Heresy of Silence

She silently took to wandering the forest for herself, and was almost immediately gratified by what she saw in the first hour. She spotted a cardinal upon emerging from the warm spacious fir, and easily kept up with its dashing flight through the treetops. It lit on a dead sapling to rest for half a second. That second was enough. She easily leapt to the topmost bough with new found strength and came down carefully clutched the shocked birds. Her back mind told her she wasn’t supposed to do this, and within the same second of catching the cardinal, she let it go. She slowly oriented her hand so that when she opened her fingers, it wouldn’t fall. No sooner than releasing its wings from under her index fingers, it took flight, leaving her staring in wonder. She whispered to herself.” I wish I could do that.” ’You can.’ Before finishing her last word, she felt a horrid tearing sensation in her shoulder blades. With a cry, she fell face first toward the snow. She instinctively stretched her arms in front of her, and caught herself elbow deep in the snow. Her breathing became swift and shallow as her back arched. The tearing worsened, and she had no idea what was happening. It took all her self restrain to keep from rolling over into the powder soft snow, to put out that ripping and shredding on her back, so rid herself of that unknown pain from her back. She concentrating on drawing breath after breath, but she couldn’t help a feral snarl from ripping its way out of her throat. No sooner did the sound die away from the surrounding clearing did the terrible shredding stop. She stood up quickly and fell over on her back, blowing up a rather large cloud of white powder. Her new wings would take some getting used to.

I’ll just call it origins for now. The Lamentable Origins of a Tale of love and woe seems like too much of a mouthful, and copies off The lamentable and comical tragedy of pyramus and thisbe.

It sneezed. The sound seemed to echo through the frosted forest. Not a living thing stirred. The creature couldn’t remember anything before breaking the iced surface of the once-frozen lake. Before it could finish the thought, it turned around to a dry crackling sound. Its astonishing silver irises followed the ice’s progression over the surface of the lake. Before it could inhale again, the lake became what is was an hour earlier: a mirror. It didn’t breathe as it stepped back onto the ice. It silently bowed its head and folded its slender arms, somewhat disgruntled by the fact that it had no idea of why it came into being. It’s expression was reflected perfectly in the newly formed ice, and it frowned again, wondering why. ‘Why am I here?” it wondered, now looking at the snowy treetops. It took a moment to brush a finger down its right cheek, marveling at the coolness and smoothness of its skin. It then tapped its left foot twice, trying to make sense of the winter wonderland it found itself in. Getting impatient almost immediately, it tiptoed (more like glided) to a fallen tree on the other side of the lake. It circled it twice before finding non-splintery section and sitting down on it. It’s silvery hair flowed in the invisible breeze, distracting the creature for a couple of minutes. It tried again to concentrate on what happened before emerging from the lake.

After a tinge of pink appeared on the horizon, it realized it hadn’t taken a breath after seeing its reflection, and so inhaled deeply. It smiled. It tasted the sweet scent of buried pine needles, the huddling moose about six miles north, a gray squirrel watching it from above, even the remains of a foxglove freshly buried under the very log it sat upon. It curiously glanced upward, its silver eyes searching for the squirrel above. But it had long scampered away. Its smile dampened slightly as it tried to sense another soul nearby. Giving up after a moment, it instead bowed its head and turned statue still. Searching through what was left of its ravaged mind, before the wonder of the frosted timbers, before awaking and drifting under the ice, it came up with a blinding light. It squinted reflexively, as if looking directly at the sun. But it was lost already in its maze of new-found memories. Its lips parted in a grimace as it remembered a white-robed figure approaching it with a syringe half filled with a glowing pink liquid. It shut its eyes and braced against the memory as it placed its delicate face into the ice-cold palms of its hands. It cried quietly in the light of dawn, with not a companion to share her new pain with.

———-

She didn’t remember moving, but she found herself curled up inside the trunk of a spacious fir tree. She was warm, for the first time in eons. Waking up completely now, she reached up to brush some leaves out of her silvery hair. She noticed a glint in the dead leaves she lay on, and reached out to pick it up. She drew her fingers back in surprise as the glint left a little bit of moisture on her index finger. It evaporated as soon as she brought it up for close inspection. She felt her cheek, and felt the same moisture there too. The part of her mind that was working told her these were ‘tears,’ and tears came from ‘crying’. “So I was doing this crying while I was…” ‘Sleeping’ her mind filled in again. So this was what being alive was like.

