And the days carried themselves through into nights. And the nights swept over, leading to the mornings which flooded across the battlefield of the damned. The landscape was scarred with the rapid transformation from child to adult, but she was quite content with it. She slept soundly in the heart of the meadow where flowers bloomed in waves of pink or surges of blue. Such turmoil. And she was at the centre of it. The eye of the storm—though hardly a calm one.
And she lived in the midst of battlefield. In a room, not quite messy—though far from neat. And she ended each long day in the battlefield, with the door to her room closed tightly behind her. And it was odd that even though door was closed to contain the storm, the very act of closing it spread the storm outside. To the Others. And soon, as the moon rose and set, the battle she was waging became a battle not only with herself, but with the Others on the outside.
Because she’d once needed them to fight all her battles for her, they now felt unnecessary, as the cyclone of her life spun wildly. They felt alone. And she tried to change their minds. Words left her lips and traveled to their ears. But those words were distorted once they encountered their minds. For all that she fought, her logic was lost on them. Lost on the enemy. . . .
And she wandered through the battlefield while the moon rose and set. And she watched her cyclone spin and lay waste everything in its path. And she plucked pale roses from the damaged land and held them until their thorns pricked her skin.
Once outside, she learned to coat her tongue with sweet words to keep the battles at bay. Sometimes she was just too tired to fight. So tired. . . . Even the sweetness in her mouth tired her.
But something quite unexpected happened. The battlefield flushed with a warm glow and the Other One beckoned to her. Say goodnight, say goodnight. . . . A duty, a chore, a must. No, the Other One gestured, no words to get in the way this time. Without warning she was pulled into the Other One’s arms.
And almost by instinct she let herself be enveloped. And she closed her eyes and felt the softness of her mother’s touch. She breathed in the smell that brought back memories she could not recall. She closed her eyes to the cyclone that tore around her and looked instead into the deep well of thought . . . . And she held on for love. And she held on for breath. But mostly she held on for dear life.
And while the cyclone still scars the land and pale roses prick her flesh, she has that much to claim as her own. And it’s enough.