The Wounded Angel

Chapter 1: The Mountain

For a day and a night, war raged over the peaks of Arenkur. Mighty fireballs flew around the mountain. Black clouds drifted over the rocky peaks. Clouds made of sticky pitch and black fire. Bright lightning bolts shot down from these clouds. They struck rock, they struck ice. Fire on the Arenkur. Angry flames in the midst of snowfields.

The cracking and crashing of rock. Mighty blocks split, smashed. Smashed into rough, misshapen chunks. Thrown far away, a circle of rock debris.

Then, nothing more. Silence. Calm. The end.

Not a sound could be heard.

It was over.

She steps outside the hut and looks up at the mountain.

The mountain peaks rest, covered in snow, peaceful in the rising sun. As if the battle had never taken place during the night. The sun’s rays shine on the snowfields, refracted a thousand times by the icy crystals, shining far out over the valley. The sun mountain, the Arenkur, reappears in its familiar form. Indifferent, eternal, always the same, it sends its light over the valley.

She should have gone back to her hut. She should have forgotten the events of the night. That would have been the right thing to do.

Because the war, up on the mountain, is none of her business. It is not her war. What happens out in the world is none of her business. The world does not care about her, has forgotten her. Why should she care about the world?

She is still standing out there, still looking up. She looks, thinks, remembers. How it all began.

Many years ago.

With two people who had fled up here from the people, from the confines of the valley. Two people who had believed it was possible to escape, to escape their fate in the valley.

The mountain is cursed, they had been told. No one settles on the mountain. Because the mountain does not tolerate people on it.

They had laughed at the people in the valley. At their simplicity, at their blind superstition. Up there, there were fresh meadows, enough space for animals and people. Up there, they could be free. They could look back down on the valley, on the eternal sameness, on little people with little dreams. Trapped in their world.

Together they had moved up the mountain, built their hut together, fenced in fields, and taken care of the animals.

The new fields yielded abundant harvests, the animals grew and thrived. Together they were happy. Life lay before them, a golden path full of promise for the future.

She planted a small garden. She planted edible, useful, beautiful things.

On the mountain, she discovered rare medicinal herbs, which she also brought to her garden. She cared for them, protected them, and rejoiced in new life. The garden grows, promising a rich harvest.

The mountain was good to them. It gave them generously from its bounty. Pure spring water, fertile pastures, the endless forest with all its riches of wood, brushwood, acorns, and game.

The mountain promised them freedom, and it had kept its promise. Down in the valley, everything had remained the same. The people looked at them suspiciously, begrudging them their shared happiness and new wealth.

No one in the valley trusts those who ally themselves with the mountain. Those who leave the community no longer belong. And so it came to pass that no one from the settlement wanted anything to do with them. On market day, no one spoke to them, no one invited them to family celebrations or communal festivities.

They were the outcasts of Arenkur, and they had only each other.

But that was enough.

Then, barely a year later, everything changed. The winter was long and cold, the soil lost its strength, the meadows were barren, there was not enough hay for the animals in winter.

Their little hut, a place of unity and peace, was their last refuge. Until he, her husband, who had always been so strong and healthy, was struck by illness. A slow, tenacious illness. Patient, deliberate, relentless, unstoppable.

Life left him. It was as if someone were sucking the life out of him. Every day, a little less life. He became short of breath, lost his strength, his confidence. He could only sit, then only lie down.

She tried everything, searching for a cure in the villages of the valley. She brought the priest and the healer to her hut. She waited, hoped, prayed. She spoke to the gods of heaven, sang blessings, put on amulets, spoke to the guardian spirits.

She mixed the medicinal herbs in the garden into strong ointments and medicines. She remembered her mother’s teachings.

The power of herbs. Every herb contains some of the power of the mountain. Every herb contains some of the power of the sun.

All in vain. The herbs were no match for the power of the disease. The priest could not help, did not want to help. The healer became more and more silent until one day he stopped coming. He abandoned them. The two of them, alone on the mountain.

Everything seemed to come to a standstill. And waiting. The mountain waited, the gods waited. She herself waited. The last day. Pain, suffering, a last clinging to life. Despair.

It was over. There had been two of them. Now there was only one.

She buried him herself, refused all help, rejected the priest’s words. She no longer went to the villages in the valley. She only exchanged the bare necessities, spoke to no one. She climbed back up the mountain, silent, without words. She disappeared from life, disappeared on the mountain.

The world had forgotten her. And she no longer looked at the world.