Em knew what to expect when she heard Jance trotting through the underbrush. Toby was frantically whimpering and bouncing around him as Jance half-heartedly snapped at the little blue pup. “Boss, boss, Jan-sir, Michael-man, you’re alive!” Toby cried excitedly as the forest resumed the rustling of leaves and chatter of blue jays.

“It’s Michael. Not Jance, certainly not Jan. Otherwise, shut up.”

“Yes, sir, master-guy, yah.”

Michael grimaced as the puppy accidentally ran over one of his forepaws, the one with a broken claw. Toby thought nothing of it, but began licking his wounds on Michael’s front left leg as he lay down beside the great hollow tree. A soft carrying sigh greeted Michael as Em silently stepped out from her little niche. Her eyes, as brilliantly rosy as ever, certainly made the battle with Emerald worthwhile.

Her foxy tail made the loveliest of swishes in the dry leaves as the miniature breeze whisked the leaves around her delicate paws and ruffled her fur. Warren sighed contentedly as was about to fall asleep as Em silently tiptoed closer. Toby was whimpering happily as the forest birds sang a song of revival, of Emerald’s death. He ran away toward the Noddy mountain, and when he came into view, he let loose a ripping howl that frightened the cardinals and blue birds so that a beautiful cloud of red and blue feathers rose and floated toward the edge of Faeriewood Forest. Em had laid down beside the sleeping Jance and placed her right paw on his slowly-rising chest. He shifted in his sleep as she channeled her thoughts into him, dreaming pleasant things again. Toby was really singing now, and Em found herself humming along with him as she kept her silent watch over her sleeping pack leader.

Thanks for reading thus far, and hope you had a pleasant day. I’ve had fun reading and writing this story all the way.

Just as soon as Emerald had shrieked her last, the storm broke as suddenly as Michael found himself falling in air. Seeing that Emerald’s skull had been bashed through, her wings would be useless now. The silvery light of the moon streamed down with the falling pair. Michael had amazingly still kept a hold on his spear as it stuck from the misshapen serpent skull. With grim realization that he almost certainly going to die, or suffer an excruciating moment of pain before blacking out, he surveyed what he could in the air. The great flapping wings were of little help; there was no muscle to glide on, and Emerald’s great body had gone limp. However, his sense of self preservation led him to finish what he started. He clambered atop the skull, and with a gruesome and gory yank, pulled Talberd up. In the process, he was splattered with the unsightly serpent’s blood. It stung him where it made contact with his snout, but he ignored the burn. He took a wild leap, and knowing there was no time to lose, heaved the spear’s point at a half-torn wing ligament. It worked. Now Michael clung to a wide sheet of scale as Emerald continued to plummet. The severed wing was unruly, and nearly impossible to control. He struggled to straighten it out and make it horizontal in the air, but it would not cooperate. It almost bucked him as if the creature’s hate embedded itself in the detached sapphire wing. On a stroke of inspiration, the clever Wulf jammed the point of the spear into the cold blue flesh, and buried the hilt in a point of bone intersection opposite him. He took a second wild leap, and caught hold of the spear. It flipped the wing upside down, but it kept horizontal. There was a horrible moment of panic when the spear point slipped in the flesh until it settled to dig into a tough ligament in the wing. Michael Jance was hang gliding.

The wild mountain gusts made the wing hard to steer. He pulled himself to he clung to his spear from above, but sheltered by the wing from the still rumbling mass of clouds. He leaned forward to accelerate upward at an angle, to glide back to the bloody ledge were his seemingly dead body once lay. The wing wobbled precariously as Talberd nearly cut through the snake flesh. It held for the next couple of moments, just as a thermal spun the scaled sheet upwards. Michael lost control when the wing veered sharply and scraped against the chasm’s rocky wall. The thermal blew him 20 feet above the ledge, just as Talberd did its job. Another awful moment passed as the wing fell, Michael with it. When the wing had almost passed him in its crumpled fall downwards, Michael kicked sharply out at it, sending him crashing yet again against the bloody stone wall, and the wing to the opposite side of the chasm. He was against standing in a pool of crusted blood when he heard a muted thud of a two-ton body meeting the bottom of Noddy Mountain. Michael quietly observed the silver sickled moon while he listened to a flapping wing, scrapes, rocks coming loose, then finally a splash. Talberd lay beside him, shining radiantly ruby in its recent bath in Emerald’s blood and flesh. Blood dripped quietly, forming another fresh pool around Michael’s paws. His thoughts turned to the silent serene forest below as he wondered how many packs had been saved from Emerald’s wild and furious rampages.

