#ssofic

For a time, you thought the world as you knew it was doomed to end. That you would be forced to stand by and watch as the island succumbed to the storm. Now, you know better. It never will. Not as long as your age-old magic courses through its roots. Not as long as the moon and stars shine upon it. Still, you sometimes feel like everything did end, only in a different way; nothing feels like before, after all, and what is an ending if not simply great, irreversible change? Jorvik is quiet. Calm. Peaceful. There’s nothing lurking in the shadows. There’s nobody watching your every move, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Your dreams and visions carry little meaning, for there is little to be said.

Everything has changed, and yet you are no different, no more or less, than you have always been. You are still everything. You are still only you. Your horse is by your side as always, warm and comforting and just as unchanged as you are. When you look up to the sky, you still see yourself in every ray of sun and in the moon and stars beyond and in the clouds slowly rolling away over the eastern mountains. In Silverglade, just by the forest’s edge, there is a small, snowy meadow. It shines a brilliant golden white, lit up by warm, bright sunbeams, and perhaps, too, by the ancient light shining deep within you. There is laughter all around, bubbling with quiet, comfortable joy. One of your friends calls out a name that’s yours, and yet isn’t. You aren’t sure where the line is drawn—in fact, you aren’t always sure it exists at all—but you don’t truly care to find out. You are still you, after all, regardless of how much else you also are. When your friend shares the joke she just told the other three, you laugh with your whole heart.

The days are slowly but surely growing brighter. With each rise and fall of the sun, you feel your breathing grow easier and easier. You are no longer bound by fate, nor by duty. You have not attempted to prod at the future beyond the rare, peaceful visions that come to you of their own volition; it will bring whatever it may. You have learned by now that the island will take you where you need to be. These days, you trust it more than ever.

All you know right now is this: tonight, the stars will be bright and the northern lights vivid across the night sky. Tomorrow, the sun will rise a little earlier than it did today, and the island it casts light upon will be different in one of the small ways it is every morning. The sun will keep rising and falling. Keep changing the island little by little. Winter will become spring and the rivers will melt, rushing once again down to the ocean, and in the awakening forests every bird will come together in a choir of chirps and whistles. Spring will become summer, and the neverending sunlight will blaze hot and bright even filtered through the crowns of the forests’ many trees. Summer will become autumn, colouring the island in golds and reds and oranges and bringing rainstorms the likes of which you’ll wonder if you’ve ever seen. One night late in October, the first frost will fall, and then once again it will be winter, all muted blue days and snow glittering in the moonlight. With every passing year, Jorvik will be different in one of the small ways it always is. You don’t yet know how, and you don’t care to.

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Chapters: 6/6 Words: 7,573 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alex Cloudmill/Maya Dew, Anne von Blyssen & Linda Chanda Characters: Alex Cloudmill, Maya Dew, Lisa Peterson, Linda Chanda, Anne von Blyssen, mentioned MC, the Soul Riders' horses and also Misty make minor appearances Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Introspection, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Angst, Open Ending, Hopeful Ending

The August night is dark and the stars bright when five young heroes leave Jorvik’s western shores. Tomorrow, all will be well, but tonight they find themselves in the strange space between the happy ending and the bright, hopeful future.

An ancient creature towers over you. He does not move closer. Neither do you. You look into his many eyes, and for a moment, you almost feel like the two of you could come to an understanding. In some strange way, you are a pair—parallel lines across time and space, intersecting only at the very beginning and in this very moment. You have trodden the same path, separated only by the line between good and evil, and now you must both destroy the other. For a moment, you almost feel like there’s a hint of sadness in his eyes. Perhaps he loves this island just as much as you. Perhaps there is more to this than you thought.

Except then his eyes harden, and he moves to harm you. You cannot let it happen. Your paths may run parallel, but here, his must end. You cannot let his chaos reign over Jorvik. You cannot let the Dark Riders succeed. It was you, though it may have been a different you, who brought life to this island many, many years ago. He had no part in that creation. He has no part in that joy. He will have no part in the island’s future.

Deep within your soul, something is beginning to slowly buzz and hum. It grows into a quiet ringing in your ears and then a rushing and roaring through your body, no longer a hum but rather loud, garbled noises. You have never felt anything like it before, and yet it feels almost familiar. It is overwhelming; by this point, you feel like it consumes your entire being, and yet it is still growing. It wants to grow far, far beyond anything you have ever done. For a moment, you hesitate, tightening the reins on it and slowing, almost stopping, the flow of magic.

