The breeze.

The breeze now whipping up from behind the tall bevel of the mountain, up and over, rippling through the leaves, dancing through the blades of dewy grass to the fields of corn; through the leaves on the trees, through the quivering flowers that lay beneath their sinewy trunks. The breeze casting itself, invincible and indomitable, against the stone grey walls of the city, square and impregnable upon the western tor. The breeze, pushing the clouds to the ends of the earth, to the edge of the blue and beyond to lands unknown and untouched, save only in dreams of longing and desire. The breeze, chasing their footsteps as they ran, down the winding path that led from the city down to the plains where all was green and untamed and old and yet youthful.

Here on the plains of grass she had grown; amongst the trees of the forest she had blossomed into womanhood, nurtured by Nature, two sides of yet one whole. Glorious now it seemed in all its simple wonder, these fields, these mountains, these plants and these creatures. How perfectly content the world seemed, how easily it sustained life without effort, without trial or tribulation. How easy it must be to say; 'There shall be life,' and to see it unfold at your bidding, at your whim. No illusions, no magic. So simple, so effortless.

They stop. In the sky, a myriad of colours where the glistening of the sun catches their eyes. And then the clouds, no longer thin wisps but thick and looming, creeping up behind the highest peaks of the mountains, the mountains that had framed all her earliest childhood memories.

“Here,” she tells him softly, “Here I remember standing and first seeing the city. Like a god of stone it seemed to me, dark and cold, waiting to race down the hill and suddenly grasp me in its crushing embrace. There was a time I would have challenged that embrace, there was a time I would have fought it off with all the strength of youth I once had. But now...”

Men pouring from the city gates, dressed in gold, glimmering in the sun...Rushing to embrace her in arms of cold steel...Swallowing her up...

He looks at her, then back to the towering form of the city up on the hill. Now it too seems different to him, for the first time in his life it does not look like his home but somewhere cruel and menacing in the middle of the wilderness: she can see the sudden dimness of regret in the sky blue of his eyes.

Now he sees it too, she thinks. How much that city fills me with hate and fear. It is as though those walls have reached out for me, and taken away a part of my heart, a part of my innocence. How I loathe it now. How I loathe the sight of that great cold thing.

A drum roll of thunder voices the intensity of her hate. Suddenly the breeze is a gale, and rips at the hem of her virginal white dress. The sky darkens grey, the clouds blot out the sun casting claw-like shadows over the haggard length of the city. Monstrous and black it looks now, twisted and evil. Curse you! it seems to say. Curse you, Nava, and all your petty hate! I hold you, I hold you forever! Run if you must, but always I will hold you! Run! Run!

Now there is rain.

Rain, hard and cold, pelting against the bareness of their skin. Her eyes flicker onto him beside her, and the familiar sense of longing clutches at her stomach.

“We must find shelter,” he says. Silly him, there is desperation in his voice. Who cares for the rain? His voice sounds again, now questioning at her silence. “Nava?”

The wetness seeps through the flimsy material of her gown and awakens her; her voice, detached, weary almost, says: -

“Follow me.”

A shallow cave at the base of the mountain, wide and spacious, cold but dry. Inviting almost, in the midst of the storm - but she had been here before, and it held no comfort for her. The thick dun walls were slimy with the grievous memories of years gone past. She almost feared treading that rocky ground, that floor so moss-covered with bitter remembrance. But the chill and the damp had forced her in there, and now she clasps hold of her arms with pale hands, shivering, teeth chattering violently. Through the limp strands of her auburn hair she observes him, shaking the droplets out of his hair, wringing the moisture from his clothes. For a wild moment she considers bridging the suddenly overwhelming gulf between them, throwing her arms about him and pressing warm kisses to the cold wetness of his skin. But the thoughts disturb her, and she draws herself up against the wall, feeling the dank contours of the rock rasp across the length of her arm. She gags at the contact, wanting to vomit.

Not now! she thinks. Don't think about this now! Please!

“Nava?” his voice, full of concern.

“I'm all right. I'm fine, really. It's nothing.”

Except for the rain. She can hear the silver drops of the water from deep within the cave, teasing, tantalising to madness. Drip, drip, drip. Is it even water anymore? she thinks. Is it? Last time I came here it was not the water that dripped away. Oh father, where are you?

