Never came a day in which affection reigned.
At times I writhed and times I feigned,
Yet perfection feared the most.
The engine roared as treaded wheels smacked the dirt. White glistening hair with a rainbow glimmer weaved while flying like a flag in the wind. The thin air smacked her lungs as she forged a dirt path between the trees. Smoke blew from the exhaust into the thin mountain air. Antelope darted between the fir and spruce trees. A brown hare jumped out of the way. The roar of the bike echoed through the peaceful mountains. A cascade of snow poured from the distant cliffs in response.
A clearing appeared in the forest where beetles rolled piles of dung amidst the chewed grasses. Streaks of purple laurel and lavender graced the small field under a sky flowing with long clouds. Azoria idled the bike before killing the engine. She hopped off the seat. A green and yellow body suit covered in Wonda logos protected her ivory skin. It attached to white boots covered in dried mountain dust. Her tail pushed out of a small hole in the back of the tight leather.
The bike rested against a tree. A map spread across the seat. It had been marked with pen and highlighters. Azoria poked it, nodded, then scanned the clearing until she noticed the clump of milky quartz hidden by an overgrowth of dry grasses. Her boot pushed the clump aside to reveal a large square block of clear crystalline quartz cut precisely into a nine-centimeter cube.
As her hand reached for the cube the pale skin colored. Wrinkles appeared amongst the perfect smoothness. Long black nails lost their color while retracting back to something short, pink, neatly trimmed. Azoria hissed at the crystal before dropping it. A black leather pouch coated in grease went over top the cube, which she tilted so it would fall inside before she clasped the leather strings tightly shut. All the while, her right hand remained altered as she walked a jagged and crooked path.
Stones crunched under her boot as she rubbed her temple with her free hand. Her unsteady step made her fear rolling her ankle as she felt an insufferable numbness tingling in her toes. The path went upwards, higher until the trees became stubbier and sparser. Her legs felt numb, hair hung limply about the leather bike outfit, and her tail scratched the path behind her. After a few kilometers of climbing, the path began to drop into a narrow valley between two cliffs.
More mountain laurel surrounding a crystalline teal lake greeted her glowing eyes as Azoria gulped the ever so slightly thicker air. The path became more serene and smoother. Makeshift steps graced the changes in elevation as it rounded the lake. Violets, laurels, and lavenders waved to greet her as a cool wind brushed through the narrow valley. Against a cliffside that opened into a cave, there was a circle of milky quartz surrounding an ash pile. Woven mats of various brilliantly faded colors surrounded the fire pit. Freshly planted turnips and carrots sprouted in a small field as crickets chirped amidst the stones. A bucket filled with potatoes sat near the entrance of the cave. A few mountain goats bleated as they fed upon grasses. Berry bushes grew along the cliff side.
She placed the bag next to the potatoes.
The ever so harmonious aura smacked into her like a hurricane wind as she resisted heaving. This place no longer welcomed her presence. She coughed to announce herself but received no response, so she continued rounding the lake until she reached a cool bubbling stream which she followed to a waterfall.
Cold mountain water poured forth from cracks in the cliff onto the mottled gray and white hair of a withered head. Her master sat under the waterfall with his legs crossed, his hands in his lap, as he meditated on a bed of rounded stones. A hand waved to catch his attention but he remained like a statue. He was stiffer than he should have been. The slightest hint of flaring nostrils accompanied a wrinkling of his closed eyelids.
His wrinkled skin hung upon his shoulders like a withered cloak and his arms were translucent. An unkempt white beard covered his neck and matted against his collar bone. Yet underneath that skin were tough wiry muscles that could have belonged to the gods. As he sat cross-legged, the thick callouses of his feet resembled the pads of large animals. Fingers tensed with a white knuckled strength.
Azoria dared not approach that waterfall. A gruff growl accompanied the splashing of pouring water.
“You’ve returned. Is your purpose still the same?”
“Master, I need your help.”
“You continue to seek the elimination of suffering?”
“I’m not ashamed of what I seek.”
“Heed my final teaching. Suffering and bliss. Pleasure and pain. Love and hate. These are the price of existence. They are not simply intertwined, they do not merely contain the seeds of each other, they are not merely merged in a spectrum. You continue to seek answers without understanding. You strive for meaning from nothingness. You acquire knowledge endlessly only to stray ever further from the middle path. You’ve aligned yourself with demonic entities beckoning from the extremes. There is nothing that can be done for you. Seek your vain goal elsewhere and begone from this place before the energies are befouled with your aura.”
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“Master Kunchen! I summoned Mogg.”
“Then your torment is properly earned. I hope your spirit escapes in the eons to come and achieves rest.”
