Splashes In Time

by Valley Fjord

Spreader of The Red Ash Chapter 1

The gray skull, equine in shape and split along its top and snout, lay discarded inside a clearing of listless sun light. The surrounding canopies of withered tree leaves block the sun in all directions but for this one spot. A hole had been cut open towards the sky by one tree that toppled over and come to a rest just behind the lone skull.

Crying snaps and sharp splinters fly free from the moss covered log under a sudden weight that crawls over it. Two sets of four sharp glistening red claws peel into the bark, digging in as a beast resembling a crimson skinned salamander of titanic size rises up. Its long neck leads an equally long body and fin-tipped tail as it shifts itself up over the log. With undulating movements it lowers down; exposing half-crescent copper bands arching along its back, onto a bed of clawing weeds and rotting leaves that surrounds the opening in the dull light. Eyes that glow with a brilliant awareness and a burning red heat turn down at the sight of the skull.

Blinking at the gray piece of bone before its hardened claws the creature's eyes quickly lift up to scan outside the small clearing in the light; dead greens and old hollow trees littered everything that was still visible. Lowering its wide head down to stare into the empty and old sockets, a measure of its awareness finds something within.

Filling its lungs with air from around the skull. Bent, broken, and anguished thoughts mingle and flow with the sent of stale weeds. A sigh of heated air through thin slitted nostrils proceeds a plume of warm red ash that covers bone and plant alike.

Bubbles grow and pop out from the ash as it begins pooling into a viscous mass; collecting and staining itself into the gray skull. The air that hung above both the skull and the watching creature shivers for some moments until the red skull jumps suddenly.

It clatters in place as it screams to life. “Run, run, we all must flee, this is no natural beast that has come to our Ever Free!” The voice echos both inside its skull and from the mouth of the creature that stood over it. A haze of images flash from inside the empty sockets and inside the red eyes above them.

Burning trees. Animals running by. Colossal things moving in the distance.

Glowing in silver, the first giant rears its form and dances behind the flames. Trees around it bend and break as dark shadows form its companion. The duo move with thunderous steps, each of their encounters sending sparks into the air and flames blazing around them into larger bursts.

A shadowy limb raises over the silver form, suddenly and violently sticking at its glowing counterpart. The air above the long gone eyes ripples as a silver body collides into the side of a tree that stood just beyond its sight. The memories looked on in fear as wood and ground snap and tilt.

Images fade away, leaving only the cracked tree behind the skull to complete the idea of what had happened. “What power is this that ends my dreams, are you the one that causes my screams?” the skull asked as its lower jaw rattles against the top.

The wide mouth turned back and slightly up to show several spaced teeth; a smile from a lizard if you could call it anything. The creature felt a chance conversation was a welcomed endeavor. “I am just another oddity, come to the forest,” the red beast said with a smooth bellow. “I'm looking for what did this to you and your home?”

Its way of talking felt too calm. The life inside the skull sat in silents for a time, the dream of life inside trying to look at everything and anything around itself. But for its be-spelled eyes, the creature before it was all that could be made out.

The copper crescents that lined the flexing spine of the beasts back shimmer a bright red and roll as one band on top of the collar stretches into a supple membrane. It thickens out with nobs like a half-liquid coated bone before bending toward the skull.

As the bones in the old skull began to shake- “A time before the tree met me? A month, a year, I can not say when thoughts are unknown of this centur...” -The chattering stops as the jaw of the skull splinters in two.

Both broken pieces were bleaching as they settle on the ground, the red tones seep across the soil until the bone has turned back to their gray tones. The unseen eyes inside the empty sockets try to widen with shock at seeing this happen, the small life inside the remaining piece of red skull welds up with a terrified wanting urge to keep what it had been given; it felt too long since it even had the strength to draw breath to want to let it go.

The stretching membrane from the salamanders back finishes growing crossing the distance between the two figures; it'd taken the appearance of a thin-muscled tendril. Pressing into the shaking bone brings a burst of thoughts that both calms and excites the frightened life. New images cloud over the empty sockets, expanses of bright trees that surround a warm and familiar hut, swirling colors reflecting off the windows, while genital voices flow through them. The word “Home” echoes through the vision.

Its wide-toothed grin turns flat as it had been before. Even when the creature had crossed the log the feeling left inside the bone was little more then a whisper, it knew now just how little of its memories were left. The old skull held onto that moment of destruction, it was what the beast had stopped to find and it was enough to make it want to ease what was going to happen next.

