Beneath the Mistlebells 7

Story by Syndel on SoFurry

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#7 of Beneath the Mistlebells


She called them dark spaces. They weren't known by that name by everyone, but everyone knew what they were. They were the places that people retreated to when they were overwhelmed, and stressed and no longer knew where to go. They were bestial, reactive spaces, where only the dark thoughts lurked.

The thoughts that marked others as enemies for their skin, their creed or their sex. There were any number of variables the dark spaces could think up to cause division, to blame the other and to spread the misery and hatred those spaces so desired, but she had been clever. She had woven herself around her dark spaces, like a mist hanging between oaken branches, her perspiration clinging to the frame of something more real and vibrant and brighter than any dark space could find.

She was master of her thoughts, and master of herself. She was the enlightened and in control. She was the mistress of the dark, and the lady of the night. She was a thousand reasons not to fear and to be bold. She was all of this, but she was torn. The dark spaces spent her entire life looking for a way in, and like a crack in a mirror, all it took was a moment.

The stars scattered amongst the encroaching darkness, and drew her in with promises of safety and comfort, until she gave away everything just to live in the dark spaces. In her desperation, she imagined those same oaks of old, and the mist that she had been between those solid trunks. Slowly, she found light even there, and slowly, she found her way back...

Ruth was alone. Whilst she had been alone before, she had never quite felt that loneliness. She had always had someone to call on - even in the dark. Now she knew she was alone. Every trace of life had been removed from the web - she had seen to that, one way or the other. There was no Redge to guide her back, and no flame by which she could light her way. As the mistlebells had fallen dark, so had her hopes.

"What did I do?" she whispered quietly in the darkness. She received no response, but she hadn't expected one. There was nothing left to argue or fight with here. Those impulses which had consumed her body before were left powerless in the wake of the quiet silent emptiness of the dark. She had recognised it this time - the pull of the self-righteous wolf - the spirit which gave her direction in the wild empty woodland, and had brought her back to face her guilt at leaving Toad to suffer. She felt, too, the spirit of the darkness, which she had accepted into her being when travelling in the darkness with Redge. That self-doubt was strangely silent as she knelt down and crept around the web, finding the edges of her platform in the dark.

"This isn't how it should be..." she whispered again. It felt wrong to speak more than a whisper in the pitch-black. "This was supposed to be a triumph."

The spirit of the spider coiled within her, and she interrogated it with her thoughts, thinking once, then thinking again on those same thoughts, wondering how they had changed - wondering what influences now ran through her body - then she remembered Toad.

He too was in her now. She could feel that artistic, confident, self-assurance countering the spirit of the darkness. She knew deep down that no matter how bleak, there was the potential for the catalyst of action and beauty. His most beautiful of souls had brought her a glimpse of something brilliant even in the darkest days of his life.

Then all of a sudden she recognised the spider. The smallest being and the largest she had found, it was a million and only a single part all at once. She laughed as she felt it's thoughts joining in her mind. "A million eyes for a million points of view," she said aloud. "Thank you, spider, for gifting me perspective."

She felt the thoughts emerging in her mind, like gears turning steadily as recognition finally grew, like a puzzle piece slotting into place to reveal a larger picture. She blinked, and as if by magic she could see.

Seeing was a bit of an exaggeration, she realised. Thin strands of glowing white flowed over her vision, like the shadows of moonlight against a bedroom floor, filtered through Venetian blinds. They showed her the rough outline of where she was standing, and, in time, the bark of the trees she was perched between. She paused to examine the webbing more closely, and as she studied it she became fascinated in the material.

The web was strewn between trees tens of metres apart, which was a long distance even for the spiders to cross. Climbing down one tree and up another would have been impossible, just for the sheer amount of webbing the spiders would have needed. She imagined some dare-devil arachnids swinging from webs from tree to tree until finally they managed to grab hold, and proceeded to spin a web on which they could stretch and grow and live their colony. She marvelled at the strength and determination, as well as teamwork they must have had to create such a nest, and then she wept for their loss.

"How can I be worthy of holding such weight as this?" she asked the darkness, but again, it did not reply. Instead, she found the reply in her own thoughts - a reply which she knew before she answered the question, but a reply which did not comfort her. "That is the justice..." she whispered. The justice for her crime was the weight she must now bear - the potential of a million different eyes, an artistic soul, an introspective nihilism and the wanderlust which she held inside. "Like a wolf hunting sheep," she murmured. "He does not deserve life, but takes it and does his best with it."