Azoria’s toe splashed the bubbling brook. An inky rainbow glow slicked the surface of the water. Azoria shifted in protest as her body shrunk. Her horns turned brown and began to split. They separated before collapsing into hair. Brown spread across white as the change in color spread. A black serpent fell from her backside and slithered away to hide under a rock. The tone of her skin brightened to a soft pink as the red of her eyes dulled to match her hair. And she became ever smaller, the leather biking suit becoming crumpled and ill fitting over her waist as she lost a foot in height. She pulled it down to adjust the top over her hips. It pressed against an even larger bust on a smaller and slender frame.
The aesthete broke a long meditation to stand and watch this change complete before weary eyes. Water poured over his shoulders as they stared at one another. His eyes softened.
“Delvia, I don’t have long. Why not let me pass in peace? Must I teach you without words?”
She beckoned to him as she slowly backed away from the crystal lake. Calloused feet smacked against rocky soil as he ran to scoop her up in his wiry arms. A cute sound escaped as she found herself off her feet and carried past the charred fire pit into the cave. A collection of colorful woven mats in front of a small alter offered a comfortable place to reside.
A rabbit lifted its ears as soft cries of pain melding with pleasure soon echoed from the entrance. Hate became love and love became hate as suffering and bliss revealed themselves to be the same entity. Then came rest. Quiet. Renewal.
And they began again.
For seven nights it thundered over the mountains. Waters bubbled over the rocks as they gushed from the crevices. Nobody meditated underneath the flow.
-----
The fire outside burned as Delvia cooked a vegetable stew in a small steel pot. The hempen rope tying her short robes hung to her slender knees as she hummed happily to herself. When the stew finished cooking, she returned inside the cave. Bare feet shuffled the straw as she looked for her master. He blended into the surroundings where he sat on a blue mat as if a statue of a sitting old man. His breathing could not be registered by even her senses. Kunchen’s eyes looked dark and hollow as he pushed his fingers together.
“I made some stew.”
His breath returned with an ever so slight frustration.
“Is there not something you came here to do? Let's stop pretending to be something you were. Get on with it, Azoria.”
The pot of stew dropped on the misty stone floor. It clattered slightly yet landed flat on its bottom surface without spilling. Steam still rose from the stew as some splashed on her ankle. Her brown eyes quivered and became moist as she looked at the husk of the sage. Lips parted slightly with a tethered breath. Wrists pushed against her chest as her fingers clenched into tight fists.
“Master, I-”
“Get on with it demon!”
Sharpened claws pushed into her skin to draw blood. Azoria hissed as her hair turned white in a flash of lightning. Horns broke the skin as her form stretched taller, more graceful, less plain. The black snake entered the cave, thicker, as if it had eaten well over the past week. The bag from outside had been latched to the spaded tail. It slithered up her ankle, tightly wound around her knee as her skin shifted into a pale ivory shade. It wound into her robes and bit her before merging with her flesh once again. Eyes flashed a brilliant red as her thin elegant lips pushed together with a spiteful tightness. The spaded end of her tail lifted the bag to her left hand and she clutched it tightly.
Azoria approached the dying sage.
His back leaned against the wall as he sat like a statue. At first, she ran her fingers gingerly over a gnarled and sculpted chest covered by mottled skin loose as rags. Kunchen leaned ever so slightly against her unsteady hand.
Gasping followed by the coughing of blood signaled the first claw piercing the top of his sternum. Azoria turned her fingers to pierce him again and again around the bone that seated his rib cage.
Finally, with a single twist, a hole found itself sliced into his chest cavity. The sternum became a cap. Once opened, blood rushed from the wound, down his defined abdomen. It stained the colorful blue mat as Azoria tossed it aside. The fleshy sternum smacked the cave with sharp clack and a spark.
A revealed heart struggled fiercely to continue beating.
Kunchen rested his hands on his knees without so much as flinching. Shlick, pop. Azoria pulled his heart out. The wet pulsing pumps continued in her palm as she squeezed it between her blood-soaked fingers. With her other hand, she retrieved the cubed crystal and shoved it inside the hole while Kunchen still drew breath. Lungs pushed themselves aside to make more room. Blood circulated through small tunnels in the translucent square crystal as it floated in the center of his chest cavity.
The hand clutching the organ rose above her head. Blood trickled down her wrist. Her head listed, then sunk forward as hair fell around her lap. Eyes quivered at the floor between her legs. Feet pushed against thighs as her posture sunk. Tears fell upon her lap. A barely audible whisper escaped tense lips.
"Play my game."
Meditation continued for a minute. His eyes remained open. Hands clutched his knees in a tense posture. Resolved. The crystal sunk as it lost power. Purposeful breathing ceased as his eyes closed.
An agonized high-pitched scream echoed through the peaks. Snow cascaded toward the valley to follow continuing cries.
The heart tucked between her stained fingers gave one last beat. Thick red liquid sputtered from the tubes to slather her arm. It seeped into the small wounds where she had pierced herself.
Yet, while he leaned against my sway,
For all the logic in the world,
For all the love that had unfurled,
His heart within my fingers curled,
He might as well have not been there,
but four trillion miles away.