where have you gone my feather-light heart?
At first, Echo had recoiled from him, even though there was nothing in his tone that registered as a threat, no oiliness to his words, nor any dark intentions hidden behind a façade of hospitality. The blind mare was no stranger to guises, and the way stallions oft wore them. Iscariot was not Icarus, but the despairing mare sensed the same sort of innocence in the stranger before her as she had (in time) sensed in the curious soul that had followed her here, once upon a time, unknowingly serving as a guide to her, without even realising. As quickly as her silent guardian had doused what remained of her hope, Iscariot breathed life back into it.
Echo felt it burning within her, even as Iscariot’s words lingered in the air between them. …I came to help you. If – if I can.
“Please,” the blind mare had gasped, desperation pulling her request up from the darkness in her depths, a darkness put there by stallions who were a far cry from all that Iscariot was. She found herself choking on her own words – the heat of them scorching her throat, even as she stumbled forwards, blindly seeking the form of her unknowing saviour. Only once she felt the line of his shoulder, anxiously mapping the curve of his neck with her soft muzzle in an attempt to prove himself real to her, did she settle, trembling beside him.
It felt like her mouth was full of ash, for how dry and bitter her words tasted. She had no right to ask such a thing from a stranger, let alone one whom she knew nothing more about save for his name, and that she’d intruded upon him in his own home. But Echo was at her wit’s end. She didn’t know what else to do. Heartbreaking as it was, and bordering on insane, maybe, considering how little she knew and how alone she’d become, the blind mare believed that this was for the best. Mad, she might very well be going mad, but even her waking hours had become nightmarish, and Echo truly believed if she did nothing, she’d lose her mind to the fear – or even worse; her soul.
She still held out hope that Rowena would find her. It was from her mother that Echo got her strength. All that Dances had to offer was that broken things can survive. All she had to do was to keep fighting until she found someone capable of fixing her.
And so, with a tremor in her being, Echo had finally forced it out: the terrible truth that had brought her to these shores. “Please I need you to, I need you to do it before they find me. I can’t, I can’t-,” she broke off a wretched sob rising in her throat. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, and yet she’d swallow the guilt if it meant she’d be granted reprieve from the sickening dread for the remainder of this season. There was no thinking of the future, or what consequences this reckless decision she was determined to make would bring. The responsibilities. All Echo knew was that she could not bear to spend one more day flooded with terror and startling at every little sound, thinking ‘this is it,’ and brokenly uttering a silent prayer that the monster who caught her this time be gentle.
At least this time, she’d be ready, and it would be her choice.
She could only hope that Iscariot wouldn’t turn her away, as her voiceless shadow had. And somehow, Echo felt like she was taking some of Iscariot’s choice away from him. (It was why she had come, not for Iscariot, but for Icarus, because she’d perceived that he wouldn’t be able to say no.) Part of her would feel guilty for this, and it would be a burning weight she’d carry for a long, long time. “If you do this for me,this one thing, I promise I’ll ask no more of you, and expect nothing from you. I will leave, if you wish it. I can’t, I can’t wait, I can’t go through it all again. Please, Iscariot, please understand.” And it filled her with shame, the way she begged, and yet even in her brokenness, she couldn’t be any less cryptic or vague in her desires, hoping that he’d take her meaning, without her having to speak of the trauma of her past aloud. All the while, she sought to remain at his side, curled into him; a fragile and fretful girl with unshed tears glistening in her hazy eyes. “Please, Iscariot, please,” she beseeched with a ragged whisper, the very embodiment of the name she had been give. “My name is Echo, and I need - I need you.”
And how she longed for a day when she’d need for nothing; for the day when her proximity with other stallions was not something she was forced to endure, or was driven to seek in some kind of attempt at self-preservation. It would be far more beautiful to Echo than any other, the day she wanted such a thing, truly, and was wanted in return, not for what she could give, but for what she was.
----------
The blind mare had become something of a spectre, haunting the inhabitants of the Ridge as she wandered silent between the trees. After being so open and vulnerable with Iscariot when they’d first met, Echo had become closed off and relatively distant. She was meek and polite toward those who started conversations with her, but kept her head bowed as though (strangely ignorant of her own blindness) she was ashamed to meet the eyes of those she dwelt among as a relative stranger, or afraid of the pity that might be felt in her behalf for all that she felt her expression was ever an open book, telling the story of all that she had endured, if her wheedling of Iscariot wasn’t enough of a clue.
And still, Echo lingered, because he allowed it. In the secret recesses of her heart, the blind bay mare held out hope that her mother would find her, or her father, but as the days wore on, and her belly grew bigger, Echo disappeared deeper into herself, even as she sought solitude in the quieter parts of the Ridge. Out of sight, Echo believed it’d be easier to be out of mind. Yet, even as she stubbornly clung to her self-imposed isolation, in her heart she missed her children with a fierceness that frightened her. Where was Eastwise now? Had he been swayed, as she feared he might’ve been, to his father’s side? And Ravena. Was her sweet little dreamer safe? Echo tried not to think of the child she still carried within her. Guilt was a strange thing. She had loved her others deeply, in spite of their existences being something Echo hadn’t asked for. And now she distanced herself even from her unborn babe, feeling unworthy of the blessing it had been for her.
Could it sense the fear that still lay coiled within her heart, albeit in a different form?
Echo believed so. Why else would the child choose to come not long after she had shied away from a voice calling out to her, and sought shelter behind the veil of a waterfall, which hid her from sight, covered her scent, and drowned out her sound. It was there, alone and in dank darkness that Echo went into labour. This time, there was no soothing voice of her mother, no reassuring presence of the stallion who’d only ever protected her, nameless to this day for his lack of a voice, but never forgotten. It was her own fault and folly, and Echo sobbed as the realisation washed over her, chilling her to the bone. “Iscariot, Iscariot,” she cried between spasms, gasping at the pain rippling through her abdomen. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” It wasn’t fair, none of it was. Not the asking in the first place, nor the distance she’d taken care to maintain between them. And now, here she was, hidden away in her little cave where she’d always felt safe… But if something happened to her, or to the babe, Iscariot may never know. And he deserved more than that.
He deserved so much more.
Gritting her teeth and stifling the next groan of pain, Echo shook free from her diaspora of misery with what little courage she had left, and whispered a promise. “Don’t worry little one… I won’t give up. Not now, not after everything…” And in the darkness of her world, Echo no longer felt so alone. Weakly, she lifted her head from the damp stone, face turning towards the opening of the small cavern. She could not tell, over the sound of the water curtaining the entrance, if she’d heard the sound of someone entering or if she’d imagined it. There was no scent in her nostrils but earth and rock. But the thought of not being entirely alone bolstered her spirits, and she was no longer afraid.
“Forgive me,” she panted. Another spasm of pain. “Don’t worry.” She no longer knew why she was speaking aloud, after all, she could not be sure anyone was there to hear her, lost as she was in the clouding pain. But it was not breath wasted, for she drew strength from the sound of her own voice, and marvelled at the way it rang so smooth and sure – like a deep river that could be stopped by no obstacle in its path and would never run dry. And something akin to a promise left her lips, perhaps for Iscariot, and the child that would always be a connection between them, a blessing and a boon. Perhaps for her mother, who would fight to the end for her, and her father, who carried guilt in his heart alongside his love. Perhaps the promise was for her children, whom she might never see again. But part of it was for Echo herself, and with hope blossoming within her, she clung to the resonance of her words. “I will be okay.”
Echo
YOU MUSTN’T FORGET WHAT LOVE CAN SEE |