A soft whispered voice of an angry angel rang through his brain just then. ‘Wake up Michael. I did not heal you and protect you just to give up.’

Michael stirred again. He saw no slithering green beast waiting for him, just a yawning empty stretch of bare rock, stained with his blood. There was still the crevice, and Talberd still lay, out of reach, still glowing eerily. His sight was clear except for a ridge of red lining his vision.

He twisted around slowly, expecting the stabbing pain to shoot through his limbs again. No response from his hind legs. He shifted uncomfortably again. Still no pain. He blinked, surprised.

‘Wake up…’ the voice whispered again. It faded after those two words.

Michael got clumsily to his feet. Everything tingled and itched. He paid no attention and looked around before spying Talberd. He rose stiffly, and quietly retrieved his spear. Everything was dead silent. No crickets, no birds. ‘Ah, I forgot,’ he murmured before reaching up to undo the clawed necklace that was strung about his neck. ‘No limitations, Emerald. None…’ and with that silent remark, he tossed it aside, where it fell with a clatter that echoed all around the narrow canyon before rolling onto the spot where his bloodied body once lay. Anticipating the lunge, he dove toward the crevice, where the serpent reared once more.

This time, the winged wyvern made full use of her advantage of being in home territory. Navigating the boulders, she persistently pursued Michael, who in turn negotiated her movements and attacked not with fang, but with spear. When he’d leapt on an unprotected section on her back, she took to the sky on her sapphired wings, a mountain of scaly flesh suddenly pouring itself skyward, rising in an iridescent column of sparkling scales.

Michael clung to a particularly large bronze spike as the great wings beat and swirled in air in whirling gusts around him. The world righted itself and Emerald swung around to knock Michael off. It was an aerial battle now, and Michael, with neck-breaking speed, stabbed the beast in her eye and he leapt clear of the head. Emerald emitted a sound that knocked Michael off his feet. He clawed and tore a hole in one of her wings, and clung yet again and she rocked and bucked in the air still sounding that thunderous screeching. It nearly knocked Michael unconscious, but sheer will kept his conscious to keep from falling to his death. Emerald thundered and screeched again, but her call was not as harsh as the first. This time she seemed to ignore Michael and sing to the skies. As she sang her song, the cloudy night cleared a path for the moonlight to reach Noddy Mountain. The sickle crescent hung lazily over them as Michael slowly made his way up Emerald’s wing to stand on her broad left shoulder blade. The moon turned his fur silver with a glowing outline, making him even more conspicuous, but Emerald seemed not to care. Not at that moment. Her song had not ended, and as her tones became more hurried and changed octaves, the clouds gathered and faded to black. Michael never had any warning of her storm powers or flight ability since everyone who encountered Emerald never lived to tell the tale. He could do naught but watch in awe as the wind whipped his silvery fur around and the clouds become darker and darker. The storm began rumbling angrily, and Emerald suddenly went silent. She glided underneath the atmosphere, but paid Michael no heed. In fact, she turned her head, and smiled wickedly, her serpent tongue flickering in and out between her teeth. Michael knew not what to make of this until she flipped and went into a spectacular roller coaster ride as the clouds started to cry. Lighting flashed ever so slowly and brightly, periodically turning his fur a golden yellow as he clawed at her wing joint, trying to sever it from her back. Emerald was silent as the rain and wind buffeted the wulf this way and that, and lightning bolts struck closer to home. It took Michael all his limb strength to dodge the bronze spikes, and even worse, the lightning began striking the spikes, energizing Emerald. She seemed eager, and flew a little higher, waiting to bathe in electricity. Michael, realizing that he must bring her down before she could, began dashing up her back, avoiding the bolts that nearly struck him. Grasping Talberd, in a great flash of lightning that momentarily turned his entire being gold, he took a break-taking pounce from her neck, and brought the spear, hilt-first, down. The clouds instantly stopped crying as the Mountain and valley below echoed her cry of death.

