Purple-Esca

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

And from the forest upon which its shadow fell, everyone stayed well away, for the sake of their lives. Or so was their superstition. So was their tradition.

Tendrils from the purple clouds stretched down and filled the forest below. And, in an all-too-common generalization of the fear of what wasn't understood, the nearby city folk filled the forest that hosted this nighttime dance with their preconceived notions and judgement.

They didn't cultivate the forest for its beauty, nor use it for its resources. It stood neglected and unloved, its sole patron the purple clouds when they came to dance with the blushing night sky.

“Aye, don’ take t’e path past t’e forest on yer way home, lad,” the teachers told the boy during his primary years, "no matter t'e miles it saves."

“Sure, yer man enough ‘nd old enough to find yer way, but stay well away,” the apprentice masters told him as he grew older.

“Even t’e fine steel you forge won’t protect you t’ere,” the elders would say, “for t’ere be mysteries, t’ere be wild things, t’ere be monsters t’ere.”

But the boy would not stay away. He did not take the long way home to avoid the path that passed the forest where the purple clouds came to dance. The dark wall of trees seemed to beckon him each time he walked by them as a young schoolboy. They called to him still as an apprentice on his way to the metalsmith forges. With a strange, sweet song, they sang to him even now as tradesman, striding each morning to his shop.

What did the teachers, the masters, or the elders know? Yes, they had watched over the city for decades and kept a wary eye on the forest that hosted the cloud’s dance with the blushing sky, but what reasons did they give for their suspicions? Had they walked this path, day after day, night after night? Had they ever bothered seeking after the alluring secrets the purple clouds and the forest it danced upon must have held? No. And what had superstition and judgement ever given their world other than loss?

He was old enough and man enough to find out for himself. Whether the purple clouds brought treasures or woes, he would soon know.

That night, he watched the forest with brooding eyes, as he had done many nights before from afar. Sitting upon a stone, he listened for the pull of the inaudible music sung to his soul by the purple clouds. Midnight struck; the purple clouds came. It danced with the blushing sky.

He took no tools of his trade for protection, nor any ore to offer the forest and the purple cloud marvels that lay hidden inside. He would meet what wonders or mysteries that resided there unadorned and unadulterated, save for the flexible bow of a judgement-free mind and a quiver of curiosity.

The boy steeled his nerves, soothed his excitement, and strode into the forest hosting the purple clouds come to dance with the midnight sky.

The darkness of night fled this forest, repelled by an ethereal glow, as if the purple clouds were a misunderstood kraken, spewing light instead of black, its misty tentacles reaching down in wispy tendrils of purple mist.

He walked through the trees, feeling as if on the precipice of finding something great, something filled with meaning. He followed the music that sang to his soul.

Suddenly, the trees stopped. A clearing opened at his feet; a mighty willow tree stood at its center. And there, where the trunk turned to roots, rested a girl, her fiery hair the very twinge of red that mixed the purple of the clouds above. It seemed to flow behind her, as if carried by a silent breeze, and meld into the very clouds that danced above. Her elegant limbs were nearly indistinguishable from the roots of the willow tree.

The singing in the boy’s soul stopped. Her singing stopped. Her serene stare drew him to where she rested.

“It’s you,” the boy said, “the one who has sung me here. The mystery the purple clouds bring to the forest. It is you that the city folk shun and fear in their own misunderstanding. I felt they were wrong. I knew their traditions were unfounded. I’ve got to tell them all. Won’t you come with me? We can help them understand.”

The girl only shook her head. “You see me now. You will be enough. I am a light sent from the purple clouds and I sing the song of this midnight dance to bring those that will not fear. But I cannot leave this place. And for fear of what your kind will know, do not tell them of this space.”

The man promised to say nothing, compelled by her charm and grace, and woke the next morning with the girl's music in his head and a yearning in his heart.

He kept his promise as he walked to the city, past the forest now devoid of purple clouds in the morning sun. He kept his promise as he spoke with the city's teachers and masters and elders. He kept his promise as he forged the steel that fueled their industry. It was a hard tale to keep hidden at first. What wonders they could know! But, like a tradesman with a secret that elevates them above the rest, his promise soon became sweet to keep.

Midnights passed and the boy watched the purple clouds from afar until he could stay away no longer. Before the next toll of midnight, he washed himself, plucked a bouquet of wildflowers, and waited for the purple clouds to begin their ethereal dance. Midnight came, the purple clouds arrived, and the boy walked into the forest once again.

The girl was even more lovely this midnight. She seemed to be the very essence of the purple clouds above, the very reason for the midnight sky’s blushing glow. Her eyes shimmered green, like emeralds in the magma of their making.

He ran to her, under her willow tree. The bright colors of the wildflowers he offered seemed to fade and wilt in the glory of her presence, a pathetic response to the gift of simply gazing upon her.

“Please,” he asked the girl, “won’t you come with me, away from this place? I will provide for you. I can protect you. From the purple clouds or from my kin, none of them will hurt you. They would praise us for showing them the wonders of what they once so feared. You'd be a queen by my side in the world where I reside. Not a prisoner of purple clouds or of the forest where they dance.”

The girl under the willow shook her head again, the waves of her movement flowed through her hair, down her back, and into the purple of the clouds above, illuminating the vibrant green of the willow tree that clung to the girl as if she gave it life.