But now she stands in front of the hut. She looks up and wants to know.

The farm had surrounded her like an invisible cage, cutting her off from the world outside. For her, the world had ceased to exist, had become something distant, something foreign.

But now she hungers for the world, she searches for answers, she searches for the meaning behind it all.

She would not find the answers to her questions in the valley. But perhaps up there, up on the mountain, close to the gods. She would ask about the why, about life and about death.

She is not afraid, not for herself. She had long been a guest in the land of the dead.

Thick wool against the cold, a loden cloak against wind and rain, a knotted linen cloth for half a loaf of bread. It’s not much, but she doesn’t care. The mountain will decide whether she reaches the summit or not. For the first time in a long time, she feels free again.

With her cloak tied tightly, she begins her ascent.

First along the upper forest path, the trail still covered in white with the frost of the night. Her footsteps crunch on the fresh frost, pressing it into the earth.
Hidden animal trails branch off from the forest paths, narrow, tight, washed out.

She continues to climb, higher and higher.

The path ends, every trail ends. Slopes, shadows, the last remnants of scrubby grass. A few colorful alpine flowers clinging to the barren earth. This is the realm of the chamois, the swift, scurrying marmots.

Further, further up.

Stones, rubble, rock debris, it’s getting dangerous. The slopes are steep, slippery, sometimes she loses her footing.

This is not her home, she has no place here. The land of humans lies far below her. No one lives at this altitude.

Further up. Up into the cold, up to the rocky slopes of the mountain.

Life lies below her. This is the cold, stony highland of the mountain. Here, the elements battle each other.

Snow covering the rocks. Ice splitting the rocks, fighting, pressing, pushing, finding space in every crack, every furrow.

The greedy wind, accustomed to ruling over everything, hammers over the flanks, rages, but must yield to the mountain. It chases, rushes, shoots over incisions and crevices. It howls out its power, its strength, rushes out over the mountain, further, ever further, over new valleys, new plains, far out onto the icy sea.
Eternally on the hunt, without worries, without pity, it rules the sky. Driven by the power of the sun, it knows no yesterday and no tomorrow.

No mortal has any place up here. The mountain looks down into the valley, the inhabitants of the valley look up at the mountain. That’s all there is to it; there is no connection, no common ground between the two worlds.

She continues on, clinging to ledges, sinking into the snow, falling into the snow. Beneath her, the smooth ice.

Every step is dangerous, but every step brings her closer to her goal.

Then, finally, the mountain widens, recedes, opens up before her. A wide plateau lies before her. A world of snow and shimmering crystals.

But the gleaming white that usually covers the plain in all its splendor lies there, cut up, torn apart, devastated. In the wounds of the ice and snow, dark, black burns. Black cauldrons, burnt, jagged grooves. In two or three places, the earth is still burning, burning with a thick, oily color, burning in the snowfield. A dark, low smoke rises, rolling across the white plain. Soot falls on the snow, coloring the white. Coloring it black.

From the fire in the snow, dark water pushes its way out in small rivulets, confused and jumbled. Meltwater finds its way down. Flows together, forms a dark stream, plunges down the side of the mountain. It colors the rocks black.

Water pours down, the mountain cries, the mountain cries over its wounds. Ice-cold tears, dark tears.

Broken, bent metal towers before her, there in the dirty, sooty white. Sharp, splintered. Pressed together with unimaginable force, torn apart by unknown powers, destroyed by inhuman forces.

It is a field of war, the end of a battle, and never, never before has she seen anything like this.

No human being has ever seen this. This metal, these large machines made of metal, where do they come from? Who can make such things? No blacksmith can make this, not even ten blacksmiths, not even a hundred.

Who has the power to destroy all this? What powers are needed for that? What army has such weapons, what warrior fights with such weapons? What magic spell creates and destroys these machines?

She sees that the legends are true. This mountain is a mountain of war, of eternal war, and there is no place up here for a woman like her. She is in a strange world.

Here she is a nobody, an intruder. Unimportant, unwanted.

No one will answer her questions, no one will speak to her. This place answers no questions; this place is just a battlefield in the eternal war of the gods.

The gods have done their work, leaving behind fire and wounded earth. No answers.

Her way up? Futile. Her hope? Gone and extinguished.

Once more she looks, gazes at the fire in the snow, at the destroyed metal, the dark, sooty stream flowing from the white battlefield.

Time to go. Time to go back to the valley.

Chapter 2: The Angel

One, two footsteps, then she stops.

