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The cloud of chilled breath rushed over his lips. His feet touched the weightless ground, if it were ground at all.
His muscles ached, the bones underneath those crackled like burning wood.
He tried to make out the familiar scene in the darkness but his eyes betrayed him. Wicked illusions danced just outside his peripheral. He breathed in deep waiting for more.
The screams and shouts forced his outstretched mind to recoil back into safety. Friends and family, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters had been set against each other. How long had this been going on, Sutra was unsure. Questions began to flood his mind.
He slept wanting it to all go away.
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The caress aroused him back to consciousness.
Blurred vision, he could see her. Her sky blue eyes, golden shadows for a flowing mane, the fires of ten thousand suns for her mouth. The blood of a lifetime for her painted lips.
She smiled.
Sutra's hand reached up to touch her, to put his aching heart to rest.
She didn't pull back but she was just outside of his reach. She smiled again and pressed her finger to her lips. He understood.
With unfocussed vision he sat up, knees bent up to his chest, arms crossed resting on his knees.
'...look...'
her outstretched arm pointed past his right cheek. He could feel the warmth emanating from her. He wanted to go home.
'...not yet...'
Anger and regreet bound freely in his heart, he wanted to let it all go. he wanted to be home, with her.
'...there...'
Like a veil that was pulled from his eyes, the shock of vibrant shades of cyans and magentas assaulted him. He concentrated harder.
In the rolling hills of life giving green, he could see twikling stars separated by great stretches of land. He could see a blood red horizon, framed by the deepest black he had ever seen.
He could see what seemed to have been the sun, fallen from the sky, laying languidly in the center of the landscape. It's light seemed to be fading.
Sutra wanted to ask why...
'...Because they have lost their way...'
The dawn, she said would bring the answers.
He waited.
It did.
She pointed to the terrible horizon. He must have missed them, but there outlined by the blood red dusk, stood four defiant towers. Above their pinnacles blazed their distinct symbols. The marks of the four deities that had come to sow discord in the Emerald Hills.
'...if they succeed...then nothing you love will survive...'
He knew what she was about to ask. Sutra could not answer. He had tried before to capture his feelings in writing and had failed miserably. it was his spirit that had betrayed him, he would fail her this time.
'...do you love me?...'
The stars shone brightly, each separate and unique to the other. Her elegant hand reached out again, pointing to the fading sun in the middle. She pointed to the northen most star, and began to trace out the image.
At it didn't make sense, a star here, another there. But she was patient with him.
Slowly it began to come together.
The wings, the broad shoulders, the elegant chest, an eternal tail. he could make out the details more than ever before.
He was missing the beak and the eyes. He could not make the head, the head that pointed to the right. She laughed.
It washed over him like the trickling cascade of a million chimes. She laughed harmoniously.
'...closer...'
With all his might he squinted.
It no longer looked to the left or the right.
It was looking up. It's head was thrown back, as if in the agony of death.
'...closer...'
No, it was in the moments of rebirth. He could feel it.
Without word, the start began to reach out to each other, beams of light emanating, reaching out and grasping it's brothers and sisters, like a lit figure of burning powder, the figure began to take on life.
The eyes burned again. The figure had been drawn out with light, slowly the stars turned to the fading sun and in unison they directed their life towards it's mother.
Nothing.
'...wait...'
Darkness.
The earth shook. The sound of the breeze stopped.
The roar forced him to stand.
It was the explosion that knocked him against something hard. The colors came to him in song and expression. It was the sun, the fading sun no more. It's instantaneous light drowned out all thoughts and feelings. The sun had been reborn.
He could feel his emotion burn away, his spirit was set ablaze. He could feel it and welcomed it.
The intense heat was more than he could handle. He prepared to scream.
His blissful agony echoed.
Panting heavily, he clinched his teeth and breathed.
The cool breeze felt cool against his drenched forehead.
He slid down the hard surface behind him.
The sky is blue, the earth is green, and the age is gold.
He leaned against the tree with anxious breath.
Sleep Sutra...sleep.
S
[con't]
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The general who advances without seeking fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do service for his sovereign, is the jewel of his kingdom. -Sun Wu
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