A much-belated and inadvertently timely gift for Shakespira, inspired by her shapeshifting Chasind Cloud Dancers in her wonderful The Lion's Den. This is meant to accompany my piece of the same name to be found at my deviantArt gallery: jbyrd123 dot deviantart dot com.
Ascent
.o0o.
Mallaidh stands on the promontory before this, her passage into true flight. Far below, the mists wreathe around the scattered treetops, which jut like pointing fingers from grey-blue palms of granite. High above, the clouds scud raggedly across the dawning sky, in which her brethren wheel silently, encouraging, waiting.
The wind plucks at her hair and tugs at her cloak, chill and surging, alternately drawing her on and pressing her back with capricious force. It riffles across her fingers which tighten briefly in response, squeezing the roll of doeskin she holds.
Pulling away the single thong binding, Mallaidh unfolds the doeskin a single turn to reveal a shining black feather.
Crow. Messenger and guide; trickster and teacher. She tilts her hands and the feather leaps ahead to spiral away on the winds.
Another turn reveals a creamy feather barred and spotted in earthy shades of brown.
Prairie falcon. Patience to seek your goal; keenness to pinpoint it; drive to pursue it. She tilts her hands and the feather spins away.
Another turn reveals a graceful blue-grey.
Heron. Self-reliant, with the vision to see past the surface to the deeper truth. She tilts her hands and the feather whirls away into the mists.
A final, careful turn uncovers a miniscule fan of iridescence.
Hummingbird. Healing and dreams and renewal, and the impossible, precious joy of all that is life. She tilts her hands and the bright scrap darts out, only to return on a vagrant gust and tangle inextricably within her hair.
Mallaidh laughs and raises her arms to let the hide and her cloak drop away. Clad solely in her self, in all that she is, she leaps up and out.
The wind slashes at her skin with claws of ice and
the rocks plunge toward her and
the rocks fall away and
the wind surges under her pinions to bear her upward.
Her fellow Cloud Dancers call to her in welcome as she approaches.
Through the mists.
Into the light.
.o0o.