affame_le_geant_there_is_an_egg fyn gula "if you are the dreamer, i am what you dream. but when you want to wake, i am your wish. and i grow strong with all magnificence and turn myself into a star's vast silence above the strange and distant city, time." ~ranier maria rilke, from 'the book of hours' a great cry came forth from twinkletoes as he watched thora's spirit descend from the clutches of cayris. it was the sound of something breaking, splintering beyond even the thought of repair. he pulled mightily at the hemp cords that bound him, but even the anguish of his indescribable loss could not grant him the strength to sever them. he was a prisoner and his life, like his beloved's, was no longer his own. a relinquishment. thora slipped out of cayris's hold like a marionette when the strings are relaxed, simply flopping to the trampled snow. the process of zozulya, where bird-person returned to all-bird began immediately, capturing the attention of the pressing mob. they urged to get closer, but cayris had to shout forcefully for them to stop their forward advance, lest they trample her in this most amazing transformation. much similar to ice when exposed to warm temperatures, the humanity of thora appared to shrink, yet at the very same time her avian composition diametrically manifested, a time-restricted pas de deux that was, like time lapsed photography, a scientific, miraculous marvel to behold. cayris stood rigid, his arms straight out, holding back his mob of mesmerized spectators with some power akin to magneticism. they watched in awed silence, some grappling to remove a disposable camera from somewhere amongst the black leather of their clothing accessories, that they might document this tidbit of history with an image on paper to show their friends and family. all have read, but few have experienced the wonder. it took approximately ten minutes for thora to evolve, human bone yielding to the nearly transparent marrow and density of a bird's anatomy, arms mutating to wings, legs becoming an aberrance of their former selves, now a tripod with claws. all of it covered in the costume of blue feathers. a hush, like the exasperation one emits when fortune smiles and we become witness to the privy overcame the mob. they made mental notes when actually they would want to draw or write in journals, not wanting to turn their eyes away, even for the momentary desire of brevity. they scratched notes as fast as they could document on the pages of their soul. and then it was complete. all trace of who thora once was now history, magically disposed to memory. twinkletoes sighed in his restraint, relieved that his wife was finally free of her agressors. his next thought was congruous to all those who had just witnessed her metamorphosis: "is there an egg?" cayris wiped the sweat from his forehead, these kemulyan mysteries took a lot out of him. there was only one thing to do next and he could feel the mob's expectation. and so, he took his blade and ran it along thora's avain abdomen, opening her up to inspection. he moved blue feather, puckered skin, muscle, sinew, and tendon aside to satisfy the curiosity of everyone as they waited with bated breath, some of it slipping out as white steam trails to the night air. yes. there was an egg. cayris with deft movement of his fingers and wrist removed it with his blade, rolled it on to his gloved right hand and held it up to the crowd. they erupted into a frenzy of shouts and explosive applause as if this discovery dictated still another murder and interruption of boffden's revolution that will not be televised. "even the offspring of boffden and baeroun will not live to participate in their dissipation!" caris excalimed, and he threw the egg with all of his force over the mob, out into the darkness. they all turned their heads in one accord and watched the object of his wrath sail out into the desolate night, vulnerble to instant destruction. instead it fell in a soft drift of snow, constituting a minute noise that would attract no one or nothing unless you were one of three crows perched on the branch of a bare wild cherry tree. immediately, one, the female of the trio, swooped down and gathered it in her agile claws. she flew it, carefully respecting the monumeantal importance of its contents to another tree where last year's nest still provided a sufficient home for incubation. and it was there she tenderly deposited thora's egg and treated it as if it was her own, gathering her shiny black wings around it and setling her ample body above it to provide the adequate warmth to bring it to complete gestation. as for thora herself, cjahanged as it were to the bluebird of, what was it? happiness? well......she was laying on the snow, blemished by the blood of who she once was, her body sliced open. she was, for all manner and purposes, dead. and, as cayris and his band of revolutionaries were concerned, anything that was produced form her love with twinkletoes was now just a yellow stain on the white ground. cayris looked over at his attendants who held up the post that bore the struggling body of twinkletoes. "TOSS HIM INTO THE FLAMES!" he yelled. 030228 ... .-. what_would_you_save_if_your_soul_was_on_fire ? 030228 what's it to you? who go blather from