Glen

Renard falls — through the dark, through the river, though the empty void, but through the air, through wispy clouds, through the boughs of a tree…

Renard squints, tumbling, against the clean, clear wind whipping around him. The slimy layers of sweat and humidity peel off his skin like discarded kisses. Colour has returned to the sky through which he is falling, the sweet pale blue of a robin’s egg, interspersed with fluffy white clouds, a sight so beautifully and mercifully familiar that it feels like plunging into a parallel world. Is he falling through the sky back down to the surface of Lacren?

A healed, shining Lacren… is this what going to heaven is like?

But no, Renard gasps, this isn’t Lacren. Below the layer of clear blue sky, his dive breaches into a twilight, spangled with the light of distant, colourful stars. This is not the barren void-night of Nix that has been so cold and oppressive; this is the night as an onyx, shimmering with a thousand subtle hues in her silken gown, that watches over the earth’s little mischiefs as would a mother with a full bosom smile. The beautiful night he would see in the summer, if Renard could call it anything.

Renard holds Fidel closer; bones have returned to his form. Crimson light flashes in his periphery; leaves brush over Renard’s cheeks; a figure with a cheshire grin is reclined on its belly in the golden branches, but is gone like a phantom when Renard looks. When he looks away, he is not falling still through a tree, but yet the open sky pale with morning and dazzling with the nebular night.

There is an island below, upon a large lake. Upon that island is a white cottage, brimmed with colourful gardens, and a large tree in its front yard. Looking from above, there is nothing strange about the scene. Yet when he lands upon the grass, in the field outside the lake, the impact is so soft it is like he has fallen into bed.

His whole body flops into that softness. He winches himself onto his back.

He pauses to breathe, staring up at the sky.

Fidel, beside him, rises onto his knees. His human form has returned, but he does not seem perturbed or surprised by this. No, that he would be human again is natural.

Renard exhales a long breath and lets his arm flop over his eyes.

The atmosphere of this place, with the clear water and bright verdure and fresh summery air, is unremittingly peaceful. Gentle cascades of waterfalls tinkle like windchimes, and the whisper of rustling leaves tickles his ear. After the gruelling weeks… months, of fighting and delving and pushing and rowing and straining through the murk and the perversion of Nix, and the exhausting rigorousness of everything he has done even just on this day, the tranquil invitation to lie here and know he is secure is incredible.

For there is an aura in the air of easy sanctity, that all that would be here would be kept healthy and fruitful. He would not say he is rested, for the languor of physical fatigue still drags like an aftertaste, but he does feel so replenished, that even if he did wish to collapse into sleep, he wouldn’t be able to, as he simply isn’t tired.

It cannot be a memory, but an instinct in Renard’s soul recognises this place with nostalgia. They have landed in a fragment of paradise, in the way that paradise is meant to be.

He’s never been here before. Why does it feel like coming home?

Renard presses these rising sentiments of curiosity, and daring, and hope, behind his jaw as he glances up to Fidel. An unspoken acknowledgement passes between them that indeed, they both know where they are.

He spares one last pause, then heaves himself onto his feet. Unfortunately, for how bitter it is to defy this peaceful atmosphere, they do have horrible business.

For something is watching them from the island across the lake, sitting aside the tree in the front yard.

It is the serpent.