An idea struck her, and she took hold of the webbing, feeling it stretch in her fingers as she pulled and pulled. She formed a ball, of long and thick, but incredibly light silk fibres, then drew strands out of it and slowly knitted together a patch of thin spider-silk with her nimble paws. Then she set about forming another, then another. She worked industriously, letting her newfound senses guide her in the dark, losing track of time as she focused on the task she had set herself.

Eventually, satisfied with her work, and having gathered almost all of the loose strands of web into a half-balloon of woven silk, she formed four knots - two at each side, and spun a simple harness on strands from those knots, tied it around her waist and looked out into oblivion.

She was the fledgling in this nest, and with determination, she needed to take flight. She checked over her make-shift parachute one more time before staring out into the void. It was not, she realised, the first time she had faced destruction, pain or suffering. She sniffed. She had made it this far, she thought. She wasn't about to stop now.

Ruth leapt forwards.

The air caught her as she fell, her parachute of spider-silk unfurling above her, like a beacon on the darkest night. She drifted forwards, clinging tightly to the silk as she slowly fell. Any second she expected to strike one of the Mistlebells, veering off into her doom, or otherwise suddenly lose her grip as a stray gust unbalanced her make-shift craft, but the collision never came, and the fear gradually left her.

She felt a lonely sense of silence wash over her as she drifted, the lazy drift of air across her front her only indication of travel in the black. She felt like the dark was an inky cage, and as much as she felt trapped she also felt an odd comfort. She wondered how long she had been falling for, and how far up she had climbed before her jump. She wondered where she would land, and how she would ever find her way back. She wondered about Blue, and about Redge and Owl. She found she suddenly had a long time to think.

Up until now she had not known what she was doing. Had she been absorbing, or destroying her fellow creatures? Now she thought of it as joining. Why the wolf had let her join with it, and why she felt compelled by that same spirit to take the spider into herself she had not known, but like the dawning of a new day, the shimmers of comprehension were on the horizon. The wolf had been her guide, her will, her determination. The toad had been her spirit and her soul, bringing warmth to an otherwise grim journey. The spider had given her the greatest gift of all - the blessing to see beyond her own immediate thoughts. But still she was lacking something. She knew all of this, but she lacked the intelligence to piece it together. How had she become trapped in the mistlebells? Why was she here? Who had she been before she became Ruth?

She was shaken from her thoughts as her leg was caught and all of a sudden she tumbled down out of the parachute to the invisible earth, letting out a yelp as she landed in the dark.

"Who's there?" came a frightened voice. One she recognised instantly as belonging to the snail.

"Is that you, friend?" she asked.

"Hare? What happened? What did you do?!"

She couldn't ignore the tone of accusation in his voice. "I... Nothing."

"Tsch, you come screaming past me and not long after the entire forest goes out. I didn't even know forests could go out!" the snail said.

"C-calm down. It's fine. There's other parts of the forest that have become dark like this,"

"Other parts?! And you're saying this to calm me down?! What did you do?!"

"There is light out there as well!" she tried to explain.

"Are you sure? Maybe you knocked everything out. Now I can't even gaze onto my treasure!"

"I didn't... You're... Oh... That's... That's around here is it?" she said, ears suddenly perking for any trace of that near-silent vortex of doom.

"Yes... Well... No... After..." the snail swallowed. "After you spoke to me I... I decided to go on a little journey. Only I don't know how far I went, or how to get back, and now we're both lost in the dark and it's all your fault!" the snail whimpered.

"It'll be okay!" she said, reaching out in the darkness. Her thoughts didn't echo her words though, as suddenly she was terrified of being trapped in that void. "I can guide you out, if you want."

"Guide me? Sounds like you just tripped over yourself! You mean to tell me you can see in the dark now as well?"

"Yes... Well... No... Sort of... It's complicated."

"What did you do?!" the snail repeated.

Ruth sighed. "Listen, I'll tell you what happened," and then it all came tumbling out. Her lost friend, and her revenge. Her hate and frustration, and her realisation. Her out-of-body experience, and the Mistlebells going out. She spoke rapidly, almost just to stop the snail from interrupting, but when she was done he was silent.

