Song of the Beast

Chapter 36

The movement of the upper airs whispers coming storm.

Though the days grow longer, we yearn for winter sleep so long denied us.

My sister Methys flew this day in the morning lands, soaring dawnward, joyful.

Aidan’s song hath already loosed her melody.

Soon, Methys will shape her own song.

Yet my own, my beloved, doth grieve.

When his words fall silent, I hear it still.

I tell him, “Do not sorrow.

The dayfires burn and fade.

Comes the day soon when all my brothers and sisters will sing with thee.

My sisters weep for younglings lost, and so have wandered deep.

But, even so, thy giving brings them wholeness. Soon. Soon.

And Jodar and my brothers have tasted too much human blood.

But the passing season will sate their unholy hunger, and, truly, their being doth move already with your teaching.

Thy songs are true, Aidan, beloved.

With every turning of the light, thy power grows.”

He says his sorrowing is for his own kind, so lost, so weary, in the changing of the world.

But when enough seasons pass, they, too, will hear his songs and understand.

Never in all its turnings hath the world seen what my beloved will become.

Yet still there is more....

Ah, beloved, dost thou think I cannot see thy heart?

One alone art thou. So alone. Bound to earth. Bound to me by thy ever-giving.

Thy being incomplete ...

I will not see thee in such pain.

Fly, old Roelan. Set right this unbalancing. . . .