Blood. Blood, red and dark, warm and sticky, throbbing still with life it seemed, yet in this semblance only stealing life, not giving it, leaking it away like a puncture in a sandbag. She had thought, in her youth, that living in a world without any boundaries, far away from the walls of the city, she had been given a freedom that could never be robbed from her. Somehow Nature would protect her, guide her, make her one of its own. But no. Here in this cave, a little cove of dripping recollections, his life had ebbed away from hers on a tide of red, and Death had caught her anyway. Now she realised it - the only certainty in life was Death and its walls were ever nigh enclosing in about them all - and then, in the scarlet liquid glistening so vividly in the flickering candlelight, she would gladly have welcomed such an end herself.

She would have lain beside him there; and the cave, her childhood castle, her wendy-house of fancies and daydreams, would have been her tomb. All life meets death, all death meets life. Men drink water and then drown in it; rejoice in the sun and then curse it in times of drought; plant trees only to displant them; are born and then destroy one another.

She knew, oh she knew. In that instant all things revealed themselves for what they were, and she could see no joy, no beauty in them. Even as she had watched the blood drip from the wounds in her wrists, she had marvelled at the price she had placed on her smooth olive skin, when in reality it was so fragile, so vulnerable, so pathetic. It had not bothered her, to be owned by another. Her body was an ugly, decaying thing - did Dain really believe that he had held her all that time? She had not been there, all the times he had tried to make her love him she had been far, far away and had had no intention of ever coming back.

You are alive, Nava...You are still here...I won't let you go, Nava. I love you, I won't let you go.

Hypocrite.

She had wanted to love him back. But she could not. She was dead inside, and he could not make her alive again. She was happy this way. All the times she heard him during her feverish delirium, she had been happy to play dead and pretend to fight for a life that was not worth living. She could wait. She could wait for something to come.

Some vain hope struggled within her, a hope that someday her wounds would heal and she would love Dain. But his eyes as he gazed upon her, so bright with his desire for her; they kindled nothing within her. His touch did not arouse her, and though his mind and intellect intrigued and interested her, the offer of his heart repulsed her. His want for her blinded him to her own self, her own soul. All he saw was a lonely, frightened woman, a trembling fledgling he could spread his wings around and protect. But no wings now could cover the nakedness of her bruised and battered spirit. She was left alone to face the world; to face the city, to face the cave. Who could protect her from these things? No one could. No one could take them away from her sight or her mind. No one could tear her existence from this world except her own self. And she, so brave, so courageous all her life long had been too scared to end it all.

Even seeing him lying there, even wishing to be there with him, it was not enough. She was too weak. The city still dominated her. The cave still stabbed at the core of her.

Death still dogged at her heels in its inescapable inevitability when all she had wanted was freedom from this endless nightmare.

********************************************************

Shivering violently for the cold, Nava and Eiven drew closer together. This was the reaction of two animals thrown together in the midst of adversity, and in the silence of their individual wonderings they scarcely noticed it. Outside the arrowheads of rain punctured a lonely picture of the world, and there, in their mean place of refuge, they seemed so self-contained, so cut off from the cares of the city.

It is better like this, she thinks. It is better to face a violent past rather than a violent future. We will stay here for a while. Oh, how much I want to stay with him!

He shifts against her awkwardly. The fabric of his sleeve grates against her arm, and every fibre titillates her, drawing her away from the vicious cycle of her memories.

“Where should we go to now?” he asks, his question echoing with lonely despondency down into the deeper nooks of the cave.

“I don't know,” she admits shortly, but neither does she care. With one hand she releases the coils of copper hair at the nape of her neck, letting the sodden locks splay over her cheeks and shoulders. He stares at her, wordless admiration opened wide upon his face, but his hands remain still, and after a moment the expression is gone from him.

Where should we go now?

Nava did not know.

It had seemed so natural to her, for the two of them, so similar and yet so different, cast together so haphazardly through pain and hate, to run away to this place. Here, two exiles of the same kind, two lost wanderers hungering for the same things, they could find their place, their spot, their future. How stupid she had been to presume that! Now here they were in the rain, wet and cold, miserable and uncertain; the ghosts that had haunted her had not left this place, and now they laughed at her, taunted her, molested the innermost vaults of her being.