Through the contact a new idea grew and came to be shared between both souls. An image of sipping tea washed over them as the unseen eyes held a contented smile. The life felt itself slow and slip into the dreams it was pulled out from as warm jasmine flows. Its old bones and the languid limb shutter until the crack over the top of the bone snaps wide in three new directions and the red ash fades gray.

At the moment of one final snap, the dreaming life was simply gone.

For a moment, the red eyes deepen; ready to morn the small loss, then, as the appendage on from its spine retracts smoothly back into copper flesh, it turns towards the direction where the long-gone eyes saw the silver and shadow monsters had fought and trudges on.

There were more fallen and rotted trees and many spots of burnt-dead wood as it moved on. Its course through was easy to traverse, with a strong winding gate the creature manages crawling and clawing weeds that grab and hold effortlessly, however, navigation of where it was heading in the forest was a taxing effort. Packs of the trees would be growing with thick canopies but then die off or fall over at imposable intervals. And the smell of rot grew pungent to its thinly slitted nostrils, but it still moved on with a distinctive aim.

A smell of what it had come looking for in this dieing forest came. The rot of death was joined and pushed together with the odor of fresh dust and living fur. With a swift eastern breeze pushing and out weighing the old smells of the forest the salamander turns into the wind. As its trail through the trees winds farther on, the sent comes stronger until the tree line finally brakes.

The sight of a murky river slowly cutting at the edges of the forest was of little concern; the girth of the water, though some lengths wider then the creature's body, offered a simple hurdle. Building up tension and energy in its legs, the red beast bounds into the air and over the running river. The wide fanned tip of its tail slaps at the water upon landing, below the sound it makes a distant cry rang out.

Its eyes dart up from the river bank towards the cry, catching sight of the darkened run-down remains of a small cottage laying bundled up just inside the drooping branches of a large willow tree. A radiance grew inside the salamanders' eyes that the short memories between it and the skull wouldn't compare to, a chance to speak with something already living; with wide steps and a widening grin it weaved its way up the river bank and towards the house.

“I won't open the door!” A voice inside screams as one red claw was going to push at the rot riddled door. “So, p-please just go away! I just want- to-to be alone.” The raw sound of the voice and musky animal smell came through the door. The creatures smile drops but a thought strikes it to push on and it taps on the door.

The door does not move from the light touch of the beasts clawed foot, so with a heave of its body, both of its clawed feet are placed at either side of the door frame. The wood groans under the creatures weight as it stretches its position to bring both eyes level to several rotted holes in the door. Weeds had sprouted through the floor boards and mosses of several forms and colors were growing across the walls as well as hanging from the ceiling. A continued glance about the floor stops on the small shape of a pony curled into a far corner.

Its yellow body with a pink mane and tail lay still, the colors of its body were stained by dirt and moss, and though the pony's teal eyes were looking back; wide with shock, they were also nearly empty of life. A sharp snarled snap cracks in the air as the two watch each other, the wood groans and the old rusted hinges snap as a prequel to the door braking and falling in.

Without intention the salamanders weight brought the door down with a squealing thud. Small clouds of dust and mold were kicked up by the fall only to swirl unabated up and into the thin red nostrils. Taking a deep breath the creature hardly notices and does not react to the irritants, it turns from the door to catch only a glimpse of the ponies eyes before they're hidden again; the small figure of the pony shrank farther into its corner, hiding behind what bit of its dirt caked mane that it could. A sent of fear coming from the corner was giving off a smell stronger then the mold wafting in the air.

The first step off the door was timid, a soft movement that splinters and cracks the aged floor, at the sounds the centers of its red eyes roll downward to study its step; seeing that any chance of crossing silently was unlikely, the second step fell heavily and the red claws dug some inches into the floor. There was no sense leading the beast to think it would fall though the floor as it presses on, closing the distance to the shivering yellow mass.

“I'm sorry,” The pony said with a small and listless tone. The tension that held the small animal in place slowly begins to release as the heavy steps of the intruder came closer. When sounds of its breathing come from above the ponies head a feeling of air pressure moved in swirls through every stiff hair with a bright warmth. The breath over the ponies body didn't feel like the breathing of a hungry monster, but more a purposeful breath. And as one teal eye peers out from behind the pink mane to look up, it sees a growing brightness coming from inside the eyes that were looking down; they were smoldering down at the pony with a kindred heat.

The air above them shutters thickly as the creatures mouth comes open to reveal the rows of short pointed teeth; before the pony can react to the sight a red ash flows out from deep within its wide mouth.

Author's Note:

Still very much in the creative process for this Fic; any critiques will be appreciated.

Revised as of June 2014