>Creatures surround you on all sides.
>Dragons, minotaurs, some sort of humanoid birds and cats, and half a dozen varieties of minuscule horse.
>All of them looking at you.
>A rumble in the distance.
>Thunder?
>Blue, cloudless skies, all around.
>And all around, the eyes of a hundred beings.
>Watching.
>Waiting.
>For what?
>Say something, Anon.
>Give them the gift of your tongue.
>Your paltry thirdhand ‘wisdom’.
>If you don’t speak, they’ll never be able to.
>You open your mouth.
>Only that distant rumble sounds.
>Why you?
>Why only you?
>Why are you all alone?
>Nothing near you but grass.
>’Noire?’ You try to croak.
>Again, only a distant thunder.
>Eyes only on you.
>They’d never looked at her.
>Not once, even though she was the one who made them.
>They only saw you, and then left.
>So here you’re pinned, and Noire’s gone.
>Almost like this isn’t you.
>Just their expectation of you.
>And what do they know about you?
>Even less than yourself, and you know nothing, not even your name.
>They had the briefest contact with you when life first sparked.
>You gave each a phrase and they departed.
>What would their image of you even be?
>Their expectation of her, of course, is totally absent.
>They’d never acknowledged her in the first place.
>Say something.
>Anything.
>Give them the barest hint of recognizance, that which they denied Noire.
>Let them enter the world on something other than the harsh reality you’d left.
>But what could you say to them that doesn’t drive a shard of that reality into them, like a knife into their soul?
>It’s all you know.
>Speak.
>Speak, demands the distant thunder.
>Some of them hear it now, heads turning.
>The storm will take them away from you.
>You wither under their stares but what would you be once they leave?
>Inflict your signature wound on them, so they’ll forever be scarred with the hard-won wisdom of your home, wrought by blood.
>Speak, damn you.
>Speak; damn them.
>It should be Noire here, under their baleful watch.
>Noire, the god, cosmos incarnate, perfection.
>Their true creator.
>The thunder is loud enough to discern as such clearly, now.
>A few creatures in the back peel off from the group, wandering into the woods, dark despite the daylight.
>You can’t tell if this hurts more than their stares.
>You gave them your shitty words, but they gave you meaning.
>They’re the only reason you’re here.
>Another rumble of thunder.
>More creatures breaking away.
>You’re not even fully surrounded, now; there’s a gap in front of you.
>A chance to escape.
>But you’re rooted in place.
>Fixed by the piercing eyes of those remaining.
>Eventually they’ll all leave.
>And you’ll be alone.
>No escape, then.
>You’ll simply cease being.
>A bolt of lighting flashes close enough to totally blind you.
>A world of nothing but light.

* * *

>BANG!
>The blast of thunder – from a strike close enough to shake the house – startles you awake, driving you upright on the couch you’d been napping on.
>Your motion startles Noire, also on the couch beside you, body facing you but watching the fireplace.
>She often sits here and meditates. Checking the rest of the world, she says.
>You hope you didn’t just screw something up.
>She looks over you, worry clear in her eyes, as the thunder fades and leaves only the crackling fire in the hearth on the north-facing wall, it’s smoky smell mingling with hers.
>”Are you alright?”
“Yeah, just-”
>You rub your face with your hands, then shake your head.
“Just a bad dream.”
>She considers you silently, long enough to draw your attention to her. “I would not know.”
“Do you sleep?”
>”I could, if I chose to.”
“Kinda hard to talk about dreams with someone who has not experienced them.”
>”Knowledge against experience,” she mumbles as she looks away. Then, returning her attention to you, “Tell me about yours. What troubles you?”
>Your turn to look away, with a wave of your hand.
“I don’t know. Some anxiety about what I’m doing here, I guess.”
>The details are already fading from your mind, it’s hard to fix them.
>One sticks with you though.
>You were, basically, alone.
>She wasn’t there.
“I was isolated, in a way. I was surrounded by, I can’t remember. Things. But I was alone, something about me was different than them in an important way and I couldn’t do anything.”
>You look over to her when she doesn’t respond.
“You, uh, you weren’t there. And that was one of the scariest parts.”
>Your fidgeting hands become a much more enticing target for your eyes.
“In a lot of ways, I’m only okay because you’re here, I think”
>The ensuing silence stretches long enough for thunder to intrude again, not as near as that which woke you.
>”Anon, may I-”
>You look back to her.
>”May I confide in you something?”
“Yeah, of course.”
>”You have asked before what I think of the limitations you requested I place on myself.”
“I don’t know how you’re handling it, honestly. If it’s a burden or not. I don-”
>”It’s hard!”
>Her interruption shocks you almost as bad as the thunder that brought you back here. It has as much force behind it.
>She looks almost as shocked as you felt.
>”Sorry.”
>Calm her down.
>You give her a weak smile, and extend a hand to stroke one of her shoulders.
>She flinches away from it, but doesn’t react further when you insist.
“I want to hear it.”
>”I also feel surrounded, yet alone. I am surrounded by myself.”
“What do you mean?”
>”This existence, as I am now, is not… me. Not all of me. I was not subject to time and space before you arrived. I emulated those limitations for your sake. Then I chained myself to them at your request.”
“And I thank you. But, uh, I don’t want you to suffer for me, Noire.”
>”It is not torture. But I am alienated, as you felt. I am alienated from myself.”