Why? Why had she thought that running away with him would chase away the ghosts of her past? The answer was mind-numbingly simple. Because of all things left for her in this world, she found him beautiful, beautiful beyond compare. Where her childhood fantasies of bird flight, where her dancing amongst the flowers and her challenging of the mountain... where all their beauty was dead to her, now he alone interested her, and captivated her lost sense of wonder. His face was so open, so uncomplicated; the blueness of his eyes was so calm and accepting, even of the bitter experiences of his own life. His long, thin fingers, shaped things so easily, reached out for the world with reverence and sensitivity. Even the way he stood enthralled her, for in it he seemed to welcome the world and embrace it where her own stance hemmed her in, guarded and defensive. But of all these things, every breath that quivered in his throat reminded her of the perfection and consistency that still somehow remained contained within life - and that wonder was the best of all, for it made her want to cling to this world a little longer, if only for the sake of him.

“We must leave soon,” he sighs, “I can't bear to stay around here a minute longer. That place holds nothing for me anymore. I hate it.”

Her stomach clenches miserably. Out of her own foolishness she forced them here, hoping to find something tangible in the void that lay between them. Nothing but the past was here, and of course, he could not see it. He could not.

“I'm sorry,” she says slowly, “I shouldn't have brought us here. There is nowhere for us to run to now. How can we escape what will only remain inside us to the end? I am a fool for thinking I could help you run away from it all, from the demons that haunted you in that place.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “That place means nothing to me now. I have already left it, in my heart. Wherever you take me, it will make no difference. I am ready to start anew. I am not afraid anymore.”

How she wished she could say the same! What kind of world did he live in, so bright, so optimistic? Why could she not see things in the same light he did?

“Then let us stay here,” she murmurs, “in this cave of memories. Teach me to see it for what it really is, and then I will follow you into that future, and we will go there together.”

He looks about him, into the depths of the creeping, crawling cave, his expression questioning.

“This cave...of memories?”

“My father died here,” she told him, softly. It did not seem hard to say the words, even now, even so soon. She is almost surprised.

“Here?” he repeats; his voice lowers. “I am sorry.”

“So many people said that to me after it happened,” she returned on a breath. “But it meant nothing. I was not sorry. I was angry and in agony. I was walking in a dream of disbelief, as people say, but it was only disbelief that this is the cruel reality of life and that we cannot escape it.

“I took him here in silence as his life-blood fled away, and I felt like a child again, so weak and helpless. And as the battles raged outside how insignificant they seemed, how irrelevant, and I could see him slipping away and could do nothing.”

There is a face in the doorway, looking on. The pale, handsome features, the dark bloodstained hair. Who...? Dain, is that you?

“Go on,” he whispers gently, breaking the memory, letting it shatter on the surface of her mind, ripple outward until its significance fades into obscurity and is lost to her.

“What is there to tell?” she half smiles. “One moment here, gone the next - the line between life and death is so fine that it cannot be comprehended. Even now I cannot fathom it.” She exhales, suddenly breathless, amazed at her own frankness, her own audacity. I shouldn't have said that, she thinks, I shouldn't have said that and now he'll think I'm weak, and I am, oh I can't help it, I am.

“I never knew my father,” his reply comes on a sigh, and she watches on with a mixture of relief and foreboding as his breath catches the air as a cloud of white moisture. “But somehow he was still there, on the faces of my mother and brother. And in their betrayal, he betrayed me too. Because he left me, and he did nothing.”

He looks upward to the ashen sky sheathed in the pale silken veil of rain. The profile of his face touches her heart in all its finely sculpted elegance; but now his eyes are pale, and ambiguous.

“Numbness I feel now, as though a limb had been cut away and I cannot feel pain for the shock of it,” - his words now were slow, despondent – “Now I would rather feel something, I would rather be sad that I have left Eve,” - a pause – “and Edgar, and mother. But there is nothing, I feel nothing for any of those things. I only feel cold. Am I wicked, Nava? Am I wicked?”

She gazes upon him in awe at his words. Oh, they were, they really were! They really were two of the same species of mad thing!

