Okay, so it took me much longer to finish this than I thought it would but I’ve finally done it! Thank-you to everyone who took the time to read and thank-you for taking the time to share your thoughts in the reviews, it was greatly appreciated.
Darkness Falls: The Epilogue
Bright as the most polished jewel the solar orb sat heavy in the sky, wrapped with the ribbons of a fresh summer’s dawn and the finest gaze; the sun was awoken from its habitual slumber and shinning in all its glory. Pink, orange and gold banners ran through the baby blue of the highland’s open range, gambolling between the soft sheets of new-born white cotton clouds. The first kindling of a warming fire on nature’s canvass was off-set by the dying plumes that rose thick and opaque into its serene presence; a smudge of dark ink knocked clumsily into still waters, dispersing at its own leisure.
All about, everything continued as normal, as if nothing could disturb the onward march of another day, another turning of the planets in their perpetual dance. The birds rose and fell in an enamelled sky, eddying on the wind’s majesty whilst echoing their enchanting song across acres of plush mountainous countryside. The trees rustled, whispering to one another in their own conspiratorial syntax, dark and light, soft and hard; they did not let their meaning on to anyone else, they kept their own council through centuries; a language all of their own. Meanwhile, the dead trees below burned. The timber ruts and beams that had stood for half a millennia crumbled in the heat, succumbing to the flames ravishing licks and their insistent nibbles until they were nothing but smouldering black heaps. They fell and decayed like life sped up, withering down into the black and white of ash and settling in sunken pits, defeated; fossils before their time. The wreckage was the final act of a story that had raged and ravaged the lives of centuries without remorse... but at last, finally...it was finished...
*
...I can’t feel anything just now. There is an abyss where my body should be, my mind is a free floating thing, detached from everything. I could be flying, I could be raised upon a current that is taking me over the Serengeti, the Rocky mountains or some wide vista or ocean I can not name. I could be doing any one of these things”I am free from feeling, from thought, from worry. I know nothing but the free-fall that could be endless. And I do not care...
...I feel the weight in my arms, a welcome weight. But right now, I’m not sure why. Everything fell into a blank, a covering of darkness from which I wasn’t sure I wanted to emerge. But right now I’m not sure why...why...
...I feel a rock, a solid surface that I lean against, that enfolds me confidently with a grip that will never let go. It is warm, it fills me with an indecipherable hope and I do not know where it comes from. For I still feel incorporeal, my body is elsewhere, it is with the elements, it has become one with them. But I feel this rock steady form beside me, around me, and I am safe. I can see. I can see within the minds eye and I know if I can only muster the strength I will see. I will see, if I can only focus on my corporeality, I will see. I focus. My body comes back; my eyes, my skin, my bones, my blood, my being but most of all the writhing of the elements. It is all coming back to me...the world around. I can smell the acrid smoke but above that is the air, fresh and free. I want to focus, if only I could open my eyes...
...She is here. Her warmth is here. It’s wrapped in my arms; her body warm against me. The vanilla and sandalwood mixing with a simple, natural harmony fills me to the brim. The soft whips of her hair brush and tickle against my face and I’m whole. She is here and I’ve got her, I have her and I won’t let her go. The beating of her heart fills my ears, it vibrates against my body; the rhythm of her life. The softness of her skin is tangible to me even through the charred remains of her clothes and I long to explore her body to confirm that this isn’t a trick of the mind, a fooling of my senses. But she stirs and it’s confirmed. She stirs in my arms as I’m slumped here on the gravel outside the ruins of the cottage and slowly out of the mass of vanilla scented and soot streaked snowy strands, she turns her face to me as I open my eyes; as beautiful as ever, marked with grazes and the black smudges of the soot, but as beautiful as ever. Her infinitely warm doe-eyes are tinged with a red around the edges but they still shine with her vitality; a vitality and determination that defies everything. She looks at me and parts her lips, full and aching to speak...
... “Logan...?”...
...I breathe the word, coming into myself at last. I breathe the word and I am here, I am with him. His strong sure arms are around me...my love. I am here and I will not let go...ever... I will not let go...
*
“It’s finished...it’s over...” Logan breathed delicately, his voice at last coming back to him, sounding foreign in his keen ears.
Ororo smiled up at him, her grip on his body tightening in her relief at the end of this nightmare. The air around them began to clear; the lingering after affect of the storm that had quenched the fire dissipating as a new born wind wound pleasantly about them.
“I know,” she replied quietly closing her eyes with faint exhaustion as the soft pressure of his lips bared down on hers.
*
The distant rumble of a car cut through the gently crackling silence. The last of the flames were burning themselves out, no food to fuel their perpetual hunger was left; it had finished. Ororo and Logan held each other as the full glory of the new days sun subtlety spread itself upon the vicinity. The unexpected storm had broken and the heaviness of cumuli had fallen away. Dampness remained on the ground, helping to scupper what few sparks of life remained in the now smoking, smouldering heap. But the rest of nature was bathed in a stark coolness; the green leaves dripping, spry and light as the grasses of the hills, glistening as if sprinkled with their usual dew. Though there was no light so bright as that which came from the two embracing figures. The dawn chorus sang and a new day began.
~Fin~
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