In front of you is an ancient, towering being, lit up by a gentle, golden glow. His many eyes bore into yours. His many limbs reach for you, stretching and curling through the air. The magic strains at the rope that you hold it by.

Let go.

The roaring in your ears grows.

You will know what to do.

You take a deep breath, and then you let go.

There is a great, primitive roar, like that of something ancient and unknowable coming back to life. It is no longer in your ears, but a real, deafening sound. It may be yours. It may be his. It doesn’t truly matter. It grows and grows until you can hear little else. Though you can hardly see it from the eye of your own storm, you know that you glow with something ancient and powerful. The Light Ceremony could never have held a candle to you. What you are doing is something unspoken, unknown, unknowable. Even you hardly know what it is, only that you can and must do it. 

You need not even ask your horse to step forward. In this moment, you are as good as one. It moves closer to him, and he recoils, almost as if in pain. The light is so bright that it is almost blinding, and your throat is beginning to grow sore. Your small, fragile human body was not made for this—your hands, your eyes, your heart are beginning to burn and to ache—and yet, this is where you belong. Magic courses from the depths of Jorvik’s roots and through your bloodstream, radiating out from every inch of your being. The dam is broken down and long forgotten, as are the reins and ropes you held around your magic. There are no more reasons to hesitate.

Though you aren’t sure how you know to do it, you raise a hand. Your light shifts. Focuses on him. He begins to recoil, as if in pain. Your roar grows louder and your light brighter until you cannot see or hear anything else. You close your eyes. The island courses through you. Galloping hooves. The moon and stars behind the thick, dark clouds. The raging storm. There is a second roar. It is not yours. It is something deeper. It is desperate. Pained. Garnok’s. Your light is bright even through your closed eyelids. The wind whips around you. Snow lashes into your face. You stand your ground.

His time is up.

There is a sound so loud that you cannot hear it and a light so bright that you cannot see it. Then, it is truly silent. Dark. Peaceful. The storm has stilled. The chorus of roaring has gone quiet. You need not open your eyes to know that he is gone, but you do anyway, so that you may see the world.

He is.

In front of you is a vast expanse of darkness. The ocean, you realise once your senses begin to reaccustom themselves to the world. The moon is bright, almost perfectly half-full, and its light glitters in the water. The waves lap gently against the shore. A gentle wind blows past you, rustling the fabric of your coat before moving further along the coast. You look up at the sky, eyes still adjusting to the low light, and one by one, the stars begin to blink into place.

Far below you, the ocean waves crash and roar. If you looked down, you would see nothing. You do not look down. Your eyes are fixed on the book in your hand. It is an ancient, leather-bound tome. Despite its hundreds of pages, it feels light. Warm. Its cover is etched with glowing runes. The light is not enough to show the way, but it grounds you. It is a reminder of your mission. Of your importance today. Of your importance here and now. Of how crucial it is that you do not fail. You have been undisturbed so far, but something is always lurking around the corner here. You must not lose focus.

You have kept your horse at full speed since you grabbed the book. Its hooves beat steadily against the ground. The sound of metal against metal is almost drowned out by your heartbeat. You still do not know why you are running, only that you must. From the black sky falls large, cold raindrops. They pelt against your face as your horse runs. Every freezing drop hurts. Your skin is beginning to grow numb from the cold.

The darkness is closing in. Something about it is deeply wrong. It is less like pitch black and more like nothingness. Like the world ceases to be where it begins. Your heart is beating louder. Faster. You can hardly hear your horse’s hooves against the ground over the sound of your heartbeat. Something is wrong. You are being watched.

Far away, there are hoofsteps. Somebody is behind you. Your horse is already running as fast as it can. It has been doing so for too long by now. Your only hope is that whoever is behind you is just slow enough to let you get back to safety.

The hoofsteps become louder and louder. It is all too clear now that the darkness is not of the night, but of something far, far deeper. It is closing in on you more and more. You cannot see the oil rig anymore. Your vision is beginning to blur. Your horse runs a little faster. A little faster again. Your stomach turns. An animal knows when it is in danger. Your horse runs a little faster yet.