"So... Yes... I guess... It was probably my fault. Somehow. The spiders must have been somehow important, I guess."

"And you're coming for the rest..." the snail said at last.

"What?"

"The rest of us. You're coming back to where you started. You weren't content to let us be, so you're taking all of us with you. Collecting us like pets."

She heard the snail slither closer, and her eyes shimmered with silver giving her a flash of the world. For a moment she saw everything - the trees, the ground, the bushes and the snail, staring blankly into the dark.

"You wanted me to come with you, first time we met," the snail continued. "How were you planning on taking a big old heavy snail like me with you?"

"Well... I... Hadn't really thought about it."

"No, you knew," he said. "You knew even then that this is how it ends. This is how it always had to end. Selfish little hare. So driven and open to influences outside of your own mind. Do you even know who you are any-more?"

"They're all part of me now," Ruth said, shaking her head in the dark. "They're not gone, they're just not separate."

"A hundred voices shouting and screaming against each other in a husk. That's all you are."

"That's all anyone is," she retorted. "That's... All anyone is..."

"Well, I can't run, dear hare. Not in the dark. Not with oblivion all around. You've already taken my home and my comfort. Why not? Why not take my essence too? Why not have me running around inside that overactive little mind there."

"I didn't... I don't think."

"Oh I insist, you spoilt little thing."

"Spoilt?!" she said, aghast. "I'm just trying to work this all out myself!"

"But you think you're so unique, don't you? So naïve... Come hare, we have wasted enough words. Take me from this darkness. I would do battle with your own."

She hesitated. "Are you sure?" she said, not being at all sure in herself any-more.

"Oh believe me, I insist. This wretched black is too much for one such as I."

Ruth nodded in the dark. "What could be the harm..." she said, outstretching her hand, and touching the rough, coarse shell of the snail, then in the same touch, another part of her touching something else. This time she was aware, and in the dark there were no distractions as in moments she felt the snail sinking into the centre of her paw, and that essence creeping through her nerves and joining the jumble in her mind. She exhaled gently as the feeling washed over her. Another bundle of impulses and influences asserting themselves in her mind, then with it, a tidal wave of guilt and bitterness which flooded her mind in a way no other impulse had. It was like having the sketch of a picture drawn on a canvass, then suddenly filled with paint which filled all the white spaces, colour that washed over the white and gave light and shade new meaning. Her mind became distant and foggy, as for almost an entire minute, she forgot to breathe.

She gasped suddenly and the world was brought back into sharp relief. The snail was gone. At least, the inhabitant of the shell before her. She thought it oddly reminiscent of a corpse, and she, a murderer. She had not felt it when she had taken the spider, and though she felt some guilt at losing the toad, she had mostly yearned for shelter and revenge, and not confronted that part of her which understood the gravity of her actions. Now, finally, she came to the realisation of what she had become. The dark had threatened her before with her failings, but now she found them insider herself, stronger than any hammer against her bones, or strike against her flesh. Her crimes seared her soul like a branding iron against the flank of an errant beast.

But where her crimes hurt hardest she felt the scars of experience start to form. Perhaps, she thought, she was the monster. Perhaps, she thought, this was her role in the world. Perhaps good and evil weren't parts of this world that mattered, and perhaps this natural order was what was necessary to survive. She was, after all, still alive. Still alive when all those around her were falling. She was strong enough, it seemed, to overcome all of them. Her guilt burned within her, but it was competing with fires far older than any conscience. Within her were ancestors of instinct that drove her to action, and guided her to her feet.

"Get up," she whispered to herself as she stood, and a flash of white showed her the forest again. There were no spiders webs here, but a greater web spun from the neurons of her mind through the pads on her paws to the forest itself - an uncountable multitude of interwoven trees and twigs, the living and the dead. The spiders had once been part of this forest. A part of it at a deeper level than she could have known possible. She had severed that connection. She was responsible for this darkness. She could fix it.

Slowly the light grew within her. She didn't notice it at first. "Enlighten," she whispered, her toes tapping on the ground. "Enlighten," again, but louder. Her vision flickered, and like a faulty circuit, the trees around her sparked with an ethereal white. She plunged her paw forwards towards the nearest tree, slamming her palm against it "Enlighten!" she demanded of it, and she felt another part of her sink into that bark, penetrating the wood whilst leaving her corporeal form poised against it. Far, far above the Mistlebells for that tree flickered, and suddenly burst into light - a dim, distant light, barely a shadow of their former glory, but, for the hare, it was enough, and she pulled back, sinking back into her body like a weary soul into an armchair.

