Dusk and Shiver, Aspens Quiver

[Aretsuya]

Where are they now?
They are gone.
I saw them run,
run to the sea.
Under the waves all has been said.
Their voices are free.
Free from the sun's stare,
free from the noise of lost souls.
An exiled sound washed in with the tide.
Their voices are free.
Free from the sun's stare,
free from the noise of lost souls.
On the waves their voice carries on.

“The Tide” – Neurosis


---


The landscape was almost like one out of a picture book, of the variety resplendent with all manner of gore and menace coveting whatever the little effect the writing had. The text would probably be representative of the emptiness of space there, like a vacuum, sucking away the inhabitants, while the gore would be the asphyxiating ambience. The trees sadistically traipsed along the jagged rocks, whereas the ice suffocated the lonely ground beneath. So this was Ilum, eh?

The engine screamed out in protest against the frozen wasteland it had been forced to wade through. The hazy fog didn’t help either, as condensation wrapped the exterior and the front view screen of the ship. Aretsuya huffed at the prospect of having to fumble through the flurry, extending for vast regions of emptiness above and beyond the sheer horizon; either way, getting supplies for this junk was a waste of time. The shuttle had undergone its last journey, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Aretsuya was planning on performing whatever small repairs were possible here, she’d probably have dumped the disintegrating pile of junk into a scrap yard much sooner.

“We live and learn from our problems, honey. But not the wise. We just throw out what we don’t need.”

Cautiously, she stepped away from the ship and straight into six feet of snow, grimacing at the chill and the excruciating thought of having her expensive boots go to waste. This wasn’t going to be much fun. The hope that some random being would come into sight and help her out was just pure wishful thinking, owing to the ludicrousness of the possibility of anyone being crazy enough to live there to begin with. She’d be treading on air as soon as she was out of that place.

Mr. Allen had sent her to sign a contract with an opposing firm quite some time ago, and the instructions accompanying the assignment permitted no room for mercy should the rivals in question opt not to sign. The gruesome consequences of such a turn of events would be deemed a mere technicality – a series of casualties considered only as fearsome as individual semantics allowed. It was good to keep an objective mind whenever such matters were concerned. Sadly, any such endeavors were still a long way off, and she needed basic supplies in the meanwhile to keep her going.

Aretsuya sauntered aimlessly, delving deeper and deeper deeper into the misty divisions of the ice planet. With hair standing on end, frigid to the root, the woman secretly wished she had more money to spend on better (warmer) clothing and, furthermore, superior equipment with which to swathe her meager ship. As disheveled as it might be, the vessel had served her well, and she’d formed with it quite possibly the most endearing bond that could be shared between woman and machine. Such thoughts were not aided much, however, when she stumbled over a stray branch littering the gravel and fell headfirst into the cavernous piles of snow, the frostbite becoming more apparent by the second.

“Bollocks…”

Frost tinged the edges of her lashes and settled stubbornly atop her brow. Even her skin appeared a paler tone of ivory, and her long fingers clasped the blaster attached to its worn leather holster in instinctive anticipation of some clandestine warmth. She had been quietly wagering upon the notion of shooting the next irksome entity that crossed her path – be it sentient or not. Extending her arms into the nothingness, she trudged along warily, although her vigilance did little to ward off the callous breeze that nipped viciously at her bones. Her own breath smoked up the atmosphere, and little did she know what she was wandering into.

She avoided venturing into the snow-encrusted conifers that closely bordered the bleached trail, glittering in the pallid sunlight like little diamonds, and chose instead to wind along the slippery path of stone and shimmering sediment. Holding onto the trunks for guidance, she couldn’t help but notice the foreboding shadows that marked the many evergreens clustered densely upon the land. In fact, hadn’t she seen the same row of lanky brown stalks ten times already?

“Goddamn tree, why do you look so happy anyway?!”

Kicking the innocent conifer with all her power, she tripped over for the umpteenth time, injuring the back of her perfectly styled head in the process. Bits of grime and dirt were embedded within her otherwise lustrous tresses, and if that wasn’t enough, her blaster jabbed into her back from where she had dropped it.

She was giving up. No mission thus far had been as frustrating as this.

