[julie]

”You'll find it in the vermilion sky blazing brighter than passion pure; stopping the world gears, of rat-race routine, and turning a thousand rusty necks Heavenward Where minds silently unhinge                              (for a moment) And fear itself begins to cringe                              (for a moment) When faced with childlike wonder blind eyes will see. A rejuvenating spark this freedom can be.” She remembered, so long ago, the words of her brother, long gone. The vanishing act, the reappearance, and he lorded of his freedom. The release that comes with nothing. He tried to shed his chains and he tasted that golden liquor that blinded his gaze from the truths, fattened him with a lie.  He had not truly been free. He just pretended. He might as well have died. Julie hadn’t understood then. She’d scoffed, rolled her eyes and let the tale loom tall. She’d just been happy to see him there, in the flesh. Present and with her, no longer a ghost from her memories. She hadn’t been alone. The long-dead flame of Tortuga stands in the early morning smoke, green eyes aglow in flame. She steps with soft but calloused paws through soot and ash, into embers, unfeeling. Years had killed whatever nerves she may have had in her feet but she imagines she feels the warmth still, that sweet kiss that always seemed so friendly in its hello. The flames were shallow and Julie blew them into licking tongues with a breath, grinning as she walked past. The controlled burn was almost at an end. The black land would meet and, combined, die. But a little strip of dead land and trees existed between still, and Julie stepped into it with a pleased little hum. She walked that green land and hummed quietly to herself, a song someone sung to her so far away in her dreams. It would revive come the spring, stronger than ever. This dead land rejuvenated, razed to nothing and reincarnated.  Sometimes to create, one must first destroy. Julie had learned that lesson well, and she had destroyed her old home and escaped from the chains her brother had never managed to shed. She had true freedom her brother had never known. She loved it. The world was so much bigger than Tortuga could ever know and it was whatever she wanted. The far ocean, where she’d swam with whales and ate seals, collected their blubber for fire, where she vanished into snow dens she’d built in blizzards. To the wall of teeth, the vultures and the bears, the cliffs and the heights, where she’d stolen an eagles eggs and feasted under the bright full moon. She’d gone past the Fringe and seen things that no one had ever known before, riches and gold that would leave her old friends back home salivating in envy. She had travelled and she was free.  She wishes Estavan could see her. Julie gazes easily through the curling smoke as it clings to her pale fur, and she smiles so easily here. When she returns to this land she’ll see the fruits of her work and roll in the life she created. The flowers will sprout first from the black, she doesn’t know what kind, but they’ll be beautiful, and she’ll pick them and send her well wishes to her family on the petals. She thinks of them, now and again, that family she’d left behind. Dixie, her children, Tripp, Destiel, Shark, Wraith. Raikov. Sometimes, when the fire isn’t enough to warm her, she thinks of their smiles, them calling her name, dancing around fires and singing songs, strong brew in their stomachs and their minds alight with wants and dreams. There were hard times, awful times, hate and rage and greed that drove her away. Broke her heart. So far away, it doesn’t hurt so much, and she can remember them with all the love she had for them. She walks along that strip of land between two fires and sings to those flowers, kissing them goodbye and bidding them come her return, they will be so much happier than when she left.