She has heard something.

She hears it again, faintly, above the crackling of the flames, above the gurgling of the water, above the soft murmur of the wind.

A voice, a groan. Pain.

Life. Life up here. There is someone else here.

Then, nothing more, only the silence of the mountain.

Later, much later, she will wonder whether she had a choice. Whether it was fate or her own will.

Whether she was led down this path or whether she chose to walk it.

Whether it is sometimes the case that it is not humans who need the help of the gods, but sometimes the gods who need the help of humans.

She turns around, does not go down.

She carefully steps onto the snowfield, extremely tense. With long strides, she crosses over, climbing over the dark waterways, past the burning earth. Upwards, up to one of the black, shapeless metallic giants, half lying, smashed, protruding from the snow.

She continues on, fearfully touching the cold, dark metal of this strange machine that was not created in this world.

She walks past it, climbing over torn metal bars and metal plates scattered in the snow.

She glances behind the metallic colossus, just one glance, and everything in her life changes.

A vision, like a bolt of lightning, burns itself into her eyes forever, lodging itself in her mind forever.

An apparition. What she sees cannot be true. It is not possible.

For the one who lies there is not a human being.

He lies motionless, bleeding in the white snow. His armor, forged from white metal with golden patterns, is scorched, deformed, torn open.

His arms are outstretched on both sides. Also spread out on the snow are two wings. Golden wings.

A warrior of the heavens, a golden angel.

All she can do is stare. In her head, fragments of memories, memories of old legends, fragments of terrible sermons. Prophecies, curses, warnings about the mountain, about the wrath of the gods.

She freezes, is helpless, cannot move.

A voice speaks to her. A voice in her head. “Help him!”

She cautiously approaches the warrior. Bends down to him, kneels in front of him. She shyly touches his face, feels the unfamiliar metal of his armor.

He looks at her, tries to speak, in vain.

She leans forward, very close, trying to understand him.

He looks at her. She sees a dancing, golden fire in his eyes.

She will see this fiery gold again. Later, when he talks about his homeland, later, when he talks about the two of them. When he goes outside early in the morning and looks up at the sun. Up into the sky, up into another world.

But that is still in the future, it has not happened yet, may never happen, may never become reality.

She can save him. There is still life in him, it is not too late yet.

And she understands that this is the answer she has been looking for. The answer to why she climbed the mountain.

Someone called out to her. Someone needs her, needs her help.

She tries to move him, to pull him. In vain, he is too heavy. His armor, his wings hinder him.

She loosens parts of his armor, removes the heavy metal from him. The wings, also part of his armor, remain behind. His blood leaves red streaks in the white snow.

She still cannot move him.

She stands up, opens her cloak, unwraps herself from her protective clothing.

The cold seizes her body, draws the warmth from her.

She lays the cloak on the ground, rolls and pulls the wounded man onto this firm surface. The cloak distributes the heavy load, the load glides on the snow.

She grabs the cloak with both hands and begins to pull.

He cannot help her. The wounded angel who has fallen to earth is between life and death. Inside him, a last remnant of the golden fire burns. A thin, golden thread of life that still keeps him in this world.

Slope by slope, path by path, she fights her way down. Slowly, haltingly. She slips, falls, gets up again.

It is a stumbling, a pulling, a struggle. Several times, when the pain in her hands becomes too great, when the cold settles in her body, she pauses, stops. Only for a short time.

Her strength is leaving her. She has to sit down, rest. Her breath comes in gasps, panting.

Lie down, lie down and think of nothing. Allow the cold to take over. The cold fills her body, makes it stiff, immobile, kills the pain. The cold means standstill, the end of the struggle. The cold, the cold is her friend. The cold calls to her, wants her. To rest together, forever. Up here on the mountain.

It’s over. No strength left to get up, no strength left for tears. The snow will cover her, hide her from the world. It will lay over her like a blanket, watch over her sleep.

She is ready to let herself fall.

But she is not alone.

A voice has spoken to her, an angel has called out to her. He needs her. She will not leave him lying in the snow. She will save him.

She gets up. She staggers, the pain is too great. It is no longer her hands that grope for the angel, grab his cloak and pull him along. These hands no longer belong to her, she no longer feels them. The hands reach out on their own, numb, insensitive. But the hands do not let go. They hold on, grab, pull.

They pull the burden further.

It cannot succeed. She is only a weak woman, half frozen in the relentless cold.