“Funny, isn't it,” he continues, not turning to look at her, but lowering his eyes to the ground, his brow furrowed. “Whole things become contaminated by death, by betrayal and by hate. That city I can no longer stand to see because I connect it to a past that has so cruelly been sold by those I love the most; but it does not change things, not really. It is only bricks and mortar. It cannot hurt me.”

“Yet still it does,” she murmurs, her eyes still on him. “Regardless it tears at you, and strives to hold you in its grasp.”

He turns to her then and smiles, a smile half of agreement, half of resignation. “Just as this cave tears at and strives to grasp on to you.” He reaches out then, just as she always imagined he would; but his hand grasps her wrist and he turns them to face him, to face the world, that damp, hateful world she had been trying to hide them from.

Her heart sinks. Oh, she thinks. I did not know that he had noticed. Oh shameful evidence of her own insecurity, of her slow descent into insanity. The scars of her instability, of her courtship with Death. In mortification she raises her eyes to his, but his gaze is clear and accepting as ever. Still he holds her hand, and his thumb subconsciously feels along the rough contours of the long thin blemish on her skin.

“I understand now,” he says, quietly.

Oh, do you? she begs him silently. Do you understand that as I had sat there and watched the blood flow from me, I didn't care, I smiled, I wanted Death to come and take me?

But that face at the door...He stops me, panic in his eyes... "No, Nava, don't! Don't leave me!" Stark admission in his eyes, and she sees his weakness, his goddamn weakness... Oh it's me, it's me, I thought he was a hero, I thought I would have to make him love me... But now the blood ends where he begins, just as it had begun when he had stood by and watched my father die and did nothing.

The memory jerks her into motion. She pulls her arm from him, stands up. Walks to the entrance, her hand trembling against the hard rock wall as she struggles to hold herself upright. Never had she allowed anyone to touch those scars so intimately. Now she feels bare and exposed to him, the one person she thought she could hide her all-consuming madnesses from.

“You shouldn't have,” she chides him, her voice trembling, “You shouldn't have done that.”

“Did you hate so much?” he questions her, his voice etched with sadness.

“Yes,” she nods. A streak of lightning illuminates the sky; a second and the thunder cracks into existence. “I hated the emptiness. I hated that space in my life. My father taught me to love, and he taught me to fight; he taught me to laugh and to cry; he shared my joys and halved my troubles; stood in my shadow, held my hand in times of need, scolded me in times of desperation. He talked to me of all these things, even death; sacrificed a part of his life to me, just as I did to him, just as all of the same flesh and blood do in their unique and inextricable bond.

“How then does it feel to have that part of yourself denied and rejected in death? How does it feel to have all those precious long years of love and companionship erased in a split second, by something so silent, so invisible, so swift? How does it feel for one's heart and soul to face a void that stretches on into the future, never to be replaced? How does it feel to see that Death captures all things in this world, that the delicate flowers in the valley, that the trees in the forests, that the scurrying creatures and the pitiful men, that all the beauty and shaping of the living gives way to rot and decay? This is what I hated, I hated a world where everything I saw reflected the death of the one I loved, where their fresh loveliness was promised only an end in defenceless disintegration.

“But most of all I hated myself for being too weak to stop this part of my life from being ripped away from me, for being so helplessly impotent when all my life I'd been able to make the world do what I wanted!” She raised her head then, the bitterness of her tirade enveloping her in an anguish so great that she shook with it. “Father!” she cried out into the storm. “Oh father! Where are you! Why did you leave?! Why couldn't I make you stay?!”

Hot tears pick up where the crescendo of words leaves off, sole and precious one by one they drop from her eyes, and suddenly she realises that in all that long, long time since that ill-fated event, not once had she cried, not a single tear had she shed since then.

“Nava,” his voice is suddenly behind her, gentle and comforting. “Nava, you should not have hated yourself, or the world. There are things we loathe eternal, that is true, but what do the birds know of our suffering? What do the flowers, in their simple perfection, see of our hurts? Do they not die only to be born anew once more? Do not all things die to new and better life? The circles of the world repeat the history of the past, and while places such as this cave serve to remind us of hateful memories out of time, all else serves to remind us that every moment we are reborn, just as life is eternally reclaimed.”

