022, 11:44 PM