She alone does not have the strength. But the mountain helps them. It opens its paths for them. Helps them down.

Snowfields they can glide across. White slopes that gently carry them down. Meadows with a soft carpet of grass that slowly brings them down. Leaves and spruce needles form a blanket, loosely covering the forest floor, allowing the load to slide over them.

Everything helps her to move this burden.

Then it’s done, accomplished. A miracle. Back at her own farm, the sun is already beginning to set.

Fire. That’s the first thing she thinks of. Fire, warmth. She piles the wood in the fireplace, a mighty stack. A spark, another spark, a flame grows on the splinter, licks at the wood, greedily demanding more fuel, wanders further, finds a new home, blazes, flares up, spreads wider, higher, reigns over the wood, a proud flame dances in the stone fireplace.

New light shines into the hut, finds walls, glows, is refracted, reflects off the metal, illuminates the walls and ceiling. Warmth enters the hut. Warmth that promises new life.

She cannot stay in the warmth, must move on, must go outside. She leaves the hut, walks with stiff steps along the stone path to her garden.

In her garden, the power grows. Medicinal herb after medicinal herb, diverse, leaves and flowers, some roots full of life. Herbs that grow in the valley carry only a small part of these powers within them. High up, high up on the mountain, they reveal their true nature. Roots that stretch deep into the earth in search of support and water, leaves that fight to absorb every ray of sunshine. Cold, from which the plant must protect itself. Cold that allows its power to grow, protects its survival.

This power, this hidden power of herbs, has the ability to heal. It takes a healer to uncover their powers, bind them, combine them into something effective, something alive.

Back in the hut.

She still cannot rest, sit down. The herbs must be crushed, heated, mixed.

Wounds that need to be cared for. No rest, no rest for her. These hours will decide who lives and who dies. The plants, the healing herbs, will measure their powers against the power of death. The energies of the sun and light against the eternally lurking dark enemy.

She will not allow herself to lose again. She must not lose, she will not lose.

The hours pass, night has long since thrown its blanket over the land. Darkness, but up on the mountain, a light still shines from the window of a hut. This light shines throughout the night. Sometimes a shadow can be seen, as if someone were pacing back and forth in the hut. Sometimes the light of the fire seems to grow weaker, threatening to go out. But then it grows again, new flames, new wood. No smoke can be seen in the darkness, only the luminous glow in the window. Lonely, like a star, the night light shines on Arenkur. A spark of hope.

The night is over, the fire has gone out. Silence. The new day dawns, stretches, conquers the world.

It is quiet in the hut. No window opens, no one steps outside. Silence.

The golden sun stands high in the sky. It sends its warm rays into the valley, painting golden patterns on the mountain. No sound comes from the hut.

As if time had stopped.

Then, suddenly, footsteps, movement. Signs of life.

She opens the door. Stops, looks at the new day. Looks up, up at the sun, up at the mountain.
Her movements are slow, her body is tired. Weakened by her long climb up the mountain yesterday, tired from keeping watch through the night.

But inside she feels a new warmth, a strength that outshines her fatigue, eases her pain.

This warmth, this strength, its name is hope.

Time loses its usual course. The days merge into one another, nights come and go. Hours disappear, dissolve, lose themselves into nothingness.

A few hours of sleep, be it day or night. Long periods of wakefulness, listening for deep breathing. Watching, searching for change.

Days pass. She forgets herself. Her sleep is short and dreamless. She tends to the wounds, heals the man, heals the angel.

Then, one day, from one moment to the next, fear sinks its claws into her, a nameless terror overwhelms her.

The fever has left him, his spirit has returned, lives again in the warrior’s body. The golden angel has found his way back to earth.

The one who lay there was a sick man she had nursed.

But the one who now lies there is a stranger. A stranger in her world, a dangerous, unknown stranger. A warrior of heaven.

The angel looks at her.

A deep fear rises within her. A terror deeply rooted in her, nourished by ancient legends and terrible sermons about the unknown.

She doesn’t move a muscle, sits there completely still, her breath catches in her throat, a coldness rises within her. What will he do? Will he kill her too, just as he killed the others up there on the mountain?

He is not a human being, he is a warrior who fights in the battles of heaven. Capable of unimaginable deeds.

Two lines in time race towards each other. One line is her life. Life in the valley, life on the mountain. The second line is his life, timeless, created to serve, raised to fight.

Two lines in time. Two lines that touch, connect, merge.

Two becomes one.

