---
She
wakes.
Mono awakens to bright white light, and the sound of beating wings.
It is said – or so the high priests teach – that all worthy individuals go to Paradise when they die, a place of endless, unmarred purity. Temple maidens, being the purest of the pure, are promised a spot there, if only they are obedient and true. The girl that was once called Mono is not at all sure what comes after for those fallen from grace, but she suspects that it has little to do with this dusty, ancient-smelling cathedral, the stones cold and gritty underneath her bare feet. If this is her Hell, the Gods must be a far kinder lot than Emon and his subordinates have ever let on, that much is for certain.
In a way, Mono is not at all surprised to see her lover's mount limping up the stairs towards her, the leather saddle hanging in splintered pieces from his withers. The sight of the wounded stallion fills her with a wordless, nameless sorrow; she hangs back for a moment, unwilling to bring herself to break the dispassion that encases her like a turtle's shell. Eventually she steps forward and takes the horse's muzzle in her hands, but the dull sense of apathy never quite fades. He is dead, or lost, or spirited away. Mono needs no messenger to inform her of this.
She is only newly revived from the deep places, but already the girl feels half-dead.
When Agro leads her to the babe she feels her protective coat of indifference shudder, but only momentarily. With a blank expression and a blank heart Mono picks the child up. Deep inside her something stirs, something that might be pity or possibly empathy. There is no curiosity as to why the child is here, or why nubs of horn jut from his temples; it seems that the maiden's inquisitiveness died alongside her old life.
Together the trio of outcasts climb the temple path, into the blinding light of a new and unsettling day.
---
She watches.
She watches as the tiny babe that nuzzles at her breast grows into a strangely solemn toddler. There are very few things Mono can remember from her past life – Mother kneading bread in front of the fire on a sunny morning, Father coming home from hunts or war raids on his dappled grey charger, Wander's mouth pressed against her own with a kind of clumsy, frenetic need on that final fateful night – but she has the distinct feeling that little children should not be so … silent. Sometimes she catches him sitting alone in the temple, staring intently at the piles of broken rubble that line the walls of the interior, and this gives her more pause and more worry than if he were loud and underfoot. It is unsettling, but then so are many things in this silent, empty land. The light is always watery and wavering, the air thin; even sitting directly in the sun Mono is cold much of the time. Dark shapes flit and slither at the corners of her vision, but when she turns her head they are gone, or are in hiding, or were never there to begin with.
The boy's hair is red, his eyes bright blue. Whether this is coincidence or something else, Mono is not sure. Truth be told, she is not at all positive she wants to know.
---
She teaches.
The problem with growing up as a temple maiden was it left one completely unprepared for a life not spent demurely lighting candles inside the abbey walls. Foraging for sustenance and sewing clothes for rapidly growing young boys were facets of life the holy mothers had never dreamed of teaching, and so Mono was left at a loss when suddenly confronted by them.
Even now, seven years on, she is utterly baffled by the hows and whys of tailoring. The boy, unfettered by the morals of a world he has never known, runs free and uncovered beneath the tired sun; as surely as she fashions him crude vestments from reeds and ivy, they will be outgrown and shed like a lizard's skin in less than three moons. What does it matter if her boy runs naked, truly? The wind does not care. The grass and the trees and the rocks do not care, and so neither does Mono. There is a niggling, insistent worry at the back of her mind about what will happen when he comes of age, but she pushes it away, content to cross that bridge when the time comes to hand.
He asks questions occasionally, funny things that Mono has to think about for some time to answer. Mono, why is the sky blue? Why do birds fly when we can't? Why do I have horns when you do not? The last is something that bothers Mono still if she dwells on it for too long. As with many things, she prefers to think of it not at all, when she can.
She has done her best to teach the boy about the world that surrounds them, but the one thing Mono is never truly able to explain is the concept of other people. To him she is the only person in the universe, the linchpin, the singular creature like himself on the surface of the earth. He is not the first to consider her as such, she sometimes thinks with a twinge of old pain. Perhaps that is why it feels so familiar.
---
She seeks.
