--- ERANE ---

The sky fell around her.

Now, at a glance, one might assume that this was a pure place, a place of magic, or beauty and justice. The flakes that fell didn’t seem to understand what they did to the world, they didn’t seem to see that their frozen crystals were the one thing that kept the evil at bay.

Its pure white is the only reason that this world can still be beautiful.

To a human, this would likely be a different experience entirely. Her father always used to say that the skyfall was cold, cold as death, cold as a starless night. Erane was never quite sure if she should believe him on that. She knew the concept of what cold felt like, but the moments between the crystals of a solid sky and the air felt nothing like the cold to her.

They felt like magic.

In fact, they looked like magic, or perhaps, magic looked like them.

Every time Erane would mention that, her father would laugh, pat her on the head, and call her a good little girl with brilliant observations. Erane, being simply Erane, would much rather not be called that, but apparently, he could never tell what she felt.

As the little pieces of sky embraced their bond with gravity, Erane walked through the storm of them, catching them in her ungloved hands, breathing in their scentless air, glancing about with barely contained life as she spotted piece after piece of broken sky.

Father always told her to keep moving. Keep going because one day the humans would catch up and they would destroy him. Erane never quite understood the reasons for his worry, but she could keep moving anyway.

In this case, instead of moving in a progressive way, Erane moved through the flakes, dancing like a Zaen bird during her season.

Her trance-like state abruptly stopped as a familiar shape entered Erane’s view. Suddenly, it was as if the entire skyfall was over. She stopped in her tracks, finally remembering. Finally allowing herself to remember.

Her father was dead. Why did Erane have to keep moving forward?

Why couldn’t she concentrate?

Her gaze followed a flake from far above as it made its journey downward, finally falling onto her open hand and settling there. In the middle of what was practically a blizzard, the flake wasn’t alone for long, Erane’s bare hand was still outstretched, waiting, wondering, trying oh so hard to feel. Another flake landed beside the first, sparkling in the low light as another and another appeared soon after.

Erane stood completely still, watching as her bare hand filled with snow.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, still as the tree that birthed her, watching the snow with slow blinks as it covered her body in line with the wind.

The whole world went at its own pace, Erane went at hers, the snow at its own, but it still sent a vaguely terrible feeling through her core at the thought. Somehow even the snow could keep going. The world was not changed in any significant way at his death.

Curious.

She’d wondered how important she was to the world; if her father wasn’t important then Erane supposed that meant she wasn’t either. The simplicity of that was baffling. Though that might be the wrong train of thought to follow.

She continued to watch the snow as it fell; even as it slowly covered her from head to toe while the hours passed, eventually her mind began to consider what was next.

Usually, her father would have told her what to do next, but death was permanent. He wouldn't be coming back no matter how much Erane might have needed his help. So far, all she knew about the world was that she was woefully unprepared for anything.

Even after hours buried in the snow, her ears filled with the stuff, part of Erane still expected to hear him call out to her, his child, whispering calm words that she didn’t understand. Her name on his lips, Erane.

At that, Erane finally took a step forward, it was difficult with the snow that had piled around her, but she left the little cocoon it had made for her, and broke free from its protection. She didn’t know what irony was back then, but it does feel ironic that the snow had tried to protect her.

After that first step, her body finally decided to walk, it was then that Erane realized if she wanted the thing to do stuff she merely had to put forth the effort to continue to order it around. Almost like how her father had ordered her around, commanding her body when she had no will to do so herself.

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Perhaps just as Erane’s wooden legs plowed forward, this was the first step toward her future. Perhaps to gain a will, perhaps to understand this world that she had been thrown into.

--

Erane closed her eye and continued walking, her steps became steady, so she started counting them, taking pleasure in the mathematical exercise. It was strange to feel the rhythmic pounding of her march, strange to hear the changes in the world as she walked. 258, 259, 260.

