Of dark edged somber wing and stirring desperate arrivals were made his mind. His wind proceeded him, a wind of shadows and desert sighs, a wind that cloaked and hid him, a wind that begat his daughter.
Of full body, though small, she arrived, a mind hungry from emptiness, a heart full from innocence with a light that shined from its center like a sliver of sunlight breaking now and again thru the treetops to light her way – and always behind, though she knew it not, was the shadow, the wing, and her mother the wind.
And she walked from the wood of her beginning, and the shadow watched from its eaves and boughs.
And she walked through the meadow before her,
smiling at its newness, for she had never seen one.
And she beheld the far village at its distant end and
said in her mind “I will go there and see all that there is”,
and through the meadow leapt the shade from stone to stone its wing cutting leaf and bough as it passed, leaving forever behind a field of sighs who’s trees looked much dismayed…
and she neither turned away nor saw this as she passed.
She came, after a short while, to a gate. It seemed odd to her that one would place something so, two columns of rock – rock that looked burnt and tortured that stood not wide enough from side to side for more than three to walk abreast, with nothing on either side to keep one from walking around them. Though the gate stood open, the making of it was clear as the tines and bars hung from hinges on either side, opened inward as if blown by a great force, burned and broken like the rock.
The light of her shone then, at its utmost, into the village which it was her desire to see. From door to door, window to window, her eyes took in all there was to see. They lit at last upon the well, a singular thing that seemed the center of the rest, and she stepped, without glance or further thought, through the battered gates. The shadow thrilled as she stepped through, all but upon her heels it rushed forward through the broken spells, free at last to pass where all else had failed.
She stepped into the village square and saw the people there. She saw the fear in their eyes and did not understand it. She saw them back away and hide, some looking back at her as they fled, others turning to look and stopping with eyes glazed in terror. She looked at them and at herself and saw only that she wore no clothing. She did not see the shadow and the wing, she did not feel the hot and arid wind, they were always aside from her gaze and did not encroach upon her person, but the villagers saw and fled and knew that all was undone and that it was the end. When all had gone from her sight she felt tired – tired from the unhappiness she felt for the first time. She curled up in the village square, and rested in her nakedness from the unhappiness and her first day’s toil. And while she slept the shadow slew and the wing covered and the desert wind dried and blew away all that had ever been there, and then the shadow rested too and played in the moonlit village, his now for the ages.
...and we began their making!