From behind you comes the sound of echoing, almost ghastly hoofsteps. From beneath you comes the sound of metal horseshoes on metal ground. From within you comes the sound of your racing heart. They melt into a cacophony of clanking and beating and fear. The darkness grows closer and closer until you can hardly see. All you can do is hold on to hope and trust in your horse. The hoofsteps behind you are terribly close. You are beginning to feel faint. The bright runes of the Book of Light are but a gentle glow beyond a thickening veil of darkness. The hoofsteps behind you are as loud as your own horse’s.

Then, everything becomes quiet except for the ringing in your ears. Perhaps there was a sound so loud it was deafening. Perhaps all sound disappeared entirely. It hardly matters. All you can do is keep pushing forward. Magic threatens to surge through you. Pushing it back is so instinctual that it is almost easy. You do not let it run its course. You cannot.

Darkness envelops you entirely. All that exists is the cold, hard rain. You hardly feel it hit your almost completely numb skin. You cannot see. You cannot hear. You cannot think. There is a sensation that feels almost like an earthquake. The ground rumbles beneath you. Everything is impossibly hot and impossibly cold. It is possible that you scream. If you do, you cannot hear it.

Less than a moment later, sight and sound return to you. All you can hear is your horse’s hoofsteps and the wind in your ears. Safety is only seconds away. You dare a glance at the Book of Light. The sight makes you wish you were back to seeing nothing. In your hand is a black, burnt scrap of paper and leather. Not one rune or letter is legible. Your stomach turns. Was the blast of darkness meant for you? Was the book protecting you? Were you meant to be burnt to a crisp without even being lit aflame, just like the book? Or was the destruction only ever meant for the book? Was the book’s glow until the very end a failed attempt to withstand the darkness?

You are mere steps away from safety. Whoever was chasing you has retreated. The danger is gone.

The Druids called off your training today. Supposedly, they thought you all deserved a day’s rest. Something tells you that it might be more about earning back your favour, or perhaps more likely feeling like you have stalled in your progress and not much can be done to help it. Pouring salt in the wound is the fact that rest, of course, isn’t an option. Though you haven’t been summoned for training, the weight of what is to come still lies heavy overhead.

You are to retrieve the Book of Light from Dark Core’s headquarters.

You suspect this is the third reason training has been called off. In the safety and secrecy of Fripp’s room, the innermost circle of Druids are planning the expedition. The innermost circle except for you and the other four, that is. Sometimes, you wonder if you are even counted to that group anymore, or if you all lost that privilege after the transformation of Concorde. You know that the other Soul Riders wonder, too. None of you speak of it. Anne doesn’t only wonder, she believes it, and she doesn’t need to hear anything that would further solidify that belief.

When you heard of the mission to come, you were tossed back to the night you had just left behind. In your dreams, you had held an ancient tome. It was the only thing you could see. Your horse was galloping, and the sound of your own heartbeat almost drowned out the clanking of metal against metal. You’re still not sure why you were running.

You awoke before the moon could tell you how it all had ended. It plays over and over and over in your head; whether it is a vision again or just your mind wandering, you cannot tell. You think you may now know what the book was, and that knowledge does not make the weight of the vision easier on you. Each time your mind is brought back to it, the pit of dread in your stomach grows deeper and deeper, and you try more and more desperately to hold onto the hope that it will end well.

When you exit the village, your mind calms for a moment. Few things are on your mind, and they are all peaceful. Your horse’s fur is warm and soft; a stark contrast to your cold body, and a much-needed one. The forest now glows golden as thin beams of sun begin to filter through the leaves and reach over the snow-covered ground. Overhead, the leaves rustle in a gentle, cold breeze.

The wind turns and becomes a sharp, cold gust that chills you to the bone and raises every hair on your body. It came from the river. More likely than not, it travelled here from the ocean. How far out into the ocean did it begin, you wonder? Did it come from the bay between Fort Pinta and South Hoof, or did it come from the wide open waters beyond, travelling first across the peninsula? Was it born over the cold eastern seas, travelling all the way around the island to reach you here in the forest? Far into the ocean, well beyond Jorvik’s southeastern shores, lies the oil rig. There, it is colder than anywhere else on and around the island, except for possibly the frozen valley north of Hollow Woods. Is it there the freezing wind came from?

