![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lair***
Okay, time to post the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomtrees fics here as well. There's, uh, a few of them.
Title: The Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil
Author:kat_lair
Fandom: Hy-Brasil - Allison Russell (Song)
Characters: Original Female Character(s), Original (Magical) Animal Character(s)
Tags: Magic, Self-Discovery, Experimental Style
Rating: G
Word count: 805
Summary: The First of the Seven is waiting for her as the bottom of her boat scrapes against the shoal.
Author notes: Hy-Brasil by Allison Russell is a gorgeous, magical song that I discovered a few years ago. I was delighted to seeseptemberbells request it for fandomtrees, allowing me to break story-telling conventions a bit. Thank you to pushkin666 for help with the ending.
The Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil on AO3
The First of the Seven is waiting for her as the bottom of her boat scrapes against the shoal. The white mist shrouding the isle parts, revealing a rabbit, its fur black as winter coal, its size that of a large dog.
Her heart beats a rhythm of freedom as she steps ashore, pulling the boat along with her, just in case. She’s not sure she’ll ever leave, whether because she won’t want to or because she can’t.
The rabbit watches her with red eyes. She doesn’t try to touch it and in return it shows her the way inland.
***
The Second has eyes as white as sea foam and she wonders if it’s blind, and if that matters here, where her senses feel unreliable, slow to adjust to a world that only seems familiar until you look, listen, taste, touch, smell deeper, longer, sideways.
The rabbit rises from the pool of freshwater like a dream, silent and sleek, its coat gleaming. The surface of the pond barely ripples, not even when she steps in, her clothes abandoned on the bank, reeds clinging to her bare skin like secrets she’s yet to discover.
The water is cool, safe, reviving. She knows, because the Second tells her so.
***
Her wounds, the ones in her heart, on her legs and arms, close and scar. The Third of the Seven licks them clean, its large blunt teeth pressing close to her throat, the vulnerable, pulsing arteries under skin. It hurts.
It hurts better than what came before though. The Third’s eyes are the purple stars of Muilcheann, and when she cries, its fur soaks up all her tears.
***
The Fourth rabbit shows her the meadow, the forest, all the growing, leafing, flowering things with roots as wide as the world. Its eyes are every green possible, the pale green of a spring bud, the pine green of needles on snow, the murky green of a storming sea and she can feel the magic gather from the earth under her feet, different and same as the one flowing from the water, from the sky.
It makes her grow. It changes her. She is more now than before.
***
The castle stands in the middle of the isle, tall and dark and narrow, with spiralling steps chiselled right on the stone winding around it like a necklace of blackened teeth. The Fifth of the Seven, with eyes like fire, sits at the bottom of them.
There is knowledge here. For those with courage to take it. Those willing to pay the price.
She’s paid it already, ten-score and more. The Fifth rabbit watches her climb and under its gaze the torches blaze alight, flames flicking high, searing her as she passes on the way to get what is already hers.
***
The rabbit with the blue eyes is the smallest of them all. She knows that without having met the last one yet. This one comes up only to her knee. Its eyes are sky blue, its coat soft against her face, its weight in her lap like an anchor to the past. And the future.
She sits on the steps of her castle, cradling the Sixth of the Seven in her arms, an ancient lullaby on her lips. Her voice rises to the setting sun and the other stars beyond it, each note carrying a promise of a tomorrow.
***
The Seventh, the Last, comes to her at night, in the mist between waking and dreaming. Its eyes are as black as its coat, swirling with shadows, and she watches the isle emerge and sink in their depths, over and over and over, watches the stars streak past, the waters rise and fall and rise again, continents forming and reforming, galaxies being born and die and being born anew and she
And she
And she
She floats through it all, a little speck of light and life, utterly insignificant, utterly unique, utterly alone and never alone.
The dream ends. The dream never ends. She opens her eyes and opens her hands and opens her mouth and heart and the marrow of her bones, the fat of her flesh and magic of her blood runs like a river through her, from those before to those after and back again.
On the black rock of the isle, the Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil bear witness.
She is the isle, the crack of stone and rain-soaked earth.
On the green-purple heather, in the blue of skysea, the Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil bear witness.
She is rooted, she is free. She is the stars and the space in-between.
With the red fire of knowing, the white frost of forgetting, the Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil bear witness.
She is the sacred words and the unconquered silence
She is never alone.
She is.