Aretsuya hustled further and further into the dark abyss, the green needles spearing into the back of her arms and face, mocking her mere presence. She wasn’t going to survive this, and she wasn’t masochistic enough to tolerate it any longer. Grabbing the blaster and firmly stroking its barrel in a gesture of self-assurance, she grinned malevolently at the lined structure ahead. No tree was going to get the better of her, and she wasn’t going to keep circling around the damned waste of ice either. She tightened her gloved fingertip over the delicate trigger and aimed at the barrage of geometrical oddities clouding her field of vision, and –

– Well, she almost fired a shot until, that is, she caught sight of a far more interesting structure lying just a short distance ahead. More interesting only because it was the one different thing she had spotted after a long time, and the change in scenery was more than a pleasure for the poor lass. She slogged forward and collapsed in front of the stone building, grasping the knob of the wooden door and banging it wildly in hopes of a response.

No answer. She turned the handle.

It was locked. No surprise there, really.

Aretsuya needed supplies, and she wasn’t going to wait around for her nervous system to numb away from the biting cold of Ilum. She peered through the cracks in between the corroded slabs of granite, etched with patterns painted by the harsh weather, and tried to catch sight of anyone or anything worth looking at.

[Taja Loraan]

The trees of Ilum whispered amongst themselves, furtively murmuring to each other in the ancient tongue of the earth about the outsider that had prescribed itself the liberty of waltzing alongside their brazen roots, intruding upon their soils and devastating their solitude during this ever-hallowed time of day. The hours of apt sunshine were limited in the permanently frozen tundra blanketing the planet, and the moment its pallid rays extended their tendrils across the threshold of the horizon, the forests retreated into a state of comatose bliss to better absorb what they could of the scant light before succumbing, seemingly much too soon, to the icy wisps of darkness heralded by dusk. They had become aware of the newcomer the instant she arrived aboard her irritably loud wreck of a ship, trespassing into their silent reverie and drawing them reluctantly from their reprieve. No, they did not like being disturbed; some admonishment was in order.

At first, they felt almost afraid. They had seldom witnessed something so heinously … unnatural, so far removed from the infinite hues and shades the earth itself so generously offered. The foreigner resembled something akin to a trail of recently spewed blood tarnishing the wholesomeness of the snow, and the more they observed her from the shelter of their highest boughs, the more she proved that she did not belong. In fact, as they continued watching, their initial sense of dread dissipated into one of mischief; this one was harmless, of that there was little doubt. And though she seemed to be doing an excellent job of reprimanding herself, with her clumsy footing and awkwardly placed steps, they knew now how to punish her for her transgressions. Visitors to this region of the planet were rare and infrequent, and they were seldom permitted the luxury of having a bit of fun.

The narrow trail Aretsuya followed so diligently had been carved into the ground many ages ago by the men of a long-deceased village to mislead any hostile infiltrators, directing them in wide indiscernible circles that meandered here and there to form a giant labyrinth with no real destination. Few dared to breach the impenetrable barrier of trees guarding the matrix of the forest, and as such, it was unlikely that the woman would find anything within the maze save for severe frustration. The trees laughed heartily at this thought, outstretching their buttresses to greet her unstable feet and calling forth to the winds to commence their symphony as the snow danced around her in white swirls. It was nearly too perfect, and soon the foliage too began to chuckle and bent down to tickle her skin with their spines. The theatricals were marvelous, and they would soon begin preparing for the finale in concert with the elements – until she stepped off the path.

It was an event they had rarely witnessed before, and they were surprised by the woman’s willingness to encroach upon territory that even stronger and surer men would think twice before violating. As Aretsuya stumbled away from the particular tributary she had wandered onto a few minutes earlier and into the barricade of brambles, they fell silent. Had she been more keenly aware of her surroundings, she may have realized that the wind had quietened itself to a soft hum, and even the snow underneath her feet felt firmer and steadier as they ceased their ballet of shifting depths. She had inadvertently stepped upon sacred ground, and even they who had dwelled there since the beginning of time, they who alone stood privy to the secrets of the past lost through the changing eons, did not dare to interfere. This was no longer their terrain; it was a world that time had forgotten, one that no longer existed in any living memory but which reeked even now of a strange brand of malignancy, of bereavement.

Aretsuya encountered no further obstacles as she headed towards the stone cottage, but as she approached its walls, a different sensation seemed to engulf her. Something beseeched her from beyond, beckoning her to trace her fingertips over the surface of the cold marble. With little more than a lingering shred of awareness, she complied, pressing her palm flat against the stone – and found, to her surprise, that it was warm. The sensation enveloped her being, lulling her into a trancelike state, and she closed her eyes to better allow the serenity to fully wash over her and engulf her senses. She dreamed of a wide hearth that crackled pleasantly with fire, of the pitter-patter of small feet running across the carpeted floors, of laughter, of happiness and of a life free from worldly cares. And, just as she readied herself to surrender to the warmth and all its jovialities, it vanished, leaving behind remnants of only an enduring sadness that permeated through into her skin and left her suddenly and acutely aware of the cold around her.

