The Butterflies on the Fringes

A magical golden locket

Dare not mock it!

The release of a dome

To harken a new home!

Spirit is with you

Kismet you shall pursue

Preamble

Safina remembered her sister when she was only four years old. There was something shiny sitting around her neck, fragile but so powerful that it caught the glint of the sun. Safina remembered touching something around her neck too; pressing with her tiny fingers, feeling the lacey crinkle upon her skin. The other shard belonged to Safina…

If ever held to ransom by a wilderness of the future, all the sisters needed to do was to join their magical lockets together, soldered in peace, and everything would slowly be restored…

Her side of the locket had only written:

…with you

…(spirit)

Act 1

The world as one knew it on one side now, devoid of prettiness and happiness, had become a cauldron of harsh realities. Days were nights; roots webbed across the landscape like coiled charcoal; the wind biting cold. Animals mutated and became larger, all of which were black or near-black. Jellyfish and octopus surreptitiously floated in amongst gnarled branches. Leopords and lions prowled the cloudy wilderness. Black crows with feathered scales and fins swam murky waters. Everything defied the laws of nature. Anything belied its intrinsic nature. Something else was coming…

Act 2

For many days on end, insurgents from the Shadow Hunters quarter of the underground labyrinth had invaded the dismal world above, slaughtering creatures in their wake, the ground dotted with carcasses…

There was one creature however that had been captured and tamed. A shiny black stallion with netted wings that had been christened Doomhoff. They trained it over many days, patiently reminding the horse of its earthbound state. When Safina witnessed the care used to remind Doomhoff of planting its hoofs on the ground, she craved to feel her own bare feet feel the salt of the earth above again. At last when Safina was introduced to Doomhoff, he at first defied her presence. He then slowly nuzzled into an understanding of respect and servitude and somehow knew by instinct that he would be part of a very important journey..

Act 3

Safina ducked as she navigated the dimly lit tunnels of the underground labyrinth. Her spiky turquoise hair and athletic body casting shadows on the cave walls as she quickened her pace. She ducked one final time, reaching the inner sanctum.

The air was musty but strangely earthen. Remnants of the yester world were laid out like a shrine, a homage to Once upon a time. A sign pole with missing letters reading US TO 73 for BUS STOP 173. Curled shrapnel; smudged silver coins; tarnished gold bullets. A piece of fading art; some old books; an empty vase. Cracked china cups, seeds in a terrarium (like a message of hope in a bottle), even an old rusty computer and credit card, on proud show with several other museum pieces.

The Commander in Charge slurped from one of the cracked cups before greeting Safina.

“Saf”, the intensity in his eyes bore a little hole in her heart as did his next two words.

“It’s time”.

She had craved to hear those words for months, as would her fellow nether villagers have welcomed the milestone announcement. She was bound by duty and familial instinct to touch the locket.

Brindell, the local cowboy barista with an eye-patch and a missing little finger, a walking cliché with war wounds that belonged to him well before he got them; swirled rock salt into Safina’s dirt coffee. He was also one of the ones (from the Underlings quarter) who had tamed Doomhoff.

“Hey kiddo, we’re counting on you…”

Act 4

The part of the landscape that had split in half, leaving a deep groove that edged its way along a bleak symphony of ridges, was where Safina would headed through the gorge to find her way to the fringes…

This was where Safina’s sister lived… in a dome unhindered by doom.

Both Safina and her sister had waited for what seemed like years to be reunited though it had only been months; but chrysalis had been around for centuries…

Act 5

The only thing you could see were her eyes; everything was covered, even her mouth with gauze of spiky steel and punky mesh.

The time had arrived for Safina to ascend…

She was attending the greatest masquerade of pretending animals.

The calls of the wild entered her ears as soon as she and Doomhoff set foot on the ground.

The nights would be hard, the days would be long. Navigating the wilderness, she used her herringbone armour, like a jigsaw that would protect and repel predators.

The day came; her journey had taken her along the ridges of which she sometimes flew along on Doomhoff, and she finally saw the gorge!

As they reached the stunning rock, she knew this was the moment she would see her sister.

She could see the faint rim of the dome, and a face behind the milky shadow, her twin on the opposite side.

Her sister looked forlorn but her eyes showed light and hope.

“Saffy!”, her sister cried.

Doomhoff raised his fore legs at the sound of his master’s sister; this was no enemy, this was flesh and blood.

“Sister, you must throw your locket in the air!”, Safina cried.

“But on the count of three”.

“One”.

They breathed in sharply.

“Two”

They exhaled.

“Three!”

The heaved a sigh.

As the sisters threw their lockets in the air, the chains looped, the hearts twirled and tumbled towards each other and finally, enmeshed in a fury of gold fire.

The sisters ran to each other upon the dome’s fringes.

Everything lifted…

Light abounded…

Doomhoff’s wings vanished…

The Shallow Breathers, the Shadow Hunters and the Underlings – rejoice!

Nexus

All the acts came together.

No stage curtain, this was only the beginning.

The natural order restored…

Safin’s feet touched the earth. She was reminded of what it was like to be human.

The fog lifted.

The stars spoke a language of a thousand years…

The clouds married…

When she later opened the locket that had now been joined, she discovered the missing words:

God is with you

Always look inside your ruh (spirit)

The Beginning

Safina looked up and saw butterflies on the fringes…