He reaches out his hand to her. He tries to touch her. He looks at her and speaks to her in his foreign language. For the first time, the golden fire dances in his eyes again.

She does not retreat. She reaches for his hand. Carefully, slowly, ready to pull her hand back at any moment. Ready to flee if danger arises.

Their fingers touch, lightly, searching.

His hand is warm, full of life, secure, familiar.

She does not pull her hand back. She lets his hand rest on hers.

Just for a moment.

A moment in the eternal flow of time.

Just a moment. But that is enough.

Something new has begun.

Chapter 3: The Wolves

His body heals quickly. Faster than would be possible for a human. One leg does not heal properly, and he walks with a slight limp. He tries to hide it from her, but she can see it.

He walks around, explores the hut, discovers the surrounding area. Sometimes, early in the morning, he goes outside, looks at the rising sun, and gazes upward for a long time.

He helps her with her work. He quickly learns the necessary things. Feeding the animals, working with wood, life on the farm.

He talks to her, she talks to him. Neither understands the other. Laughing, like children playing, they manage to communicate with their hands and signs. A hand movement explains one thing, a sign speaks of another.

A word is a sign. Many signs create meaning.

His strength increases, his hikes become longer and longer. One day he indicates to her that he will climb back up the mountain. He will fetch something, something that has been left behind on the mountain.

She is startled, thinking he wants to go up the mountain to stay there. But he signals to her that no, he will come back.

He sets off alone, determined, full of strength. Before evening, he is back with her, carrying finds in his hands and on his back, remnants from above.

Metal, tools, strangely shaped objects. All night long, he sits by the light of the fire and examines his finds. He sorts them, broken and burnt, straight and whole.

The next day, he carries some of them outside, digs a pit, and buries the destroyed remains.

He carefully places the other, valuable items with her belongings, protected in the sturdy chest.

They are still strangers to each other. They live side by side, together but separate, with little connecting them.

One morning, she enters the barn to feed the animals as she does every day.

She sees the disaster, sees the horror.

The goats torn apart, the chickens killed, blood on the walls.

No one has been spared.

The last of her possessions has been destroyed.

Wolves have invaded during the night, tearing apart, feeding on, and killing everything that was alive. The gray enemy, the terror of farmers throughout the valley, has found her this night.

She understands that her life, modest and poor as it is, is finally over. Hunger will move into her home and destroy everything.

She will have to give up everything, leave her land. The house, the barn, her small garden, the stone path to the spring. She will leave everything behind. She will move to the nearest settlement and ask to be taken in as a simple maid.

Even now, here, at the end of it all, she does not have the strength to cry. No tears. Not a single one.

He finds her in the meadow in front of the house. He looks at her, looks at the house, looks at the stable. He sees the misfortune, understands her pain. He stands before her in silence, unable to find the words to comfort her.

This world knows no justice. This world knows only war, greed, and destruction. The strong rule over the weak. The prince goes to war, the warrior plunders and rakes in riches, the predator feasts on its prey.

This world knows no justice. No god walks the earth to help people obtain their rights.

This world knows no justice. No golden angel reaches for his flaming sword to defend the weak and the innocent.

No angel.

One angel.

The fallen angel.

He goes into the hut, opens the chest, reaches for his weapons.

He remains gone for three days and three nights.

She often goes outside the hut to look for him. But there is no sign of him.

She gets up in the night. Listens to the night. Looks into the night.

Nothing. Nothing to be seen.
A flash of lightning!

Lightning on the mountain!

Glaring, bright rays of light cut through the darkness of the night for a few moments. Rays of light on the mountain slopes, in the forests. Rays of light race through the night. They hit unknown targets, burn, destroy, punish.

Magical lightning on the Arenkur, without thunder, without storm. As if one of the gods had descended to earth and was hurling his heavenly weapons at his enemies.

A new day. No flashes of light to be seen. Calm over the Arenkur.

But something had changed. She senses it. There is tension over the mountain. No birds fly during the day, no animals show themselves.

It is as if the mountain itself is holding its breath. As if even the elements are afraid, afraid of the new predator roaming the mountain.

A new, powerful predator. More powerful than any human hunter, merciless like a force of nature, unstoppable.

No hiding place will save the gray hunters.

Three days pass. Three nights.

Then, at noon, she sees him. Tired and exhausted, he slowly walks into the yard. He is still limping slightly on one leg.

He looks at her and says something to her in his strange, sparkling language.

His body is tired, but his eyes shine. And again she sees the golden, dancing fire in his eyes.

