NO PROSE IS TOO PURPLE FOR THE NATURE OF MAGIC

Tessa and Laura have gotten together to do this fascinating blogfest, THE NATURE OF MAGIC :

http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com/2011/02/nature-of-magic-blogfest.html

Erin Kane Spock yesterday lauched her PAINT IT PURPLE (prose) blogfest :

http://courtlyromance.blogspot.com/2011/02/march-25th-paint-it-purple-blogfest.html?zx=e263309703f03be5

I have melded my entry to fit both their intriguing blogfests.


{Hibbs, the bear with two shadows, has brought the fatally wounded Sidhe, Leandra Dagda,

to his endless cabin built for him by Estanatlehi. But normal magics will not keep death at bay.

Ancient magics are called for -- but to be done in a completely new way.} :


Hibbs' great head fell, his chin resting for a long moment on his chest. Suddenly, he smiled.

“I have a thought.”

Little Brother snorted, “Bound to happen sooner or later.”

Hibbs ignored the hawk, turning to Surt. “You are the master of all the fires around you, are you not?”

The living head of flame studied Hibbs for a long heartbeat of crackling fires. “Yes, I am. Do you wish me to give her a Valkyrie’s funeral?”

Hibbs smiled wide. “No, friend. I want you to summon all the heat from this water as I squeeze it from this cloth.”

In the fireplace, the head of fire seemed to stand still. “You would be caught in the wake of such a thing.”

“I have been cold before.”

“Not like this.”

“Because I must, I will endure.”

Little Brother cawed, “Please do not.”

Knowing what it took for the hawk to say please, Hibbs turned a sad smile his way. “The hard path and the right path are usually the same, Little Brother.”

He soaked the cloth to the full and held it above the still bleeding Sidhe. “What you must do, Surt, do it now.”

A cold, so utter that it was a fire, pierced the young bear to the bone. He stiffened, stifled a groan, and then squeezed the water from the cloth.

At that instant, he realized Surt’s power would not be enough. He ground his great teeth. Thinking back upon his first sight of winter snow, Hibbs drew upon his own Orenda.

And then, it happened.

Magic breathed her whisper of hope into the darkness.

Snow, light as the wind’s kiss, began to flutter from the cloth. Hibbs, despite his great pain, started to laugh. Laugh like a young cub seeing winter’s first snow caressing the slopes.

Quickly he soaked the cloth again and began another, heavier flurry of sparkling snow. It settled like a healing mist upon the wounded Sidhe. She gasped, moaned, then her stiff body began to slowly relax. And Hibbs soaked the cloth yet again.

More snow swirled from his great paw in long, wide arcs. Hibbs laughed deep, turning to Surt, who caught up in the bear’s joy, began laughing himself. To think that he, Surt, Destroyer of Worlds, Father of All Fires, was creating crystal, cold snow.

Snow!

He felt as he had long, long ages ago when the Nine Worlds were steaming and birth-new. No, more than that, he himself felt birth-new, filled with a sense of wonder and endless possibilities, a feeling he had thought Wotan had strangled long eons before.

Surt looked upon the laughing Hibbs. This strange creature had proven Wotan a liar. No, he had done much more than that. Surt felt renewed.

And with the feeling, the laughter boomed out of him over and over again. He looked on Hibbs, and for the first time that he could remember, Surt smiled.

And in that instant, he loved the young bear as one would love a brother. Gone were the plots to gain total freedom by the death of his furred savior. What had he been thinking? The bear had been right. He had let his hate blind him.

Surt laughed even deeper as Hibbs poured down another snow flurry upon the healing Sidhe. Total freedom? Look at what the young bear had just done.

He had shown Surt a power that had laid hidden in him for all his existence. What other wonders might he not show him?

And not to leave his first friend out, Hibbs called out, “Little Brother, would you beat those mighty wings of yours to make a true snow storm?”

The rough-legged hawk had been feeling left out and smiled as much as his beak would let him. “A snow storm it shall be!”

And so it was.

The First Hawk of Creation flew beside Hibbs, impossibly hovering like a Humming Bird. The beats of his huge wings filled the library with a leathery rustling and a tremendous howling of strange winds much like the moans of a thousand Apache spirit flutes.

It was a sight that no Two-Legged had seen since The Great Mystery breathed light into the darkness.

Winter visited the inside of Estanatlehi’s endless cabin. And its gales were the mingled laughter of three spirits who had become one. But there was something odd to the laughter of Hibbs, his face-fur edged in ice.

Its sound had become as thin as butter too spread out on bread. The hawk saw his brother start to shiver uncontrollably and grew worried.

“Surt! Stop -- please. More o-our brother cannot take.”

Surt grunted. Our? Then the Source of All Fires saw the hawk was right. He swore low.

A thousand Sidhe still would not be worth the life of the brother he had just found. He stopped drawing the heat from where Hibbs was weaving on snow-covered legs.

The great bear sank heavily to his ice-crusted knees. But still he was young and filled with the silly pride of youth.

“T-Thank you, Surt, Little Brother. I was tiring -- all that laughter you know.”

The hawk eyed Surt. The head of flickering fires snorted. Hibbs was silent a moment, then his great maw spread into a sheepish grin. He flung flakes of ice from his face as he shook his head and laughed at himself.

“All right, I was becoming aware of a slight chill.”

The hawk cawed, “Slight?”

Little Brother flew to the right shoulder of Hibbs and beat on his head with a flurry of huge wings. Surt chuckled at the sight. And the sound of mingled laughter from three friends filled the enchanted cabin of The Turquoise Woman.

But outside, high in the endless depths of the night sky, the face in the moon shed silent tears.
***
Hibbs' portrait above comes from the genius of Susan Sheldon Boulet. Here are more of her evocative, mystic works of art. Please don't deny yourself the wonder and the awe that will come from viewing her paintings :