Modern Kristanna 2

A Lesson

Kristoff could barely walk anymore. It felt like a ball and chain were latched to his ankle. His fingers didn't help much either. They pulsed with pain as he limped along a beaten path. He had wound both injuries tight with cloth, but the cloth was coming undone. He leaned hevily on a walking stick with every step.

It was getting dark, and a purple plum color was crawling across the sky. Stars winked down at the injured rock climber as he heaved himself boulder over boulder. The wind was still howling, and snow had started whipping at his face, frosting his hair and reddening his face.

He finally found a small outcropping where he would rest for the night. He was lost, injured, and alone with no hope of survival. Sleeping was impossible, and when he finally was able to doze off, he woke up to the sound of wind or the sharp pain of his broken bones.

He shivered in the darkness, curled up in a ball, a makeshift blanket wrapped tightly around him, when he heard something. It was more like the vacancy of sound. The wind had stopped ubruptly, and the snow was suspended in the air.

Kristoff blinked the frost from the corners of his eyes. He felt the cold ground around him, searching for his walking stick. He gripped the thin rod of wood, leaning his wieght on it and, painfully, he dragged himself to his feet.

He limped out from under the outcropping, looking around, squinting. He looked up, and gasped.

Above him, rivers of color, curelean, flame orange, scarlet, plum, swirled in the sky. Beasts roared, deers frolicked, wolves howled. There bodies moving with increased and fluid motion, neverending. Trails of color followed behind them as they ran.

Kristoff stared in awe, he backed slowly, and fell over an unseen rock. He grimaced in pain, but the pain melted away when he realized he had landed in a patch of soft green grass. Flowers had bloomed all around him, winking their bright colors.

"The spirits," he mouthed. The stories of his grand father rolled through his head like hills of emerald grass. He had been scared before, but now he was just amazed at the flowing colors above him, and how the pain of his ankle and fingers had disappeared like the wind.

The colors were getting closer, and Kristoff had begun to see a face. It was an old face, wrinkles beside the eyes and the lips. It emerged slowly from the churning colors. The face reminded him of Bulda.

"Kristoff..." It called for him. Now the voice sounded of Bulda, and soon, as Kristoff walked foreward, the whole face could be seen.

"Kristoff, you have a lesson to learn." The voice was sweet, yet stern, like honey flowing into a jar.

"Great spirits." Kristoff tried to be respectful, but the last statment the old woman in the sky had said made him frustrated. "I have climed to grueling heights by myself, survived a storm with painful injury, all on someone else's behalf."

"Yes," the woman frowned, "Amethyst, but are you sure this journey is for her, or for you?" Kristoff was going to say something else, but she had him there. Kristoff looked down, and kicked numbly at a stubborn piece of moss, like a child being scolded.

She was right. Kristoff had not come here for Amethyst. It wasn't that he didn't care for her, he needed time away from Anna after the fight they had. It actually wasn't that bad of a fight, it was just, Anna had acted so strangley, refusing him to save his sister.

"How long do you need, Kristoff, before you heal." It was like the spirit was reading his mind.

"Forever," he mumbled. He couldn't go back, he wouldn't go back, he refused. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, the old spirit woman raised an eyebrow with an "I don't think so" attitude. This woman was starting to seem more and more like Bulda.

In the blink of an eye, she receded, leaving Kristoff alone with the lights. She soon came back, but not as just a face, she came down like a ghost of oranges and reds and yellows. She walked slowly to Kristoff, and even though he was taller than her, she seemed to loom... below him. She wore old furs and her white hair was in two ponytails down her front.

"You have a lesson to learn," her voice whisped again. The words drifted through the air like autumn leaves, they were soft, and sent shivers down Kristoff's spine.

"What," Kristoff stumbled over his words as the old woman flowed out of shape and encircled around him, carrying him higher. "What are you doing." His voice got lost in the wind and all that emerged were the faint grunts and yowls of a beast.

The last thing Kristoff saw was his hand, transforming. Claws emergeing from the tips of his hands and fur sprouting in every crevass. It was a huge paw.

All he could hear were the faint words,

"You have a lesson to learn..."