He likes to roam, straying further and further from Mono's watchful eye as the years pass and the restlessness of young adulthood sets in. Fourteen times the seasons have come and gone. In that period Mono has seen no living soul nor any other creature that could harm the boy, but still, like all good caretakers, she worries and frets when he is gone for too long. There are deep lakes in these lands, and high cliffs, and she is but one person away from being completely alone.
Sometimes he takes Agro on these sojourns – her boy has a remarkable, almost eerie way with the horse and rides like he was born to it - but today the old stallion grazes nearby, cropping grass contentedly underneath the shade of a scrubby mesquite. Mono whistles and, when he trots back to her with a welcoming whinny, clambers up onto his broad back. There is no need for bit, bridle, or saddle; the two have an understanding born of long experience and a shared loss. The pressure of a hand on his neck or a bare heel digging into his barrel are all the signals Agro needs to do as he is told.
"Find him, Agro," she whispers into a pricked ear. That uncanny connection between boy and horse is so strong this is all Mono has to do; Agro goes from a walk to a canter so fast it nearly takes her breath away. She digs her hands into the thick mane and holds on tight.
The very birds of the air have trouble keeping up with Agro. Even at his advanced age the horse shames the wind with his swiftness. They fly southwards, towards the great gorge where the remains of an ancient bridge lay heaped in twisted, crumbling piles. The path narrows and drops away around them, becoming no wider than a wagon's span, and Mono grips at Agro's neck until her knuckles turn white, her head swimming. She has never been fond of heights; the passage to the garden terrace is a chore to walk without knocking knees and a churning stomach. Fear for the boy squeezes at her heart. Against her better judgment she urges Agro to greater speeds, expecting him to slip and send them both spiraling into the blue at any moment. He does no such thing; with all the surefootedness of the goats of the northern mountains the horse makes his way across the rock. Mono breathes a sigh of relief when the trail splits and slopes downwards, angling towards the ravine's bottom.
Deep shadows live here. The air is cool and damp, heavy with the smells of wet earth and sea-salt. Around them the chasm rises, the sky a ragged blue rent. A strange noise reaches Mono's ears; it takes her a few moments to realize it is the voice of waves breaking on the shoreline below. How long has it been since she last saw the ocean? How long since she watched the fishermen pull their nets laden with fish back aboard the canoes, arms straining with the effort? How long since a black-haired girl and a blue-eyed boy chased each other through the foam and ate watermelons together, toes curled in the warm white sand?
Far, far too long.
The sand here is not white, and no canoes skim the nearby waters. A cold breeze whips the waves into a fine froth. If fish dwell in this bay they must swim deep, for Mono sees no sign of them as she dismounts and walks along the shore. She hugs herself to keep warm, but it does little good; the wind has teeth, and it is more than eager to use them. Agro stands and waits for her patiently, head bowed, mane and tail streaming. The boy must be here somewhere – Mono ignores the hissing voices inside her head that suggest perhaps he fell from the bridge above and was swallowed by the sea – but she is afraid to raise her voice and shout for him. More than anywhere else Mono has been in these lands, this place seems to be listening, waiting for her to betray herself. The silence is alive, alive and unfriendly. No birds chirp in its wake.
Further down the beach Mono feels eyes upon her back. She does a slow revolution and finds herself face to face with a hill of stones and boulders. Some of them are smaller than melons; others are larger than five of Agro put together. Together they form a shape that could almost be mistaken for a great beast lying in the sand, with a little imagination. Mono shudders. The wind carves the rock into such eerie figures. She can almost make out teeth in its great maw, if she tries.
He sits in silence atop the pile, watching her. When their eyes at last meet, Mono feels no warm rush of relief. A shadow of fear falls over her, unexplainable and unexpected. The voices whisper in her ears again. They scratch and grate like stones sliding down a canyon wall.
There sits your doom, cully. There he sits, with his horns black against the sky. Look well! You sought him out, and here he is, waiting to drag you both into the abyss.
The two stare at each other for a very long time. There is something new in the boy's look, something Mono is afraid to recognize. Not because she fears it - her initial apprehension fades after a few moments – but for quite the opposite reason. Her heart thumps in her chest, loud as Agro's hoofbeats.