She stumbled forwards, taking another deep breath, in her newfound pool of light. "Cast out from the light, a demon stumbles in dark and... If she's lucky," she smiled, grimly, "She finds fire."

"R-Ruth?!"

"Redge! I'm so happy to see you again."

"Saw the forest go out, Ruth. Owl and Reginald, very worried for Ruth. Owl, less so."

"That doesn't surprise me in the least, but I'm okay."

"But, Ruth, how? How after the spiders Ruth okay?"

"Courage, like that you showed me when we first met."

"Ah, Reginald is happy to see Ruth, Ruth - but feels a little too close,"

"Don't you trust me, my friend? After all we've been through?"

"Owl... Owl says lots of bad things about Ruth. Says Ruth will try to destroy forest, then everything goes dark."

"I shall speak to Owl, Redge. Don't worry about his nonsense, but first, I'm ready for you to join me."

"Join... Ruth? Where is Reginald going, Ruth?"

"I couldn't take you with me before. You were too important. You knew so much you could only ever help me, but now there's no one left."

"Ruth?"

"No one left but me and the Mistlebells and you, and Owl and... Blue."

"Scaring me, Ruth."

"No need to be scared, Redge, my brave, brave mouse. You gave me so much. I'm so sorry to have treated you this way."

"Ruth... She..."

"Just a little touch, and it all goes away."

"Ruth-"

The entrance to Owl's house was darker than ever, but as Ruth stepped over the threshold she sank her power into the roots that formed the floor and walls of the structure, and soon they were glowing. Shadows danced in front of her malevolently as the light spread and grew in intensity, an unearthly pale blue, like the veins of the tree were suddenly burning with energy, like the embers of a long-worn fire, threatening to re-ignite. Soon, the outline of Owl became visible, cowering at the back of the room, cradling as many of it's treasures as it could.

It swallowed as it looked back at Ruth. "You've come for me," it said.

"I've been granted willpower, the dark, the sight and the courage. I've swallowed heart and song. Still something remains. The questions are endless."

"It will do you no good," Owl said bitterly. "It's no better out there."

"I need to know," she said. "I have all this but no knowledge, and you... You know more than you'll ever tell me."

"I'd tell you anything you wanted!" Owl protested. "But it's too late for that now, isn't it? You wouldn't trust me, would you?"

"You wanted to kill me."

"I wanted to believe it wasn't true! That your beastly curiosity wouldn't ruin what we have here. Now look at us. Bathed in darkness and shadow and evil."

She stepped forwards, the light shifting between her feet. "Curiosity?" she said "I suppose that fits."

"Wolf knew," Owl said. "He knew you'd want to find a way out of here, so he granted you his will. Foolish boy. He didn't know it would cost him so much."

"He's still in me. He's not harmed."

"Foolish girl too - I don't mean that. I mean what you're going to find. What you're looking for."

"What am I looking for?" she took another step forwards.

"It's no better out there than it is in here," Owl said. "You mark my words - ignorance is bliss."

"Where are we, Owl?" she said. She was only a few steps away, and she took another forwards. "Tell me now, or afterwards. Either way I shall know. Where are we? What happened here? What happened... To me?"

Owl turned, unfurling his feathers slowly, dropping what he held in a feathered hands, save for two items. In the first he held the silver car she had touched before. In the other, he held a little toy gun. He looked down at the toy car, and she followed it's gaze. "Figures that of a thousand memories you could touch within my realm you would find this one," he said, turning it over in his hands. "A memory so fresh it barely even formed."

"Where am I, Owl?" Ruth said, a hint of pleading in her voice. "What went wrong?"

The owl turned his beak upwards to the open-roof of his nest-like home, between the roots of the Mistlebells. He stared like a lost soul looking for a sign. "You already know too much. You'll never be happy again." He raised his other hand, placed the barrel of the toy gun against the bottom of his beak, and dragged it down against his gullet, before pushing it up, aiming right at his head.

"No!" Ruth cried, and jumped forwards.

Owl pulled the trigger. The room exploded.

...But the clock was always ticking, and the world she had once escaped she would never find quite the same again.