Etienne tossed and turned, the heat and humidity meant that what sleep he did manage to get was fitful at best. Eventually, he gave it up as a bad job, rising to splash water on his face at the basin before walking out of the bunkhouse to the front porch in hopes of catching a morning breeze.
The dream was back, the one he’d been having off and on almost all of his life, as far back as he could remember. He wasn’t sure if it was the vision at the Grove, the discussion of what Corbin saw while in the realm of the spirits, or something else, but for the first time he knew what the dream meant. He cast his mind back to his dream, long familiarity easing the task.
*Surrounded by white softness, mist beaded together to form a drop of water, before suddenly plummeting through the air, surrounded all the while by thousands of its siblings. Green fingers reached out to cradle them as they fell, some sticking to the leafy fronds, others swept aside by the wind to continue down, past the mighty trunks and outstretched arms to the black soil far below, before being drawn inexorably towards the call of those waters born beneath the earth and bubbling up to meet their siblings from the skies. Together they mingled and danced, entwining together to form first a spring, then a trickle, a creek, then finally the mighty river that branched into three forks: one that fed the bayous of the Louressaint, calm and peaceful above but full of life and struggle underneath; one that wove its way towards the great ravine at the edge of the forests, pouring down into the depths of the earth, hidden and secret to all creatures; one that churned and twisted upon itself, before seemingly ending abruptly in a deep pool beneath a circle of white oaks, all dark water with no bottom that reflected the night sky.
A voice called out, the words indistinct, and he was suddenly aware of himself as a creature again, somehow seeing all three rivers and their ends at once, and he was consumed with an urge to pick one to quench his thirst*–only to wake once more, sweaty and thirsty in that way only fitful sleep brings.
Three rivers. Three paths. Three endings. Which would they choose?
To return to the shadows now, after all they had done together in the sun? No, it would be unthinkable. To flee, to shed their Forms and Purpose to dance with the deathless outside of their appointed place and time? Not while he lived and wore the mantle of Mother.
No, they would sup on the waters of struggle, but those of home, and fight for that golden path that Vecatra had shone them as the answer to their question. It was the only way to not make all their efforts, and those of all who came before them, not be in vain.
The heavy gray clouds overhead rumbled, and a single white tongue of lightning leapt out to strike somewhere in the deep woods, the thunder that followed acting as the opening bell to a torrent of rain that finally relieved the oppressive humidity of the past weeks, the water cool and refreshing in the summer heat.