***
Okay, time to post the
fandomtrees fics here as well. There's, uh, a few of them. Title: The Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil
Author:
kat_lair Fandom: Hy-Brasil - Allison Russell (Song)
Characters: Original Female Character(s), Original (Magical) Animal Character(s)
Tags: Magic, Self-Discovery, Experimental Style
Rating: G
Word count: 805
Summary: The First of the Seven is waiting for her as the bottom of her boat scrapes against the shoal.
Author notes: Hy-Brasil by Allison Russell is a gorgeous, magical song that I discovered a few years ago. I was delighted to see
septemberbells request it for fandomtrees, allowing me to break story-telling conventions a bit. Thank you to pushkin666 for help with the ending.The Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil on AO3
The First of the Seven is waiting for her as the bottom of her boat scrapes against the shoal. The white mist shrouding the isle parts, revealing a rabbit, its fur black as winter coal, its size that of a large dog.
Her heart beats a rhythm of freedom as she steps ashore, pulling the boat along with her, just in case. She’s not sure she’ll ever leave, whether because she won’t want to or because she can’t.
The rabbit watches her with red eyes. She doesn’t try to touch it and in return it shows her the way inland.
***
The Second has eyes as white as sea foam and she wonders if it’s blind, and if that matters here, where her senses feel unreliable, slow to adjust to a world that only seems familiar until you look, listen, taste, touch, smell deeper, longer, sideways.
The rabbit rises from the pool of freshwater like a dream, silent and sleek, its coat gleaming. The surface of the pond barely ripples, not even when she steps in, her clothes abandoned on the bank, reeds clinging to her bare skin like secrets she’s yet to discover.
The water is cool, safe, reviving. She knows, because the Second tells her so.
***
Her wounds, the ones in her heart, on her legs and arms, close and scar. The Third of the Seven licks them clean, its large blunt teeth pressing close to her throat, the vulnerable, pulsing arteries under skin. It hurts.
It hurts better than what came before though. The Third’s eyes are the purple stars of Muilcheann, and when she cries, its fur soaks up all her tears.
***
The Fourth rabbit shows her the meadow, the forest, all the growing, leafing, flowering things with roots as wide as the world. Its eyes are every green possible, the pale green of a spring bud, the pine green of needles on snow, the murky green of a storming sea and she can feel the magic gather from the earth under her feet, different and same as the one flowing from the water, from the sky.
It makes her grow. It changes her. She is more now than before.
***
The castle stands in the middle of the isle, tall and dark and narrow, with spiralling steps chiselled right on the stone winding around it like a necklace of blackened teeth. The Fifth of the Seven, with eyes like fire, sits at the bottom of them.
There is knowledge here. For those with courage to take it. Those willing to pay the price.
She’s paid it already, ten-score and more. The Fifth rabbit watches her climb and under its gaze the torches blaze alight, flames flicking high, searing her as she passes on the way to get what is already hers.
***
The rabbit with the blue eyes is the smallest of them all. She knows that without having met the last one yet. This one comes up only to her knee. Its eyes are sky blue, its coat soft against her face, its weight in her lap like an anchor to the past. And the future.
She sits on the steps of her castle, cradling the Sixth of the Seven in her arms, an ancient lullaby on her lips. Her voice rises to the setting sun and the other stars beyond it, each note carrying a promise of a tomorrow.
***
The Seventh, the Last, comes to her at night, in the mist between waking and dreaming. Its eyes are as black as its coat, swirling with shadows, and she watches the isle emerge and sink in their depths, over and over and over, watches the stars streak past, the waters rise and fall and rise again, continents forming and reforming, galaxies being born and die and being born anew and she
And she
And she
She floats through it all, a little speck of light and life, utterly insignificant, utterly unique, utterly alone and never alone.
The dream ends. The dream never ends. She opens her eyes and opens her hands and opens her mouth and heart and the marrow of her bones, the fat of her flesh and magic of her blood runs like a river through her, from those before to those after and back again.
On the black rock of the isle, the Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil bear witness.
She is the isle, the crack of stone and rain-soaked earth.
On the green-purple heather, in the blue of skysea, the Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil bear witness.
She is rooted, she is free. She is the stars and the space in-between.
With the red fire of knowing, the white frost of forgetting, the Seven Black Rabbits of Hy-Brasil bear witness.
She is the sacred words and the unconquered silence
She is never alone.
She is.
***