StillBloom

“Thaw and Melt,”
You barely hear it, yet it echoes. The voice is of stones, the streams beneath the planet’s crust. The air cools to meet her, heavy swirls of chilly air like a blanket across your shoulders. The moisture in it condenses on the twisting spikes of rock above to drip and gather at your feet.
You turn, and there she is.
She is an Obelisk, body the cool blues of a lake and her wings vivid red, even in the subpar lighting of the cave. The mane she wears is peculiar, looking simultaneously like flower petals and cragged rock. You wonder if it’s heavy. Her face is uncovered and exposed for you to read, but what you can glean from it is thin. The expression is one of a neutral rest, unmoving and unblinking as if she were still set in stone.

She is beautiful.

Then, she begins to move. Just towards you, yet your gut swoops in time with a drip of water above. It has started to fall in time with her steps, you can hear nothing else. Your feet feel like lead but your head is clear, and when you open your mouth to speak it feels wrong to say anything at all.
She strides up to you locked in eye contact, and you never feel it leave even as she walks clean through you.

All at once, you feel like many things.

You are the iceberg,
You are the mountain it carved.
You are the earth that parted,
and You are the trees that bent and splintered.
(Journey, Journeying, what is there to see?)
You are the valley that trapped it,
and You are the air that stood witness.
You are the pieces left behind,
You are the remaining whole.
You are the thaw setting in,
You are the melt that becomes from it.
(Dripping down, down..)
You are the stone that welcomes yourself,
You are the years that pass.
You were.

Until Suddenly, Brightly, Finally,
You are shaped by The First Stone that welcomed you ages ago,
You are woken from a gentle slumber.
You are whispered to by that Great Rock,
“You are.”

You are.
…

You come back to yourself in rivulets. The cave around you is cold and damp. A strong breath from your lungs breaks through the silence, and your chest aches from the lack of it before. What just happened? That wasn’t yours, you know it, but it felt like it for a minute that could’ve lasted hours. Looking around you, the cave is empty.
You turn back, and it is not. She stands by the exit and her face hasn’t changed, she watches you regain your senses with the same look as she wore before. When you try, all you can do is gape and stutter, for how can you put what she just showed you to words? To do so would be an injustice. It’s why she showed you instead, you realize.
At this point now, you could do many things. It would be understandable to react wildly to what you have just experienced, but that doesn’t feel right. You could do many things indeed, but for now, you will just do this:

You crack a smile, and go, “Thaw and Melt, Sister.”

She smiles back,
And all is well.
bought on 28/6/2022 for 100g