>She looks to the ceiling, as if trying to pierce through it and the sky to look into some cosmological mirror. 
>”Here and now my greater self still exists, because that self is everywhere and everywhen. Everything I experience is also experienced by that greater self. But nothing comes from it to me. I am cut off from myself.”
>Your hand has stopped its gentle strokes as you can only stare at her.
“I had no idea.”
>You shake your head.
“I don’t want you to go through that just for me.”
>”Anon, it is not torture because I have you.”
>You freeze.
>Part of you wants to scoop her up with that hand touching her, right now.
>”You are more than my muse. You are my guide. You are comfortable with this mode of existence, it is all you know. Yet you live with confidence despite it. I must learn this quality, because I-”
>Confusion dominates her face. “Because-”
>Give in.
>You reach over with your other arm now, so you can gather her up with both and pull her towards you.
>She doesn’t resist, even as you haul her forelegs over your lap.
>In fact, with her size, it can only be as easy as you find it because she, in some minor way, helps you.
>Even still, she doesn’t meet your eyes.
>You wrap one arm around her back, and stroke the side of her neck with your other hand.
>Her mane drifts over your shoulder, carrying those smoky notes to you.
>Her halo, you can tell now, isn’t actually where you see it always behind her head from your perspective. It has a real position over her back, because it warms your arm where they intersect.
“Hey. I said you could confide in me. Anything.”
>”When we were first talking about free will, when you had me Forget…”
“Yeah?”
>”I mentioned that it was opaque to me. And that I leave this world when it becomes rooted enough, so it may direct itself without my interference.”
>She shakes her head.
>“That means it spreads. Eventually I cannot see large areas of this world. And eventually I cannot see anything at all.”
”Because it takes over?”
>”How can I know? I am not an entity that should be confronted with such mystery. Yet there is this void, past which my awareness simply ends. I must learn now to face that. I need to learn how to be unafraid of the unknown.”
>She finally looks at you.
>”I need to be brave. Like you.”
>At that moment, in her eyes, you are witness to such innocent vulnerability that you realize you are not looking at a god at all.
>You are looking at fragile creature paralyzed by fear.
>Just as you were, in your dream.
>This reflection of yourself in alien eyes is too much for you to bear.
>You look up and pull her head to you, cupping her cheek, pressing hers into your collarbones.
>Your chin over her forehead, her horn against your temple.
>You’re immersed in her mane’s scent now, realizing its full complexity, the smell of warm wet grass and a roaring campfire through a crisp summer’s night breeze, surrounding you with enough power that for a brief moment you feel transported to some scene from your childhood.
>And you can feel her breathing, shallower and faster than it ought to be.
“I can’t teach you that. I don’t know how.”
>A hitch in her breath.
”But if you need a guide, that I can do.”
>You can feel her smile as she sighs with relief.
>”Thank you.”
“You should rest. Take your mind off this world, for a time. You said you could sleep if you wanted. Let yourself.”
>”Now?”
“I’ll be right here with you.”
>She nods in your arms.
>”Maybe I will even dream.”
>You let the arm around her neck fall to her back.
>Slip it between her side and her wing.
>The dim waves of orange light that slide down her darker feathers had become bright and agitated, whirling chaotically across her primaries.
>You keep her head against you and gently stroke her side, watching them.
>First they calm, falling back into orderly waves rippling out from under her coverts.
>Then they dim, resuming their usual barely-perceptible glow.
>Then, finally, as with her breathing, they slow.
>She heaves one last sigh beneath your arms, then her breath falls into a slow and steady rhythm.
>”Maybe…”
>The quietest murmur.
>”…of you.”
>Her wings droop, one wedging itself between the cushions of the seat and the back of the couch, the other lowering to the floor and covering your leg.
>The warmth of her body is almost intoxicating.
>Loosening you.
>Something about this display makes you want to cry.
>You’d always seen her as a being of such magnificent power.
>While, this whole time, she was struggling with something you take for granted every moment of your life.
>Maybe that’s why you were sent here, by whatever you were wherever you were from.
>Not to be her muse.
>To be her guide.
>No, stop, you can’t let that impulse get the best of you.
>That’ll fuck with your breathing and you’ll wake her up, with her cheek against your heart like this.
>You peer through her wispy smoke-like mane to the fireplace, still snapping and popping away.
>Thunder sounds again, but far-off.
>A threat receding.
>Everything here is arranged according to your comfort.
>This house, this furniture, these meals, the fire.
>Now you know, this is the only place she can relax.
>Enveloped within your design.
>Laying by your side.
>The only way you know how to lead is by example.
>But all that requires is your presence.
>As long as you stay here, with her, until she can understand, perhaps that is your true purpose.
>She leaves this world, she goes back to being her greater self, she says.
>You are no god, you cannot follow her, even if you are still here by then. It might be centuries, millennia, from now.
>Not like she gave you a schedule.
>But if it took your entire life to show her how to let go of her fear of simply BEING.
>That’ll make all this worth it.
>Bring the nightmares, the baleful stares of the creatures you helped create.
>You give them a piece of yourself, but they’re not the ones who need it most.
>Of all the living creatures that now walk this world, only one truly illuminates your purpose.
>And tonight you proved her initial assessment of herself wrong.
>She called you the first living thing here.
>But this is the burden that all living share.
>She truly is alive.