She does not understand his language, but she understands the language of his eyes. His eyes look at her. Only her.

And she knows. She knows that the danger is over. She knows that there are no more wolves at Arenkur. For many years to come, there will be no more wolves. The gray terror has been eliminated.

She walks toward him and embraces him. And he embraces her.

For the first time in many years, her world is in harmony.

Chapter 4: Time

The disturbance on the mountain had been too great, his actions too conspicuous. It could no longer be kept secret.

A few days later, she sees a group of men from the nearest settlement. They stand shyly and indecisively at a distance in front of her hut. They look, push each other forward, talk to each other. No one steps forward.

He sees them standing outside and wants to go to them. She tries to hold him back, but he pushes her aside.

He opens the door, reveals himself, and goes out to the men.

He walks proudly toward them, suppressing his slight limp. He stands before them and looks at them.

One after the other, they lower their gaze.

He speaks to them in his foreign language, raises his hands, spreads his arms.

The golden angel, the warrior of heaven, speaks to them.

The men kneel before him. One after the other.

Then they get up and go back to their settlement.

He comes to her in the hut and embraces her. She holds him tight, but she knows their time together is over.

On the same day, the elders of the valley appear. They, too, do not dare to enter the hut.

A long conversation lasts deep into the night. They light a fire in the open hearth, torches illuminate the night. The cold, the wind, none of it seems to bother them.

They talk to each other for a long, long time. They show, they gesture, they draw with sticks in the ashes. Slowly, slowly, understanding dawns.

A few days later, a group of young men arrive. They bring tools, animals, supplies.

They begin to repair the hut, widen the stable, and renew the fences. They work on their small farm for weeks and weeks. The house is repaired, the supplies increased. Never before had such wealth found its way into their little farm.

Every few days, one of the village elders makes his way up to them. Sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by other village elders from the surrounding villages. They sit together with the angel for a long time. They ask questions, they look, they marvel.

She dares to hope. Hope that this is how her life will be. Together, respected, without worries.

These are golden months. They live together as husband and wife. Word by word, she learns his language. Writes his script, shares his life.

He tells her about his world. His time. She understands some things, other words remain foreign to her forever. He speaks to her of the golden sphere, the circle of time, the struggle for time.

Sometimes he forgets that she is not one of his own, speaks faster and faster, gesticulates, explains, becomes very excited.

She does not understand his words, but she understands him. She is his companion, she lies next to him, he is a part of her.

Two is one.

Time does not disappear, it turns. Week turns into week, month turns into month, year turns into year.

The Arenkur, snow-covered, impassable.

The Arenkur, glistening, thawing, with ice-cold waters rushing into the valley.

The Arenkur, full of fresh green, insects buzzing over colorful flowers.

The Arenkur, mighty, in the full sap of the trees, swarms of excitedly chirping birds busily scurrying across the sky.

The Arenkur, colorful leaves cover the ground, the sun is low, in golden autumn.

The wheel of time turns, turns within itself, spins time, becomes time. The wheel never stands still.

Light in front of the courtyard. Shining, golden light. Sharp, without flickering, it illuminates the night. The night disappears.

The sound of metal, footsteps, a deep hum, inhuman, metallic, hungry, greedy.

She knows what is happening, has always known.

They have come. His companions, to take him away. Back to their world.

He embraces her. Holds her close. Speaks to her. Tender words.

But she does not hear, does not hear a single word. Cannot understand, does not want to understand.

He turns away, breaks free from her, goes outside. The room, suddenly empty, silent. Everything around her is infinitely large, so infinitely large. Because everything is empty.

She herself is small, a shadow.

A shadow without light.

Even now, no tears.

Only cold, icy cold. How can it be that a living body is so cold? So lifeless?

She continues to live, without will. She lives because she is used to living. Just as it was before. Work that must be done. Pain, cold, exhaustion.

Life is back to what it was. The dreams have disappeared. The gold of dreams fades. The light is just an ordinary light again, the light of candles flickering in the wind.

She forgets the time. But time continues to turn. Changes everything.

Weeks later, time changes her. Her body.

Change. Growth. New life grows. Grows inside her.

The women from the settlement help her. Accompany her, protect her.

A new warmth spreads throughout the farm.

Expectation. Hope. Joy.

A day of joy, a day of arrival.

The child opens its eyes.

Looks up at her, its eyes blue like the sky, golden fire dancing in its eyes.

The child clutches her finger with its hand.

And so, for the first time in years, the tears come.