A pause; his fingers curl about her shoulder, pinprick points of stars on her tremulous flesh.

“That is why, although I hate, and although I regret, the world gives me hope, somehow. And I will seek whatever it is that promises me new life elsewhere. Already it leads me to new and wonderful things, even now when all seems to sad and uncertain do I see hope, do I see promise. In you, Nava.”

She had once had a dream, in the hours of delirium and fever where Dain had sat ever by her right side, and Tal by the other. In her dream she had sat at the foot of a wise and patient teacher in a field of golden corn; and he had sung a song to her with words she could not understand. Beautiful though the harmony was, the inability to decipher the lyrics had frustrated and tormented her. And yet, every so often, a word she recognised would become clear to her in the song, and it filled her with such overwhelming joy and elation that she felt comforted, and somehow certain of purpose. And when the song was ended, that ancient teacher had touched her head with one great hand, and she had felt the warmth of his smile upon her heart.

“Hark now, this song; for through the ages it remains unchanged, and therein lies your life and all your dealings Nava, my dear child. And though bitterness courts you as well as joy, none shall add to your song, and none shall take away from it. Nothing that has been, but lasts on still; nothing that will be, but has been already: where death cuts off, new life will be promised you, and what you search will surely seek you in turn, and it will find you. For that, I promise, has verily been sung into your song, and so it shall remain.”

Her hope, her reason, it stood beside her, so plain to see - how blind had she been?

“Eiven,” Say it, bridge the gap, connect what you know is meant to be one, what you knew was one whole from the very beginning... “I need you.”

The confession, crushing, impulsive, spontaneous and bold. Yet he knew, he knew already, because his arms enfolded her from behind, and she felt his ruddy breath in her hair, tense and ragged, foolhardy, reckless.

“Nava...”

No; not now - I don't want to think now.

“...I was afraid to say it before...”

I know, you feared to hold me, you feared to leave your old loves behind and make me, so fiercely neurotic, your new.

“...I need you too...”

Oh Eiven, you are not wicked, you are only like me. You are scared and alone, and to believe you are wicked only serves to fill the chasms of sadness that lie buried deep in your heart.

It is her own voice now, hoarse, broken.

“Eiven...”

Unbidden she turns, reaching out with longing to the place she needs to be. Was this a dream? Had she ever awakened from the old at all? Was all that searching just a walking fantasy; was the instinctive knowledge that they were somehow linked through more than just this world and this time nothing more than just an idyllic reverie? No. It could not be. He was here, he was holding her. If she drew back now she would see...

...His face, the kindler of her imagination. In an instant she sees the beauty of the world she had lost reflected in his eyes. Every moment she had ever lived, all the experiences of her life were stored in every curve and line of his face. Did she dare to reach out for it with her own? Did she dare to recapture the things she had professed to loathe? Why did she question? Her lips were already upon his; they had already begun their descent into the spiral, the spiral down to the rain-soaked place of no return.

Oh Eiven, teach me. Teach me to love once more.

Soldiers pouring from the city, armour flickering in the sun. The clashing of swords as they rushed to meet them, the crashing of weapons as they beat against one another, the battle cries ringing up and up, into the blue, met by the harsh dissonance of the raven's caw overhead. Fire and triumph within her as she fells one man, and then another; she is confident and unstoppable in her own untameable strength.

Then a different cry, a uniting of terror and pain, smiting her ears with gut-wrenching familiarity; and her heart racing like a piston within the walls of her chest as she jumps and leaps over blood-stained blades and corpses like a wild thing, shouting into the midst of the clamour: -

“FATHER!”

Men flooding towards her in an endless cascade, falling, insignificant, inconsequential.

"Nava!"

She sees him now, her dark-haired hero, feels his hand clutching at her shoulder, holding her back.

"No, don't go there! They will kill you! Let him go!"

"No!" With one movement she shakes him off, and leaps into the melee about her father's body. With the madness of grief and rage she slices at the clambering vultures who have defiled the man who shaped her life, killing all who stand in her path. Bloody and battered that great chieftain lay before her, barely there but still breathing.

"Tal!" she calls, "Tal, help me!"

