Memories of Light

Delicate compact paws of white strolled over the sands and stones of the deserts of Boreas. Morwenna lingered at the crest of the edge of Sweet Grass Basin and looked beyond with purple eyes upon the ancient and shallow lake bed of Travellers Lake. She had been traipsing her way through the evening in the deserts and lit up at the sight of this flattened depression in the earth. She continued her descent into the lakebed with a swish of her streaming tail pausing to wonder at the strange lines behind some of the stones. Night fell as she observed the tracks crisscrossing over themselves until she could no longer distinguish the difference between the stones and mud in the deepening darkness.

She glanced skyward for a moment to determine the time of night. She was intent on traveling through the cold nights in these warm places and was about to set her heading due south when she did a double take at the sky.

She tilted her head and couldn't help but take a few steps back in wonder. Was that the glimmer of the Northern Lights? So far south? In a desert? It was only the whisper of the light above her, a large red shifting shape under the stars. Here in the center of the flatland was perhaps not the ideal spot, so she glanced around for any large rocks to uplift her just a little higher. She passed a large boulder, perched over a small stand, no, too round on top, too risky on the bottom. She felt the night close in around her with the desert chill. It'll be a cold night for sure, perhaps that's why the lights had come so far south? She took another glance above her and saw that the little red glimmer had grown and started shifting hues. Oh, she was surely in for a show!

She hopped onto the bank of the old dry lake and followed the invisible shore to an outcropping that lifted over the mysterious traveling stones below. Flat on top, sturdy, perfect. Gracefully Morwenna slunk onto the cold hard ground, her paws daintily crossed and her head lifted to enjoy the spectacular view. She faced the East and could see the Lights forming and dancing all the way from the northernmost point to the southernmost point of the sky before her.

The hues now shifted between red and blue, pinks and purples frolicked between the rouge and smalt above her. New strands of light joined and faded as if dancers on a show came and went from backstage, beyond the veil.

Entranced she gasped as she saw her first flash of green. There for just a moment then gone, then suddenly the entire sky was full of dazzling streams of purple and green trails of light, stretching across the sky to the very edges of the horizon and back. They coiled and danced, swayed and pranced, came and went like waves in the ocean, like lovers whispering promises and oaths to the stars.

She watched fervently as the aurora spun or flowed, shifting its hues from red to green, streamed and coiled, faded, and then grew brightly again.

For a while, she watched simply drinking in the show above her, her mind delighted in the fanciful turns and beams of natural light. Gradually her mind wandered to how strange this was. Never had she seen a show like this before. As a child, she spent a night out with... Oh, who was it now? Suddenly she couldn't remember who had been her companion that evening. She had been so little, was it her parents? Or was it the travelers that had taken her in? No! It was the old man, her mentor, yes. Before she had lost her parents, she remembered now that she sat under her first show of Northern Lights with her old mentor, Hakan. They had similar stories. He was always warm and gentle, then when her parents passed he helped her find a new family. Though she was always on his heels, learning everything.

Was this light show a message from him? Had he passed away while she was gone? Suddenly she was struck with a heavy grief she had no idea she was carrying. She knew somehow that he had passed, like a knowing that sank into her bones and needed no proof. She watched the sky, hot tears suddenly wet on her cheeks. Maybe this was him, maybe it was a coincidence. She loved him like a favorite grandfather, and she wasn't there to see him off into the deep unknown. She remembered his daughter, a fiery girl who loved to dance, she had a twin sister who would tease and bully Morwenna.

As she watched the coiling lights, she could swear she felt a warmth lean in beside her. When she looked the shadows seemed darker next to her. She wasn't afraid though, they felt strangely familiar, comforting. Maybe he was here, or maybe she was imagining it.