“You shouldn’t go in there,” said a voice from behind Aretsuya. She swiveled around, startled. There, a few dozen meters from where she stood, sat a waif-like figure perched atop a boulder that marked the forest’s edge. Her voice was quiet and melodious, lilting in the air as though it were a facet of the wind itself, and locks of ashen hair swayed calmly over her shoulders. She appeared pale and ghostly, and from this distance, the faded grey robes adorning her diminutive stature seemed to blend seamlessly into the snowy canvass encircling her on three sides. The girl lowered her neck to the right, gazing emptily towards the cabin. “They’re miserable because no one wants to listen to them,” she continued. “But they won’t help you find what you’re looking for.”

[Aretsuya]

The cabins stretched out over a much larger expanse; grey, grey, grey upon white, an infection spreading over such purity, in this case called snow. It carried on and on, and one's eyes could only discern it over a few hundred meters. Further examined, they resembled the same that Aretsuya had been standing in before. Same old slabs of solid melancholy, each crying out to the harsh winds and begging for the strangulating gales to blow another way. Each mourning over their states of corrosion. Once upon a time, they too housed joviality and laughter. In fact, Aretsuya smiled weakly at the thoughts of hot fires and little children, embracing their mothers happily and enjoying the many fragrances that the generous evergreens had to offer.

The woman didn’t move for some time, running her hands over the stones, which felt ever so pleasant to her fingertips. She and the little cabins might’ve been in their own states of oblivion, while her fingers danced with the merry children of the lay. But one could only stay ignorant to the wistful skies and doleful zephyrs for a moment of time. Aretsuya withdrew her fingers and gasped, as cold engulfed her once more. She shivered violently, delirious from the algid atmosphere and furthermore, the sights of blood and menace overtook every waking thought of her mind.

There was no more mirth. No more intoxicating perfumes. Except for the smell of iron from the gore and other human remnants, there was nothing she could smile about any longer. The woman fell to her knees, hands striking the wretched snow while she gasped for air, the arctic poisons filling up her lungs. The debris, the mayhem in the little shack. The disarray hurt her eyes, and she could sob for them, and almost did. So alone, in this mass of screaming shacks and bloodied memories…

Then, she snapped out of it with a jolt. What the heck was that?

Shaking her long, scarlet mane from the little flakes of snow that had deposited there, she glowered at the modest hut, hoping her even-icier-than-the-winds stare could win over some answers. But nothing came. She was, again, all alone in this wreck of a planet, in front of a haphazard cabin. Could she even kick the many doors open? Hardly, considering every touch brought up illustrations of despondency and torment. The thoughts still lingered there, however much she refused to acknowledge them. Or maybe because it’d take a lot of effort to push open a stone door. She just hadn’t the energy. Not like she wanted to see what mess was left behind, anyway.

Aretsuya was a woman of strength and cunning. The cold must’ve caused eccentric delusions; yes, she had heard of that. The mind-blowing chills numb your vital brain cells and arouse strange imagery into the head. That’s all it was. Had to be. Therefore, thoughts of getting out of Ilum flooded back into her psyche. If only the trees didn’t form some sort of aberrant maze, she would’ve attempted to, anyway.

“You shouldn’t go in there.”

Aretsuya spun around so fast, she could’ve sworn she ruptured some fundamental tissues in her neck. Her eyes widened, two glassy, spherical orbs, the sapphire blue observing the ethereal little being up ahead. They swiveled around to take in every bit of the girl, with her platinum locks and sallow skin. And the thought of her clothes! Were those grey rags enough to keep one warm from these piercing extremes of temperatures? The petite figure meshed in weirdly with the miserable snow and grey skies. It was almost as though she belonged there. Camouflaged; very uncanny.

“They’re miserable because no one wants to listen to them,” the girl’s voice quivered through the air, and Aretsuya trembled at the mere sight of her. “But they won’t help you find what you’re looking for.”

“They? Who are they?”

The woman’s insides lurched, and nausea conquered her thoughts now. Yet, she stared quizically at the kooky conundrum.

“And how would you know what I’m looking for?”