Dormivegilia

 

For what might have been a month, after passing through the gates of Horn with their intricate filigrees of beasts and battles, they camped at the foot of the mountain. There in what they thought was a true heart-wood glade, they pitched their tents and tethered their tired horses.

With charcoal from the fire and sticks of finely pressed colour that they had carried with them, they covered every part of their shelters in what they could remember of the language of their intentions. And yet, despite those careful efforts, each night outside the circle of the fire that which was unknown still moved among the trees, seemingly intent on testing, then breaching the camp’s boundaries.

In the repetition of those dark hours, their ability to rest also became elusive. Instead, there were drifting fragments and patterns that plagued the corners of their unfocused eyes: then often, having reached an almost feverish point of exhaustion, each would suffer sudden agonising spasms in the muscles of their legs or at their throats; and all, apparently, without clear reason.

Time itself did not move there properly either. If they could have caught its passing in some tangible form, it would have been as a sketch of a bird with damaged wings that rising up from the page, would slowly drag itself across the clearing, finally to hide somewhere deep among the discoloured bracken and detritus of the forest floor.

Dormevegilia
(ital.) (n.) the space that stretches between sleeping and waking