“I cannot leave this place,” said the girl, “and will not follow where you go. I am no faerie that you can have or for you to hold. You should not take from here what was never meant to leave. You should not lead me from this place.”

The boy awoke the next morning with a heart full of holes. He found no joy as his path passed the forest that was currently devoid of the newfound meaning he had uncovered there. He found no fulfillment in speaking with the teachers or the masters or the elders of the city. He found no thrill in the lights and life of his existence there. During the days since last seeing the girl, he could not pull his mind away from the purple clouds, from the midnight dance with the blushing sky, and from her: the girl that seemed to be the reason for it all.

She blossomed in his thoughts as he stared at the glowing blaze of his smelting fire and the white-hot shine of the steel he shaped. He longed for the girl trapped in the forest in the jealous grip of the purple clouds. He dreamt about freeing her from the confines of her ethereal dungeon and showing her the wonders of his world. He imagined their life together, a happy, secret home on the hill. An empire of their own.

Long into the night, he hammered the malleable metal. He would fight for her.

He struck the sparking steel. He would free her from her bonds, from the hold of the forest, from the purple clouds and blushing midnight sky.

Near the stroke of midnight, he quenched the steaming gleam of his creation and sharpened the edge of the axe he had made. It was a tool of his passion, forged in the heat of his uncontrolled yearning and blind desperation to have her by his side.

The boy went determined into the forest. The midnight dance of the purple clouds and blushing sky had already begun. He marched to the clearing where the girl he loved lay entangled in the boughs of the willow tree.

Without a word and a mighty swing of his fresh, sharp axe, he chopped at the willow tree. He brought it crashing down in only a few furious strokes. He severed its hold upon the girl and cut away its entangling grip on her graceful frame. He had freed her from those natural bonds. Now she belonged to him, they would finally be together.

The girl stood docile as she watched the willow fall, silent tears running slowly from her eyes. The boy grabbed her hand and pulled her from the clearing.

The purple clouds seemed to pulse, aware of what he had done. The blushing sky darkened as it watched the boy pull the girl from the forest. Would they be angry? Would the purple clouds demand her return? The boy was unconcerned. He did not fear the purple clouds that danced with the blushing sky. He did not understand.

The boy reached the end of the forest, nearly out of range of the roiling tendrils of purple clouds overhead. He clutched the girl’s hand firmly in his own.

Suddenly she pulled back with a strength that surprised the boy, stopping him in his tracks. He raised his axe and turned back to her, fearing that some tentacle of the purple clouds or vicious vine of the forest had reached out and pulled his girl back to them. He wouldn't let them. He would cut them back as much as he needed to free her from their grasp for good.

However, there was no tendril to be see. No tentacle holding the girl back. Nothing except a line of light, a strand of purple cloud that held to the girl’s fiery hair.

No. A line of light and strand of purple cloud that was the girl's hair.

Did she speak the truth? Could she not be taken from this place? The memory of her words shifted in his mind. He suddenly wondered if they were not some condition of her captivity, but rather...a warning.

No matter. He would sever this bond as well, this last attachment, with a mighty chop of his cold, hard axe. Despite the girl's words turning to a warning in his mind, the boy tried to pull his hand away to better swing the glinting steel; a double handed blow that would cut through the hair that connected the girl to the purple clouds.

He tried to pull his hand from hers, however, he could not. The girl’s grasp on his him was effortless yet unbreakably firm.

Instead, she pulled him close to her and looked up into his eyes with a gaze that melted his heart as thoroughly as he had melted the steel that made his axe. His axe...which now fell from his hand to the mossy earth below.

He wanted to embrace her, but felt his arms held immobile by the girls grasp. Before he could wonder at the girl's strange grip, she began to change before his eyes.

The soft glow of her skin became pale and cold, her incendiary hair became wild, a fire out of control. And her eyes…he was no longer looking down into those eyes, but up into them as the girl grew slender and tall. Eyes that suddenly no longer glowed emerald-green, but now turned to black, two voids that devoured even death.

A terror unlike any the boy had felt came over him as the girl smiled down at him with a grin that stretched across her face, filled with twisted, broken, and sharpened teeth.

“You see me now,” the girl said with a voice that seemed to come not only from her, but also thundered from the purple clouds above. "You will be enough. We cannot leave this place.”

The pressure immobilizing the boy's arms erupted into pain. He looked down, wondering at how such elegant hands could deliver such and terrible hold. Instead of elegant hands, what he saw made him cry out in fear that mingled with his growing pain. Two skeleton-like hands, with fingers that twisted like gnarled branches of a willow tree, held him fast. Their nails, now glinting dully as long, sharp claws, drilled into his hands and forearms.

The boy looked up to the girl's face as if to plea for deliverance. Instead, two new limbs with similar knife-like digits at their ends unfolded from behind the girl's head. She brought them close to the boy, reaching almost tenderly toward his face. Then she sank them deftly and methodically into the flesh of his head and neck. The boy's cry was cut short.

The boy was powerless to resist, to free himself form the terror that held him fast. He could not leave this place.

The girl rose up from the ground, pulled by the long tendril of purple cloud that was her hair. Like the lighted lure on some horrifying sea monster meant to shepherd foolish prey taken by the glimmer into waiting, gaping jaws, she brought the boy up toward the purple clouds. The ones that danced with the blushing night sky. An aggressive mimicry.

Devoured and destroyed, the boy was never to be seen again.