Falls

The windswept beach felt almost warm after Tinuvel’s unrelenting cold, and the vivid colors of the trees’ autumn plumage so bright that her pale eyes slit half-shut against them. For all its beauty, Solomon’s Cove was a landscape of monochromes— of brown earth and stone or a white veil of snow, interrupted only by the eternal green of its pines. And a quiet place too, where once it stood bursting to the seams with life and laughter. In the earliest days of that silence, the silver-black mare was grateful for it, welcoming the freedom it won her from stammered excuses and half-hearted evasions. But in time, the absence of these things became heavy to bear, and the hush echoed deafeningly in her ears. In time, the solemn beauty of the mountains was lost— fled to a more forgiving land, perhaps, like so many of the nameless creatures who’d once flowed up and down their sides.

Leaving it empty and aching, like a reflection of Sabriel’s own heart.

With a final quavering breath, the slender woman slid reluctantly free of the white-foam tumble of surf. For a creature with neither purpose nor destination, the strides that she took were steady and certain; her limbs moving almost of their own accord. Following a path that no longer existed, ignoring the scratch of bare branches across her skin as she chased memories. Moving faster and faster with each step, until her journey became a headlong flight through mountain and forest. Until the chilly air burned in her lungs, and the almost-inaudible hum of the distant Falls became a soft roar that shook her bones. Slowing to emerge into the clearing, Sabriel felt the tremor spread outward, like ripples in a still pool— felt her dark skin begin to quiver, even as her nostrils flared.

And he wasn’t here. They weren’t here. No-one was here.

Not even herself.

Too hollow for tears, the white-swirled mare drifted towards the pool, her fluid strides breaking into something wooden, uncertain. There was nothing she wanted less than to dip her muzzle into the chilly water, despite the dull burn of her thirst. There was nothing she wanted less than to stay here another moment, a shadow amongst the ghosts of her memories. Memories of Solomon and Bondurant, of Lirael and Sephrioth and Uriah most of all. Regrets piling on top of regrets like the stones of a grave-cairn, concealing at its center the tattered remnants of her heart.

She’d given up everything for her children. Torn her heart willingly from her chest for their sake, and— and— How could they have left her? Her lips bare inches from the water’s surface, Sabriel choked on a strangled sob. Her warm breath stirred the glassy surface into ripples that spread outward and outward, forming a map of a single fateful decision and its endless consequences.

Everything.

That was what her heart had cost her.