|
Dark
Solitude
The
bruised and swollen storm clouds had been
rolling along the horizon, battling for position
as they gathered for celestial war. She cupped
her eyes with a slender hand and gazed towards
the turbulent sky. This was the pre-cursor to
anarchy of the heavens. She knew that it was the
herald of a storm of storms. The bluster of the
elements had ravaged her mind for so long now,
that she had to search deeply within the caverns
of her memory to envisage a time when it had not
been so. The cacophonous howl of the angry wind
was as vital to her as the blood coursing
through her veins, as essential as the oxygen
she drew into her lungs, as precious a life
force as the heart that beat wildly within her
breast. The wind was both tormentor and friend,
the blessed vigilante who washes her soul of
impurity.
Sheets of rain are pelting her face. The
intrusive icicle fingers raking their nails
through her cheeks. It is cold, it stings her,
but she feels no urge to escape the needles of
pain. Hadn’t she wanted this? Hadn’t she
needed to feel this agony? Only now did she feel
alive. Only now was she aware of the need to
breathe.
Now while at the mercy of the cleansing elements
the suffocating oppression, and stifling desire
to break away had become a symphony of voices, a
four part harmony telling her to run, to pull
free of the manacles which bound her soul to
this time and place. She knew this freedom was
to be brief, and that she must soon return, to
withdraw and retreat, to the darkness and
security of the place that was her sanctuary.
Wasn’t it she, The Dark Sorceress, daughter of
Seliska, the mistress of Luskaal who after years
of barren desolation, had braved the cold and
hostile world above? She had left the solitude
of her cave, and sloughed the cramps of
hibernation and withdrawal so that she could
once again feel the breath of life upon her
pallid skin.
Now after such a brief time above, striving so
hard to gain the acceptance of, and live in
harmony with the surface dwellers, she realised
that she did not belong here. How she yearned to
walk again in the golden hills of Luskaal, but
she knew that before this day had set. She would
return to her lair to sleep the sleep of a
thousand moons, before waking refreshed to a
world that may have a place for her.
The Hellcat moved into the circle to rejoice in
the apex of the storm. She moved with stealth. A
stalking feline grace of movement. Her almond
green eyes watchful. Flashing with a fierce
intensity, aware of every blade of grass that
limboed erratically. At the centre of the circle
she stopped. Her eyes scanned the territory she
had claimed as her own. Secure in the knowledge
that she was alone, she arched her back.
Succumbing again to her feline nature. Then, she
rose like a phoenix from the ashes casting the
husk of the hell cat, tall and proud, the matted
animal skins that she wore for comfort in the
cave sloughed.
The Dark Sorceress stood amongst the tall druid
stones, resplendent in the robes of her
ancestors. She wore a gown of purple brocade
bejewelled and trimmed with gold. This was
topped with a floor length hooded black cape.
Her breasts heaved from the bodice of the robe,
as the excitement she felt from the storm raged
within and around her. With ragged breath, and
arms outstretched she flung back her head, The
hood fell away. She looked to the glistening
light of the swollen moon, and moaned her
acceptance of the storm’s possession.
Her hair, long as her torso, and black as a
raven’s eye, falls tumultuously down her back,
only to be taken by the rough caress of the wind
and thrown about her head in a halo of Medusa
like tendrils. The fingers of the wind as
persuasive as a lover yet with the harshness of
a demon massage her skull, her neck, her throat.
Throwing her hair out brutally to let it fall
softly again at it’s rest. The wind plucks at
her breast thrusting its force through her
bodice to cup her heart in its powerful grasp.
Stimulating her senses, until the surge of power
can no longer be contained within her. She opens
her mouth with a harsh gasp, and delights in the
deluge of stinging pelts of rain that flow from
her full and swollen lips, filling her mouth
with the sweet ice cold water. She swallows and
the fluid slides like glucose
down her parched throat.
She feels the fire of passion erupting like
magma within her, as the storm rapes the tainted
breath from her body, savaging the filth of the
past, purging her soul of all it’s evil,
leaving only the dark force of her brooding
maniac nature. She washes in the wind and stands
erect all power infused from the storm. She is
ready, fire of the warrior blazing within her.
She steals herself for the final onslaught.
The clouds burst, torn savagely open from within
as the forked tongue of the reptilian lightning
darts forth to taste the dark lady, only to be
deflected from her by the guardian petrified
within the stone. Again the tongue slithers
sibilantly from within the dense folds of the
mouth of the cloud. And again it hisses in
defiance and crackles with rage as it falls but
a few feet short of its temptress. Where as it
should have exploded through the breastbone and
into the heart of the Sorceress, it met instead
with the cold slate of the Leader Stone as the
lightening smashed crudely into the great druid
plinth. The pungent aroma of sulphur is emitted
within a swirling yellow mist which circles
etherically towards the dark lady. The
lightening recoils rumbling in impotent defeat
and retreats petulantly back from whence it
came, beaten and demeaned by the maniacal high
laughter of the Dark Sorceress.
With this last ritualistic windwash, and the
abatement of the storm, the sorceress felt the
flowing tide of sadness come upon her. No more
could she strive to conform to the boundaries
and restrictions that the mortals imposed upon
her. She could not fall within the confines of
their acceptance. She was of another kind forced
into a subterranean existence, hiding from the
surface dwellers who so yearned for, and yet
feared her magic.
She could never be one with them, saddened by
the brutalities of the past, and resigned to the
rejections of the future that she knew would one
day come, her disposition towards revealing too
much of herself, forced her to shy away melting
into the embrace of solitude. She had no need of
others. Yet there were those whom she had come
to care for and would always remember. The
warmth of their friendship would sustain her
during the bitter cold days and nights when the
probing breath of winter pierced the walls of
her cave. Still as much as she longed to have
the company of those few surface folk, it could
never be enough. The signs were there. She
smelled their fear, and while they said they
cared for her, their eyes were turning over the
soil at her feet, not daring to see their
denouncement of her in those iced green eyes.
The witch-hunt was assembling, soon they would
amass to bring her down, fuelled by their fear
of her difference to them.
She could see them as clearly as she could see
the morning sun in her memory. She knew that
soon the reptilian clouds and the mortals would
devour her and take away her spirit. No, better
to spend her days in the company of solitude,
than to relinquish the one thing that she could
truly call her own; Her soul.
So after taking her final windwash and purging
herself of the hurt and rejection that so often
plagues her. She turned her back on this world
and walked quietly back through the mist to the
entrance of her cave. Just as slowly she turned
her head enough to take one last glance at the
life she was retreating from. Sadness and yet
relief filled her heart, for if she was not
there, then rejection could no more reach out
it’s vicious fist to beat her.
The Dark Sorceress bent her head to enter the
gaping arch of the stone entrance and through
the mists of thoughts and memory ... she
disappeared. |
