Reach

 As my father before me, and his before him, I walk the blessed trail. 

The snows whip and slash at exposed skin, the wind threatening to purge flesh into hardened crystal and numbness.

As my father before me, and his before him, I walk the blessed trail. 

My eyes are weak, staring into undulating whiteness, knowing only that I am correct by the ever-dropping temperatures, the ever-screaming squall. 

As my father before me, and his before him, I walk the blessed trail. 

Looming pines and evergreens creak with righteous groans like the instruments of a mighty choir, dancing in place as so much storm threatens to topple their arrogance back down into earth that gave them life. Everything is half formed shapes swallowed up and spat out by the blizzard, by the cold, by the night. There is a moon somewhere in that sky, radiating it’s corpse cold light, and it feeds this chilling assault. 

As my father before me, and his father before him, I follow the blessed path. 

Further. On. On. My feet are lead, my bones made brittle and frigid by piercing cold blades. The storm in my ears is a glorious and painful crescendo, rising, widening until it is all that I know, all that I can feel. The storm is the truth, the storm is the way, and I will walk it, into the oblivion that takes or the ascendancy that gives. 

As my father before me, and his father before him, I walk the blessed path. 

I bear my trophies. Wear the crimson stag antlers, clutch at so many star-metal rosaries clanking and chittering against my throat even as the frozen metal locks my hands in place. The markings painted down each notch in my spine to match the guiding stars. 

As my father before me, and his father before him, I walk the blessed path. 

Silence. 

Squall and snow and white annihilation vanished.

A mountain peak, ancient and endless and black.

The Moon. Close enough to touch.

The voices bless me. The hands of so many come before, the footsteps of those who will have their time. The majesty of silver eternity.

Reach.