The night was neverending. It felt as though it had always been, and always would be. And she did not feel afraid of it.
Her eyes opened upon a great forest, full of towering pine and fir, their needles kissed with moonlight. A dusting of snow lay upon the earth, glittering brightly, mottled with silvery shadows. She was barefoot. A pinecone crunched beneath her sole.
Ahead, beyond the trees, a mountain rose against the starry mantle of the dark blue heavens. Blacker than black, shadow upon shadow.
Something waited there for her. Or someone.
A bow was in her hands. She did not recognize it, yet somehow knew that it belonged to her. Slender, it was. Gracefully curved, pale in the dim mists that rolled over the ground. It shone faintly silver, and then gold, as if a light were being reflected.
A voice spoke up ahead. She peered into the murky fog that billowed about the trunks of the trees. A figure was there, tall and broad, his features obscured by a long, hooded cloak that fluttered slowly around his feet. She could not understand his language, but knew his voice. Like a beacon, a long-awaited signal, she felt herself running forward. Hesitation and doubt thrown aside, her feet sped her through the snow, and all her thought was to reach the man, while a flood of certainty blazed through her veins. The knowledge that when she reached him, she would be home, and every fear would be put to rest forever.
A puff of mist passed in front of her eyes, and the shadowy figure was still there, but was no nearer. He stood as before, distant and calm between the evergreens. Something pricked at her heart. A keen ache took up residence behind her breast and would not relent. She ran on, feeling no discomfort from the snowy ground under her bare feet. Indeed, she could feel the wind against her skin, whispering past her arms and legs, icy cold, sharp as a knife. But it felt invigorating and bracing, not unpleasant. It honed her senses, she could see and hear and smell everything. Every footstep thundered in her ears, her breath was deep and heavy like a smith's bellows, she could smell the pine sap and the thick layer of needles beneath the snow.
She cried out for the man to stop retreating, though she did so without speaking aloud. The cry reverberated from the depths of her soul, and trembled the air around her. The pine boughs quivered. Crumbles of powdery snow drifted down as she passed.
Atop the mountain in the distance, a cloud hovered, and then swept away. A star shone out, brighter than bright, illuminating the mountain's peak. A terrible sense of urgency gripped her. If she reached the cloaked man, everything would change. Things had been set in motion long ago, yet had not been permitted to play out to their conclusion. The fates of souls were frozen, trapped, like the cogs of a machine that have wedged and refuse to continue turning.
She ran on through the neverending night, hurtling forever towards the figure that eluded her.