Where was he? Fighting somewhere, probably dead himself. In despair she hovers about her father, uncertain, desperate.

"Father," her voice wavers into existence, thin, child-like. "Help me, father. Tell me what to do."

One eye opens, somehow focuses on her. His mouth jerks with movement, reveals nothing more than a crack of blood. "Nava," she thought he said.

Tears blinding her, insanity clouding her mind, she takes him beneath the arms and drags him away from the battlefield, down the slope and into the cave that she had played out her childhood daydreams in. There he lies, broken and inhuman, corrupting the innocence of the past he had shared with her, discarding it with every failing breath.

"Father," she weeps, kneeling beside him, touching his arm, his chest, his cheek, "Father, don't go, don't leave me! I'm afraid, father! Don't leave me alone!"

A twitch on his face, a spasm of his arm.

"Nava..." again the name, barely audible - did she imagine it? - and she clings to it as she clings to him, her tears indistinguishable now from the blood on his face.

"Father you must stay with me! I can't bear to live this life without you! I can't bear it! Please, don't go!"

A face in the doorway of the cave, looking on. She looks up at it, her heart suddenly leaping within her. Here is the man she trusts, the man she thinks she loves. He will help her. He will end this dream, this nightmare.

"Dain! Help me, please! Don't let him go, save him!"

The wordless look of pity on his face communicates the dreadful truth to her. She stares at him in horror, then back at the body beside her.

No! is all she can think wildly. NO!

"Nava..." the voice is there now, she does not imagine it, " Nava, don't forget...promise me you will not forget...to love..."

One last horrible gasp for breath. That is what she does not forget. Forever it lodges itself in her memory, a splinter too deep to gouge out once more.

A cave of ghosts, the ghosts of that moment, and there in slow-motion, again and again it relives itself - throwing herself onto his cold, lifeless body, racked with uncontrollable tears, convulsing with agony, betrayed by her love, destroyed and never to be born again.

But now their link, their bond, their undeniable connection, once spiritual, now physical. On his mouth she tastes the things he has to teach her, in the delicate fragility of their exchange she clings to him in sudden understanding that yes, of course; Love and Death are teachers both, and she had learnt from Death all there was to know; and now it was his turn, and now she could learn to love. And when her lessons were over they would be both sweet and hard to bear, but the worth of life, the worth of living; they would then be proved beyond all doubt.

They pull apart, the steady lullaby of the rain framing the moment in the cradle of Time. Reaching out she touches the dampness of his cheek, and there she finds him, as unassuming and uncomplicated as ever, reassuring her, consoling and quelling the storm of anguish in her aching heart.

“Are you still afraid?” he whispers.

“No.”

She shakes her head, but her bravery is all his, fed to her in the silent rebellion of their kiss.

Hand in hand they emerge form the cave, two lithe, faerie-like figures in the rain, hair limp and dripping, clothes whirling in the lunatic dance of the wind. For the first time she laughs for pure joy at the absurdity of it all, and for love of her he follows suit does so too. Together they whirl in their own carefree dance, to the rhythm of the storm and the beat of the rain; and on the bareness of her shivering skin his volley of kisses dispels the flinty slaps of the raindrops, warms the sullen chill of the raging tempest. His song is hers, and interwoven now, the melody would lead on to the shores of life, to other tales unknown and untold, yet always inescapably the same. Who would capture them on that shoreline as they fluttered down, who would strive in vain to put the wordless into words, and the undrawable into pictures? The writers, the artists, those dreamers, those nomads of the soul. Those who, inevitably, are only seekers too.

Cave of memories, cave of childhood ghosts, place of death and irretrievable loss, haven of new beginnings. Of a certainty I shall return, when all these things are finally discarded, when the last winter day of my life is reached. I shall return and take my last breath on the threshold of those memories, where innocence was born and destroyed, where the experiences of my life lay hidden out of Time. And surely there in the ground, after the rain has stopped and the world is grey and dewy, I know a sprout will have formed, rare in its unfolding, unique and precious in its blossoming, dancing in the wind, kissed by the rain, embraced by the sun.

And there the life I once wished away, the life I once loathed... there it will grow and spring eternal, and all will have come full-circle in this, the only life that I have.

- END -