In the late night, on the ocean shore, sirens wept song through the sound of the crashing waves, the whisper of the ebbing tide, and in the breath of the cool wind. The endless Fathoms-- the consuming abyss-- so unknown, awaited us, where we gathered to honor the lulling blackness. These waters would know our solemn approach, and were ceaseless with its call. We watched and listened. It was all we could do standing at the foot of the neverending, where no beginnings bridged the life giving earth, laying body to body with the infinite above, its twin called sky. The stars, a thousand eyes, gazed down upon us, and the whole of the world embraced us in unity. We were all together, those that could be there, and together we listened. The silence was deafening. The tears of the fair kind splashed us, awakening our compassion and our power to feel the suffering that one among us was feeling. We tasted the salt of their anguish, and shivered under duress of the winter that dwelt inside them, seeing the blackness in its entirety, and then we opened our ears to the call of hope; a call that was dimly muffled by the wail of the midnight wind.
But the nature of this chaos, its assembly of wild whims that invariably repeated itself over and over again slowly sought to usher forth a new beauty. The blackness reflected the stars against a silver surface, the wind caressed even as it chilled, and together we drew closer before the blasts of cold. The water whispered a sleepers lullaby, and the gentle sand cradled us even as we stood on the edge of darkness.
Once we understood the cycles that took place we knew that the one suffering among us could endure. But as water is sister to the sky, and earth is brother to the tide, we too would join in a cycle of sibling compassion, and the element of pain could move on its course within our ailing kindred. Before the light approached we departed. There was no need to wait for the new dawn, as we were certain the sun would crest at the appropriate time. Rebirth rode on our shoulders as we vanished into the forest which we were bound to. Each fair kind vibrated what was remembered of the night before. The circle broke apart, bleeding into the emerald veil, a song on their lips, a dance in their step, a stillness in their mind, a peace clutched in their palm. Their memories of the night we shared were unique, and yet strangely alike.
With cloak, shawl, or open arm they gently gathered leaves from the earthen floor. They gave thanks, recieving the bounty of the trees with a trancelike awareness of what precious treasures they would carry off. These were the tears of the trees, the children of the tall ones, the bread of the forest, the raiments of the soil, the center that rose up to meet our faerie footfall, the life that was finally let go of.
By mid day we gathered at the heart of the woods. We drew our lavender gate, and danced a ring around the portal of the Infinite Dream, willing and passionate for the veil of Arcadia to open and enter us. The forest was alive with dreamers, consecrated with wild emotion so that all was ready to recieve our ailing kith. Their pain was known and unknown to us. Rest would reach out for the wounded soul. With leaves of the Dreamer Forest we made a bed for them to lay upon. We guided the ailing to the earth, where their stomach, chest, and cheek pressed against the body of the forest fall; their hands seeping into terra, embraced, loved, and held perfectly by the life giver. We drew back our sorrowful kiths tunic and doublet, and laid hands upon the skin of their back. We called out to the pain in their heart, drawing it to the back, willing it to a space behind them, singing and chanting as we could see the suffering inside reach the surface of their flesh, their back-- their past-- and we held it in our hands. With listless movements we raised it up and gave it to the sky. The winds swept down to carry it away.
We placed kisses upon the sleepers skin, and with fingertips we dipped our hands in earth comingled with water. Their body had let go, had released and been released, had joined the Fall when we sealed the wound with veins of mud, drawn on their bare skin like the veins of a leaf. The wind kissed our mark, and for this moment it lasted. Cocooned in our love, we rose as a faerie circle and danced a ring around our kindred spirit till they joined us in their place within the circle once more.