the tumultuous terror of a kid wonder / nowles, day 4

♫♩♪♬

The river began before the world did and the earth simply formed around it. Its origin has never been reached, the river's end further than any man has gone, so far it might as well not exist at all. It hurtles through rock, forest, body and into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. An endless closed loop, there are no tributaries, no points where the river pools, it simply runs and runs, joyful, boundless.

Sometimes it carves, cutting through the earth with intent to create a place that will need to be, or a place that already has been once. Time runs parallel with the river but can never quite keep up. It doubles back in search of the start and wastes itself and the river meets it there, again and again and falls in love with it every time.

And you are born.

Crystalline wings unfurling to catch you, you tumble out of the river's run, still a little wet, struggling to flap as you plummet to the cavern floor.

These caverns, this oasis, is simply a point where the river meets the world and you meet the world with it, inner glow sparking to life with your first breath. You're new, aren't you? Precious little thing. Before you can fall and shatter, your wings finally move. Your glow is slightly purple in hue, slightly blue. This makes you special, this makes you good.

Others of your kind come to greet you, colours all varying shades of blue. Their wings chime as they fly and you wiggle experimentally, trying to make the same sounds, to communicate. Listen you whisper, listen. The cavern fills with the sound of your chatter. It is as if someone has hung hundreds of glistening chandeliers and they sway together in the wind. The others greet you and then continue on their way, little lights leaving you to bob down various corridors like paper lanterns on a river.

This is home.

A sound rises up from below, not like yours. It is rhythmic, like the river, not like your chiming.

Not so gentle.

There's a pause in the other's sound making and then wing nudges you down. Another lands on your back lightly and the sound of crystal meeting crystal reverberates through the cavern.

Your turn.

You glide down lightly, circling the figure standing below. You've never seen one, you're far too fresh, but you know what this is because the river knows what this is.

A walking one.

You catch yourself before you can hit the ground and fly back up slowly, circling the walking one.

Come with me, you tell her, a soft melodic sound accompanying the discordant chiming of your flapping wings.

This place is new to you but you have known it so many times through other eyes and there are things that the walking one must see.

♫♩♪♬

You're hit with sudden force and you soar back through the air, rolling so quickly that your brand new wings cannot catch you at first. A stinging feeling blooms across your skin, pain, something you didn't know that you could feel until now. The wall is coming up fast behind you and you will crash into it if you do not stop yourself.

What will happen then?

Perhaps you will shatter.

No.

With great effort you extend first one wing and then the other. Your tumbling through the air slows and you flap slow at first and then faster. Like before, it's just like before when the river released you. If you can catch yourself once, you can always do it again.

You right yourself and bob back over to the walking one, extra hard so that your wings almost seem to shout at it. HEY! your wings chime, your whole being seems to vibrate as you move in front of the walking one's line of vision, LISTEN!

You fly around her head once erratically, then a second time. Inherited memories of the cavern fill you to the brim and instinct kicks in. You know which way to go first because the river knows. This walking one is dim so you grab strands of her hair with your teeth and try to pull her in the direction you want to go. The strands pull uselessly from your teeth and get caught in the breeze like a flag behind your path.

Sun streaks down into the cavern and illuminates spots on the ground. Some of them are disturbed, small craters of dirt where others of her kind landed, while most are covered in dense moss, undisturbed.

You lead her slowly, as she is stubborn, to a circle of light looking over a small patch of blood red flowers. It is hard to see the item within the mess and so it is a proud find, a good one. Relieved to have finally made it, you fly in proud little circles above your prize, your very first.

There among the poppies lies an original Adroxis Ammunition Rifle with tarnished brass filigree along the barrel. The chamber is empty and it seems that the flint used to fire is gone but it still bears the mark of the famed ammunition factory from what became known as District Nine. Poppies have grown through the trigger and up through the shaft. It is completely rooted to the spot.