A shiver runs down your spine. The wind seems to have calmed, and yet cold still swirls around you, slowly but surely making itself at home in your flesh and bones. Somewhere far into the ocean, freezing cold rain pelts against a towering metal structure. It should not be raining, of course, but some things go beyond the understanding and rules of even the universe itself. Whenever you close your eyes, even if it’s only to blink, you feel like the rain is pouring down on you, cold and merciless, and when you open them again you find yourself shivering even though you’re dressed more than warm enough for the weather. It is a familiar feeling, and one you had hoped you would never experience again: you are slipping away from reality.

You are in the depths of the forest now, and yet you do not remember continuing down the path from Valedale. The day is so bright that it must have been at least an hour since you left the village. It crosses your mind that this, too, could be a vision, but you dismiss the thought. This must be real. Your horse’s mane is warm when you weave your fingers into it, and you can feel every last strand of horsehair against your skin. A vision would have a goal; it would not allow you to focus on such mundane details.

Whether or not this is true, you don’t particularly care to find out. It is enough of a truth that you can hold onto it. It is also far from the first method you have invented for determining whether or not a moment is real; should it fail, it would not be the first to do so, and you doubt it would be impossible for you to come up with yet another.

Still, the methods grow more and more abstract. You can only go through so many of them without reality and unreality becoming irreversibly intertwined. Something has to happen before then. For a time, you could intuit what was life and what was vision, and there has to be a way for you to relearn that skill.

You only have to find it.

It lies in a thin, delicate layer all over the island. Near the village, you would hardly see it anymore for all the people that have disturbed it by now, but here in the depths of the forest it is broken only in places by the tracks of a wild animal. That, and a longer and longer trail of your horse’s hoofprints as the two of you slowly make your way through the woods.

You are supposedly on a mission right now. Not too far away, just on the edge of the forest, there is a large group of will-o’-the-wisps that need to be collected preferably sooner rather than later. It’s not exactly urgent, of course. They’re not at risk of luring some poor soul into a swamp here. At worst, someone will be lost in the forest for a little while longer before you get to them, and you’re told being lost among the will-o’-the-wisps isn’t an unpleasant experience, exactly; you simply disconnect from reality for a while.

You know better than many, of course, that being disconnected from reality isn’t always all that pleasant. Right now, you are blessed to know that the cold of your feet in the stirrups and the crunch of snow under your horse’s hooves are real, but all the more often, you are falling back into losing track of what is real and what is not. The moon will not leave you alone anymore, even during the day. One second, you are in the midst of an intense training session. The next, you are in front of endless rows of bookshelves so tall they cannot possibly be real, and all around you is the smell of dust and the uncanny warmth of a place so old its age cannot even be known. Just as suddenly, you will be in Hollow Woods, riding through ever thicker sheets of snow as large, cotton ball-like snowflakes keep falling through the treetops. One snowflake falls on your nose, cold and wet and real. When you come back to the mountain paddock, you can only hope that you’re really there. More often than not, you will be on the ground with at least one Soul Rider hovering over you in concern and at least one Druid already disciplining you for letting it happen again.

You wish you knew how to tell them that it’s not you letting it happen—that it just does anyway—without sounding like you’ve completely lost control of yourself.

Maybe you have.

What you do let happen is the detours you’ve been taking during missions. You could stop if you wanted to, but in this loneliness—or perhaps the undisturbed togetherness with your horse—there is solace and relief. For only a little while, you allow yourself to stop being bothered by the Druids’ demands and wishes, and listen only to what is calling you. Sometimes, it guides you to a vision. Other times, your horse will stumble over a root that you could’ve sworn wasn’t there yesterday, and then the calling will dissipate. Most often it leads you to a runestone, bright and alive and glowing so strongly in your presence that the runes almost seem to be burning. It is no different this time. You guide your horse around the foot of a hill and find yourself face to face with a magnificent creation of upside-down pyramids that almost seem to be floating. Judging by the wear and tear and the moss growing everywhere but the glowing runes, the runestone must have stood here for many hundreds of years. It is a wonder it hasn’t toppled over after all this time, and yet some part of you understands exactly why it’s still standing.

The runestone still calls to you. You let your horse take another step forward, then another, and yet another, until you are not only face to face with the runestone but right by its side. Then, you reach out a hand.

You have never touched a runestone. In fact, you have been strictly forbidden from doing so. There are too many risks involved—toppling it over, disrupting the flow of magic, chipping the stone—and little to no reward, should you manage to avoid the risks. And yet, even as only the smallest bit of space is left between you and the runestone, it seems to still be calling to you. You cannot do anything but answer.