She is almost afraid she likes it.
---
She falls.
Mono has stopped aging.
At first she couldn't be sure, for time passes strangely in their barren home – Mono has grudgingly come to accept it as a home, after eighteen winters and numerous attempts to scale the northern cliffs that ended in bloodied feet and near-death experiences – but as she gazes at her reflection in the rocky pool below, she has to face facts. The boy has almost reached adulthood, Agro is beginning to gray around the muzzle, and yet not a single crow's foot or frown line mars the perfect oval moon of Mono's face. Age brings changes to all things; that is the natural order and rhythm of life. The realization that it seems to make no difference to her is a deeply frightening one, but then there are many things that cause her fear in these latter days, her age being the least of them.
She has begun avoiding the boy, the almost-man that now appears to be older than Mono herself. It is not hard to do; he keeps to himself most of the time, racing Agro against the hawks that ride the thermals. Sometimes he follows her, though, watching with all the wary silence of a curious young stag. The curiosity she does not mind; it is understandable, in a way. It is the other emotions she sees written in his eyes that gnaw and worry at Mono, making her think about things she has long tried to ignore or suppress.
The boy looks so much like him she cannot bear to glance into his face. He moves like him, he speaks like him, he even smells like him. Being near her charge now brings nothing but pain and feelings she would rather not feel, stirrings Mono is quite certain she should not have towards the boy she has raised from babehood. Sometimes she wishes she could flee, but there is nowhere else to go. She must stay here and face her destiny, whatever it may be, whatever face it might wear.
This evening, however, her future seems to hold nothing more pressing than bathing in her favourite spring, and for that Mono is grateful. She drops her worries along with her clothing at the edge of the water. The boy rode off to the south some time ago, leaving her to her own devices. Given such an opportunity, Mono splashes in the stream and swims like a fish, enjoying the freedom and the lifting of her burdens. A squirrel climbs down from one of the trees and scolds her for such unbecoming behavior. She laughs – it feels good to laugh, it is such a rare thing – and aims a spray of water in its general direction. The world may grow more complicated with each passing day, but as long as she is able to laugh, things cannot be as bad as they seem.
Perhaps what happens next is her own fault. So absorbed is she in playing with the squirrel she does not see the shadow emerge from the oaks, walking towards her bathing spot with measured steps. Whatever wariness Mono has is washed away by the warm afternoon and the peace of the oasis; she does not notice him watching until she is pulling on her skirts. Her movements slow and stop completely, but by then it is far, far too late.
They regard each other, the rising tension a gag in the mouths of both. It is the man who finally breaks the silence.
"Mono ... I ... I ..."
His voice chokes and trails away. It is a moment before he can continue.
"I think ... I remember--"
And then the girl understands, and she is lost forever.
Does it matter who makes the first step forward? In the future she will never be able to recall. There is a flurry of movement and they are in each other's arms, that is all Mono ever knows for certain. He is kissing her and she is kissing him and things are right again, righter than they have been in eighteen long years. It feels so good, so familiar, and--
No. This is wrong. This is wrong and you will pay for it, says the voice inside her head. For the first time she notes that it sounds eerily like the Temple Mother back in her home village. The boy that is now a man slides long-fingered hands underneath the tattered remains of her dress and Mono gasps, answering the internal warning with her own refrain even as she presses harder into him.
Everything is wrong in this place. Why should we be any different?
It is the last coherent thought she has for a long while. The two shapes by the pool twist and sway like reeds in a high wind before crumpling to the ground as one, only partially hidden by tree shadows and the tall grass. There is no-one to witness their second sin, no-one to condemn what comes to pass in the oak grove, but a hundred years later Mono will watch as the light passes out of her beloved's eyes – still startlingly blue, even when the rest of his face is a wreck of ancient wrinkles and drooping skin – and know she is being punished for what they wrought that day.
Sitting on her dark throne in a millennia she will understand she is being punished still, but the memory of his dark shadow looming over her on the banks of that pool, haloed by sunlight and tree leaves and autumnal sky, will simply make her not care.