Arcadia

Henri

Everything is white. The color itself ripples, changing to fill the world with blotches of green and blue and yellow. With my awakening comes the sounds of bird call, the tittering of the wind, and the dancing of grasses.

I sit up slowly, forgetting how easy it is to fall asleep in the meadow. I hadn't meant to spend so much time out here, knowing the ceremony was tonight. Knowing how much would be expected of me. But perhaps that is why the great goddess had allowed me this momentary lapse in the conscious world; something beautiful and simple to hold onto no matter what might come.

I stand and arch my back, sunlight slipping down my body, turning deeper by the second as it arches over trees. Before me rolls land untouched and pure, abundant in color and animals, the soft underbrush of growing things. Is is always like this. Here there are no seasons, not like the changing things beyond the garden wall. Here there are only days of sunshine and rain, days of planting and the never-ending harvest of goods from the earth that never ceases to give. I have lived here my entire existence and it has never occurred to me to worry about this never-ending place. My mind wasn't occupied with what might, or could, or probably would come, because this was a world without beginnings and endings. It was and always would be.

The same, though, could not be said about the place beyond the garden wall. And that was what the meeting tonight would be about. What to do. Who to send. Where to send them.

That's why the sun seems so bright today, and the grass so soft, and the sounds so beautiful it pains me to listen. Because tomorrow it might all be gone from me. Tomorrow I might never see this place again.

The garden itself is a rainbow of colors. It is my favorite place to walk through on the way into town. Not because of the foliage, but because of the spirits that haunt it. Colorful things, small and indulging, innocence beaming off of them. Mostly the children play here, shouting in glee, chasing each other about with fistfuls of daisies and daffodils and roses and sprigs of lavender being crushed beneath their bare feet. They will be young for an age before they even have to consider being old. It is the way of this place; a slowness that allows a life to never end.