Em was still in unconscious, but had long stopped twitched. Toby just watched her now, too frightened to take her paw again and see Michael dead. However, as if an invisible wind swept the forest, all the birds, squirrels, rabbits, and creatures take flight. They fled, and for a moment, the entrance hole was obscured by the scurrying woodland animals. The wind had not escaped Toby as he froze, trying to fight the instinct that told him to flee. It was a cry of death that drove the surrounding forest empty. Not a breeze disturbed the serene green quiet. He himself did not whimper or cry. Only, he turned his head slightly as Em shifted in the leaves. Her body made a soft comforting swish in the leaves. She stared at him with her wide rose quartz eyes. ‘It’s not over yet,’ she seemed to say.

Back in Faeriewood Forest, Em felt sleepy and had softly crept into a little glade, and snuck into a hollow tree trunk for a snooze. Or so Toby thought. However, when she went utterly silent, Toby, being the pup he was, became easily worried. Her sunshine scent led the little blue into that shady green glade. As he wondered at the new fresh, watery scent of a nearby water source, he was quieted by the balmy green aura emanating from the towering balding cypresses. Lightly leaping from tree knee to knee, he found his way to Em’s niche. Not hearing the usual comforting purr (not really a purr, but a friendly wolf growl), Toby instantly became worried, and was next to her in a flash. “EM! EM!” he hysterically yipped. “NO!” And with his last frantic bark, he bit her right paw. Instantly, he relaxed as her body jerked from the unconscious pain. “Sorry,” he whispered, and gently took the same paw in his jaws. He quietly observed what went through her mind and how her body responded. He was momentarily distracted at how real her heartbeat felt in the still woody air around him, almost as if her soul had wrapped him in a sensory globe of her Calling. He tried to stay calm and not let go, even though the sharing vision was as convincing as convincing could get. Too real, too real. However, a faraway yelp brought him to quickly probe through her mind. What he saw was so miraculous and frightening, he dropped Em’s front right paw. It landed with a muffled thud in the mossy earth. An involuntary tear silently streamed from his bright green eye, and landed with another soft plit into the same earth. “Michael…” he whimpered.

Michael was unsure what to behold of his situation. Here in front of him, Emerald seemed to be bashing her massive head against an invisible diamond orb surrounding his broken and bleeding body. But she seemed frozen. His body was crumpled against the blood splattered stone wall from his recent contact with the serpent’s tail. He could see two blurry images, one on top of the other. The first one he realized was as if he were seeing the scene from where he lay, as if his eyes could open. The second, which became clear as soon as he focused on it with his consciousness, was of the scene from the air, as if a fairy or angel were watching the progressing battle from heaven. He discovered that he could manipulate the sight, to look at the scene below from any angle he wanted. He could be on top on Emerald’s head, seeing things almost from her point of view, underground (the rocks turned transparent when he did that), from wherever he wanted at the moment. It seemed as if time stood still.

What he couldn’t do was move a muscle. Not even a twitch. Only his thoughts seemed to affect anything around him. He could view the scene in whatever way he wanted. He even allowed a little bit of time to pass, and saw Emerald’s head move a centimeter to his right. He let time tick, and wondered in awe as Emerald’s impossibly long fangs closed around his protective bubble again. It was slightly disconcerting to see the sapphire serpent trying to eat him through an unmovable bubble, yet cruelly sadistic. The serpent reared once more to emit a high pitched shriek of outrage. The pitch hurt even as Michael moved his sight around to see what really was going on. He froze the time again, and tried to see back to the spot where he left Toby and Em. The vision seemed to allow him to see only on that specific ridge of Noddy Mountain, where his furry body lay crooked against the bare stone wall. He scrutinized his sight as well as he could for the moment. At least until he remembered his dead sight, and focused on that.

Toby still sat frozen as he rewatched the scene of a giant greenish thing smash Michael into solid rock. He observed in horror as the bloody brown body quietly crumpled to the ground, slumped over, and went still. Em began convulsing, writhing as if a fiery whip were curling around her sleek torso and back. Toby was helpless, but to watch her in horror, and try to keep her still. He grabbed her paw again, hurriedly, hoping for a miracle to happen as he looked again into the seemingly dead eyes of Michael Jance.

