Wednesday, August 16, 2017

A Dancer in the Infinite - Chapter 14


Chapter 14

Into the Wild

There is but one world and everything that is imaginable is necessary to it. For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but is a tale. And all in it is a tale and each tale the sum of all lesser tales and yet these are also the selfsame tale and contain as well all else within them. So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall. And those seams that are hid from us are of course in the tale itself and the tale has no abode or place of beind except in the telling only and there it lives and makes its home and therefore we can never be done with the telling. Of the telling there is no end. And . . . in whatever . . . place by whatever . . . name or by no name at all . . . all tales are one. Rightly heard all tales are one. – Cormac McCarthy

There is no coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence. – Alan Moore



     Regenulfa stopped running.  She leaned forward with her hands on her thighs and gasped to catch her breath.  The deep forest had closed in around her and made her feel safe, finally.  She managed to get the air into her lungs and slowly steadied her breathing.  She found a nearby rock that looked like it would make a reasonable seat for her weary body.   How long had she fled, deeper and deeper into the wild woods of the Mongtane Noire?  She had no idea, but she was tired and thirsty, that much she knew, and evening was beginning to set in.   That she should be in a panic, she understood, but she was not.  In fact, she was calmer than she had ever recalled being outside of her carefree girlhood years, which ended only a few years hence.

     Now, she leaned back against her rock and looked up at the darkening canopy of branches and leaves knit like poor cloth above her.  She knew the sun would set quickly behind the mountains as was its habit in this region, she had been here long enough to know that.  It did not worry her.  Nothing did.  She felt like God himself was giving her a strength, courage and calmness that she could barely understand.  Maybe, some of it was the sense of relief at her newfound freedom.  No destiny planned by her parents stretched before now … only that which she would make for herself … even if she starved in a few days … it was freedom.

     Her skyward meditations were interrupted by the sound of fallen leaves rustling near her.  She looked down to see a doe approach her slowly but intently.  The deer was looking right at her.  She locked eyes with the creature.  It continued in its steady gait, walking right up to her.

     Regenulfa was startled, but she did not show it.  She was full of love, and her eyes beamed it clearly to the doe.  In a moment more the deer had reached her rock and put its nose against her cheek.  Without giving a further thought to the peculiarity of the situation, she gently pet the animal, stroking its nose and then behind its ears.  The dear was not in the least disturbed by this, clearly it was enjoying the contact.

     The Merovingian princess hardly heard the sounds of far more rustling leaves, so engrossed was she in her caressing the soft fur of the dear.  She calmly did eventually spare a glance around her.  With no sense of surprise whatsoever, she noticed another dozen or so deer emerging from the gathering darkness of the forest around her.  They all drew nearer and nearer Regenulfa’s rock until they surrounded her completely.  The princess smiled.

copyright 2017 Diana Hignutt

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