Bad omens around the eyes Posted on October 6, 2022 at 01:16:27 PM by Faolain
Faolain waits for her mind to break.
The voices are incessant within her, but she cannot bear to leave their source. She knows the Ridge is what is causing the voices; she is still herself enough to know that the Ridge is not truly speaking to her, but rather, causing some sort of psychotic reaction within her. Is it trauma? Did her fall from the heights of the mountain break her in some way, or at least, more than she is already aware it has broken her?
Faolain does not go mad, somehow, or at least not in a way that she notices. The voices are louder the deeper she travels into the shadows of the Ridge, but they are, at the same time, at least somewhat drowned out by the birds. They quiet when she is in the sun, and some days find the gaunt black mare seeking relief on the beach, but most days she lingers in the shade. She catches glimpses of the cryptic silver-black colt, sometimes, and she finds herself seeking out the peripheries of his presence often, though she never outright approaches him. She has more or less puzzled out his affliction, and this knowledge somehow drives her empathetically away from the sunlight, though she suffers more in the darkness.
She has caught a single glimpse of the pale form of Charybdis, once, in the gloom, but Faolain is unable to convince herself it was real, despite the guardian’s scent permeating the Ridge. It is only when the spindly black mare sees her a second time, weeks later, that she is startled into believing. This time, the white mare is far closer, moving somberly through the trees, brushing against the dark green foliage and causing it to whisper and dance against the stark white flanks.
Faolain dashes after her, cat-like, down the slope and into the now-empty space through which the ghostly mare just passed. She hisses (“Chary?”) at the darkness in front of her, leaves still shivering gently, but she doesn’t follow. She is more certain than before, but she still questions her sanity while the radio static of overlapping whispers fills her deaf ear. Replies: