She returns. She is older, wiser. The world is older, too, though surprisingly not that much wiser.
'You still erupt,' she says, flying a wide circle around the volcano.
'And you still forgive,' says the volcano, atop his chariot of horses, 'where forgiveness is not warranted.'
'You have become an agent of war,' she says, keeping beyond his reach, for she has learned more about volcanoes in the passing time, learned as we all must to stay out of range of their exertions.
'I am a general now,' says the volcano. An army spreads out before him, swarming over the world, consuming forests and cities and deserts and plains.
'You have not died like all the others and become a mountain.'
'I have not, my lady. There was no future in it.'
He raises his whip, a long chain of glowing white heat and lashes his great and terrible horses. They whinny in agony and trample farms and bridges and civilisations under their hooves, his innumerable, ravenous armies flowing like burning rivers in their wake.
She flies with him for a time, watching in silence as he grinds this corner of the world to ruin. She says nothing to him. He says nothing in return, save for the occasional glance in her direction. Those green eyes, tracing her path.
'I will forgive you,' she says, 'should you ask.'
'I will not ask, my lady,' says the volcano.
'And why not?'
'I do not require anyone's forgiveness, and neither do I recognise your authority to offer it.'
'The authority to offer it is given by he who asks.'
He smiles at her, his eyes bright.
'This does not contradict me, my lady.'
YOU ARE READING
The Crane Wife and the Volcano
General Fictionthis is not my story, it belongs to the great book "The Crane Wife", by the amazing writer Patrick Ness. this story explains the life of one of the main characters, called Kumiko (aka the crane wife), told by herself in 32 parts. even though there...