When the snow finally stopped falling, Erane had once more halted her thoughts. She was the count, 783, 784, 785. She was the pounding of her feet. She was nothing more than a husk that numbered each step.

She opened her eye again, and a sudden rush of stimulation lanced through Erane as her body saw a tree. The tree. Her tree.

That was Erane.

And it wasn’t.

She could clearly see the branches that had been removed, the sections that had carefully been carved out. Erane could see how the tree missed those parts, Erane could see how the tree lived on without them, how she would continue to grow.

And how Erane would continue to grow.

Erane stood beside her, watching the tree as she slowly continued to grow imperceptibly. nutrients that she had gathered were sent into her wounds.

Erane found the largest hollow on her far side and climbed up into it, feeling almost complete as the small construct did fit the gap. She sat inside, silently feeling the tree, her mother. She was in that hollow for a long time, eyes closed and mind barely grasping as cause and effect spiraled out from around her. The wind shifted and branches rustled. She could hear the small pattern of rodent paws as a creature dug a burrow nearby.

Erane wasn’t sure when the day passed into night, but it happened again and again and again. She wasn’t sure when the snow moved off to a different place. All Erane knew was that those things happened, and she continued to exist. The days and weeks passed, and her mother slowly grew, but regardless of Erane’s earlier assumptions, she did not grow, she did not change. Perhaps her paint peeled, perhaps her wood dried out, but Erane did not change.

A strong wave of sorrow flashed through her. She didn’t change. How? Didn’t all creatures change? Didn’t they all grow and learn and discover?

Erane’s tree felt that sorrow inside her, and finally, the mother spoke in a language that wasn’t a language. A language that perhaps all knew but none used. ~What do you feel, child?~

Erane opened her eye, looking out at the snow. ~I feel… dead.~

~All things die.~ Mother prodded, ~but you still move, you still feel. You are not dead yet.~

~But why am I not changing?~ Erane blinked and turned her head the slightest bit to the side, ~You are still alive, I know that, and you change. Why am I not changing?~

~You are, child.~ Mother comforted, ~You have been separated from me, and then changed into a new form, then you have been given a gift, please treasure that gift.~

Erane closed her eye again, ~but what do I do now?~ She asked, hoping that Mother would let her stay here forever, let Erane be near her so she could feel alive again.

~My sweet daughter, you must go, but not yet.~

~Why?~

~Because you have the soul of a higher being. You may have come from me but you are not the same creature anymore.~

~It doesn’t feel like it.~

~Erane, I have a gift for you, to help you grow.~

~What is it?~ Erane felt as something dropped into her hands from the sky itself. She opened her eye, blinking slowly at the small snowflake. It wasn’t melting, and it seemed to shimmer in the light like magic. Or perhaps magic looked like it.

~THIS is my gift to you. A gift to complete your soul.~

Erane examined it, deciding she knew where it was meant to go. She opened her mouth and placed it inside, feeling it fall down inside of her. Erane leaned back in the tree, closing her eye again and feeling as time continued to pass.

--

When Erane opened her eye and looked upward, blinking at the green sprouts that were beginning to grow on all the surrounding trees, she realized that she couldn’t feel any life from the tree below her. Time is a construct of creatures with things to lose, but now it sent a shiver through her. Now, Erane did care about how long had passed.

Slowly, she extricated herself from the hollow in her tree, climbing down. Erane looked up at the dead tree, wishing that Mother hadn’t done that, but appreciating her sacrifice all the same.

She marveled at the speed of her thoughts, they didn’t take hours to form anymore, making decisions somehow seemed easy all of the sudden. It felt like Erane’s mind had been in a cloud all this time and she had just now woken up from it.

Then, she felt angry, she felt confused, sad, and even a little bit excited. Where before her emotions had been stifled and orderly, now they were chaotic, they moved like a monster, hunting through her mind. Now, her emotions seemed alive.

Erane felt a grin split across her wooden face, she looked up at the sky, and she thought that maybe she could feel the slightest bit…cold.