The stone is strangely warm. You realise only as you touch it that there is no snow or frost upon it. Something within you hums with the warm, soothing feeling of having found the thing that was tugging you towards it. You could swear that something within the runestone, too, is humming with the pleasure of having guided you to it. It is as if something deep within you harmonises in an almost familiar way with the runestone.

Snow is beginning to fall through the roof of the forest. Sensing that it is time to move on, you return your hand to your reins. For a moment longer, you stay still, looking at the runestone. Nothing about it has changed—the snowflakes that land on it still melt, and the runes are still glowing just as vividly as they were when you arrived—but it is no longer calling you. It is as if you did exactly what it wanted you to.

You aren’t sure whether your eyes are open or closed. You do not know why the grass seems to have moved to beneath the palms of your hands. You cannot tell what time of day it is. All you know is the presence of your horse anchoring you to the earth, the bone-chilling horror of having almost lost control of yourself, and the hope that you succeeded.

In the hours leading up to the ritual at the Sunset Islands, you were repeatedly warned that it could bring you to your very limit. You were under no circumstances to keep going if you began to feel like the magic was too much for you to bear, consequences be damned. You do not say it—you never do—but had you ever heeded this advice, you would have stopped using magic long ago. You are a dam of flesh and blood between your powers and the world, and whenever you tap into them for more than a moment, you feel like that dam is about to burst. You know that this is not what the Druids warn you about. The strain they speak of is not from holding together the dam, but from trying desperately to push every last bit of one’s magic through its few small cracks. You doubt that you could ever drain yourself in that way—the powers that course through your blood feel endless, as though it’s not a lake behind the dam, but an ancient, neverending river—and truth be told, the dam feels closer to fragile than to unbreakable. You do not want to know what would happen if you were to let it burst. You aren’t sure you would live to know the answer.

All things considered, perhaps the Druids’ warnings are not unreasonable. Still, you cannot live by them. You would be next to nothing if you did.

They have changed the way they talk about you, as of late. Between every word of every sentence spoken on the long ride from Valedale to southern Epona they hid secrets and cryptic messages clearly not meant for you. You understood them anyway, of course, and between the brief conversations you and the Moon Rider shared the occasional, silent look, almost as if to confirm that you had both heard and understood the same things.

You cannot live by the Druids’ constant warnings, because you would be next to nothing if you did, and you are not meant to be nothing. You are meant to be what she who you should not know of never became. You are meant to be the fifth to lead the way, as she could not. You are meant to stay true to your task, as she failed to. You cannot live by the Druids’ warnings, because you must succeed at any cost, and yet so much of what they lay on you rings false these days. It is no easy task to believe in their emphasis on you as one of a kind when the feeling that you are little more than a replacement of the girl who should’ve completed your mission two decades ago lies heavy on your shoulders through every second of every day.

In the end, you hardly experienced the ritual, as tends to be the case in situations where magic is involved. Every second of the process was spent desperately trying to control yourself, and when it is over, you spend minutes that feel like hours leaned against your horse, head still spinning from the forces that made your body their home only minutes ago.

You are beginning to think that something deep within you substantially sets you apart from the other four.

You are beginning to think that Catherine was wrong.

You are beginning to think that your fate is not an offer you can decline.

I am sorry, your horse whispers to you, and softly nudges your shoulder. It helps, if only a little bit.

You come back to the world when you realise that somebody is talking to you. The realisation that the sentences are filled with anger hits you before the words making them up do, and it almost makes you retreat into your head again. You force yourself to stay and take in the moment.

It boils down to this: you succeeded in bringing Fripp back, and now he is angry.

He is angry that you have involved a witch in the Druids’ business. He is angry that the Sun Rider is missing. He is angry that the Lightning Rider has gone after her. (You could have sworn that she was here mere minutes ago. Did she slip away during the ritual? Right after?) He is angry that you did not go after her together, and much, much earlier. You should have done so while there was still time and hope to stop her foolish decision. You should have realised what she was considering the second she asked where the foal had come from. For the short time before Linda intervenes, it is as if none of you have done so much as one thing right while you were left to your own devices.

By then, you are just aware enough of the world around you to share a cautious look with Linda, and it confirms what you already knew: you must keep finding your own answers. None will be given to you.

You lock away what little hope you had of perhaps, once Fripp came back, finally having somebody to ask about why the dam feels like it is about to burst, and then you throw away the key.