Michael frantically surveyed the time-stopped scene, and then tried to concentrate on getting back into his body. ‘Fight, dammit.’ His body couldn’t give up that easily. A single blow. ‘Is that really all it takes? I’m so fragile.’ He struggled, willed one of his paws to move. It was like having himself move the Noddy Mountain itself. As he felt a strange sense of warmth well up to where his paws might have been, it became easier for him to stretch out his legs. His sight began to blur as a different, red-tinged vision replaced the time-stopped one. Emerald began to look much bigger, and started moving again. She lunged, in slow motion, as Michael finally seemed to regain control of his limbs. A burning ache all over his body began to grab his attention. The more he was able to move his bloodied, soiled body, the less he saw the time sight, and the more he felt his broken bones slowly knitting themselves and the copious oozing of his moon-scented blood onto the rock he lay. Everything moved faster; he saw Emerald lunge again for the invisible shield around him. As her skull collided, he could see the air vibrating and wobble in his close vicinity. Talberd seemed to glow brighter, even though he was out of range. He tried to stretch out his paw and grab the golden staff, but it was hopelessly out of reach. ‘Damn.’

A very bright light popped into his left eye. As he turned his head to look at it, his neck cracked sickeningly. His skull slumped down against the ground again, and he quickly slipped into unconsciousness. The last thing he heard was Emerald’s second roar of fury as she futilely tried to bite into his soiled and bloodied flesh underneath the diamond shield.

Even a human could have felt Emerald’s presence. The barren boulders ahead were just too reminiscent of a reptilian dwelling. The ceiling was a treacherous layer of needle sharp stalactites curved in fang shapes. Where the cave stalagmites should been was just smooth stone, like scales have often been running across that polished floor. There was always a strange whistling sound coming from the yawning cavity in the mountainside, but Michael was sure that did not come from the blistering wind. Despite the howling dervish, Michael still had trouble breathing at that high an altitude. Nevertheless, haunted by his pack members’ last howls, snarls, and cried of terror, he stalked forward, Talberd at his back. The wind seemed eager to push him forward to his sure death.

—

No mortal or immortal would dared have faced Emerald after she fed. She would be at her peak of strength after a hearty meal of warm fresh flesh. Michael , however, had his honor, and would not have faced her in a less-than-peak condition. It was the Code, to respect opponents, and give a prominent challenge, not a back-handed sneak attack. And challenge was what he did. Erecting himself on his two hind legs, he carefully unsheathed Talberd. The warm red flare of the Ruby on the miniature spear head easily reached the watchful eyes of the serpent. Even though Emerald would not comply with the Code, she still respected her unwanted visitor with a warning glare, seen from any distance away. It sent Michael involuntary shivers down his strong spine as he heard a long dry scrape of scales and stone ahead of him. He could almost curse his supernatural hearing, but it has saved him more times than he could count. ‘I guess I can put up with that.’ Undeterred, he pressed forward to his ensured doom. Emerald awaited him with alacrity, flexing her sapphired wings. Michael would be in for a surprise; no one survived to tell the tale of the whimsical winged serpent of [Noddy? Why not.] Mountain.

Michael heard the great mythical beast before anything else. With a lightning burst of speed, he was out of the edifice just as the sapphire terror of the skies reared her head. Any great warrior would have fled and been devoured in less than a second’s worth. Michael himself was not prepared; he found himself dodging the serpent’s strikes and putting all his efforts into not getting impaled by the fangs. One glittery fang could easily bested the height of the upright Michael, and the sight of hundreds, maybe thousands of fatal opportunities easily froze him for a split second. A split second too late. While the great rearing head missed its strikes, the lethal tail whipped up to meet him. Again he reacted, but the tail curled around his left paw, bringing him crashing down on his chest and snout. A quick snap of the jaws, and he drew unsightly shimmering blood from the tail tip. Talberd lay forgotten near the lair entrance. However, another knock against the rock wall reminded Michael of Talberd’s warm ruby glow. Feigning to flee to Emerald’s left, she lunged, and missed. Michael seized that exact moment, and retrieved his village relic. This time, instead of dodging the jaws of death, he leaped lightly, two mighty fangs just missing his abdomen, and flipped in the air above the neck. It wasn’t the best of ideas either; her scaley back was studded with bronze horns. Emerald realized what was happening just as quickly, and lunged again for Michael in midair. In doing so, she drew her length along behind her, and Michael landed safely on the lichen-barren rocks. His wolfish paws weren’t ready for the shock, and the jolt froze him there. His maw was open in a silent howl of pain as the bitten tail swung in for its revenge.

…and he landed hard. He was just faintly aware or a moonish, maybe flowery scent hovering around, and a sinister soft scraping. He didn’t know whether he lay there for seconds, hours, or years. The oddest sensation was that he seemed both in and out of his body, his vision blurred by what seemed like two different points of view being seen at the same time.

“Am I dead?”