The Myth of Semper of the Virens

Very short mythological fantasy story

A figment of the sky, the dusk palace floated, always, beyond sunlight and before nightdark. It never experienced the full display of either. For always at the dusk palace, it was neither.

The Virens, the palace was called. An ancient volcano had spewed its air-borne stone, which rain and wind eroded into colonnades, atriums, and apartments later populated by people born up on the wings of their friends, the murrelets. Generations of bird and human alike passed their lives in the half light, eating of clouds and wind, drinking of ether.

On the highest terraces of the Virens were kept salt ponds and nesting grounds. Here, the murrelets selected a small number of people to tend them, among them Semper, a girl at the end of her learning, and her mother, the head keeper of the fledglings. Semper spent every day with her mother, learning how to ensure the fledglings were watered and warm and fed and stimulated. How to guide them as they attempted flight.

During one such session, the winds picked up and tossed the air.

Semper! Her mother called. The net! You didn’t raise the net!

The fledglings folded their wings and dove for the ground, all save one, Heteor. His wings were stuck open. A mighty gust swept him high and out, over the wall of the Virens.

Semper ran to the edge of the terrace to see Heteor swept from the palace and rolled across a cloud plain. The elder murrelets were ranging out to sea, unable to fetch him.

Semper ran to the lowest, outermost wall. Where it abutted the cloud field, she clambered over. She ran to Heteor crumpled in the soft mist, his wing injured. She gathered him into her arms and turned around.

The Virens was gone.

Semper sprinted across the cloud field, calling. As she approached the edge, there appeared a filmy outline, faint and ghostlike, of the palace, no longer touching the cloud. Forms of people leaned over the wall, her parents and sisters, their shouts like whispers. Faint lines of ropes trailed out to her. She reached and reached, but could not touch them.

The Virens dissolved and was gone.

The dusk turned away from her. Dark took its place, blacker and colder than she’d ever known. She held Heteor warm to her chest, his small heart fluttering. Night passed overhead, its stars bright droplets wrung out of a vast cloth.

When she thought there would be no end, light appeared. She might have been in dusk again, if it did not come from the wrong direction. A resplendent disk lifted over the horizon; the most harrowing sight of her life.

With its heat, the cloud field thinned. Semper darted for firmer footing, but no place had it. The cloud disintegrated. She and Heteor fell. They were light enough they floated down softly as a mote, but down all the same.

They landed in a valley surrounded by trees and mountains. They climbed the highest one. At its peak everything appeared small, but not small enough. From the vantage of the Virens, the earth would seem smaller still.

A smattering of murrelets alit on a mountain lake below. Semper and Heteor went to them and asked if they knew of the palace. They did not, but said, Young murrelet, you are welcome to come with us, your own kind, to the ocean. But Heteor would not abandon Semper or hope of finding their home.

At the top of their mountain, Semper wove a basket to catch clouds, but over many dry days no clouds deigned to come so low as them. Heteor of both the air and the ground, could eat the abundant berries and seeds and bulbs. Semper, of the air only, refused the heavy foods that would anchor her to the land.

Other murrelets visited the lake and taught the fledgling to fly. After some weeks, he was full-grown and as adept in the air as any of them. Each dusk, he canvased the sky, searching for the invisible, moving palace in the thin atmosphere. And did not find it.

A trio of human gatherers came up the mountain. Curled rolls of bark filled baskets on their backs. They did not see Semper, for only birds saw her. But she saw them and the food they cooked. Its smell made her mouth water. But it was not natural. She ate the wisps of cloud in her basket.

Months passed. They visited other mountaintops searching for the Virens, asking birds if they had been there, seen it. None had. Semper ensured Heteor had all that he needed. But she did not. What her basket caught was not enough, being less fine than those of the Virens.

Heteor said, you are growing faint to my eyes. Was he, at home in the air, being taken by the ground? Or was it Semper who was fading from the world? The days had grown colder, Semper more and more weak. They warmed one another in their nest, Heteor watching longingly while murrelets flew toward the ocean.

He said to Semper, I don’t think I will find the Virens before you are gone to me. It’s your home, but I have lived longer here. I would make a new family. You could make a new home here, too. If you ate of this food and let yourself be seen. And --" I have thoughts of flying to the sea. Endless thoughts. The days grow short, and I know I must go.

Semper had not thrown the net to save him, but she could do this. She said, Then you must go.

So he did. With the next flock, he ascended into the sky, receded to a fine point, and was gone. Semper was alone.

It was this loneliness more than hunger that drove her down the mountain. She followed trails of smoke to a village. From the trees she watched its people. Generous and kind to one another, they ate and laughed and sang. They held one another. As her people did.

A man passed by in the wood. He paused as though he had heard something. His eyes found Semper, but did not see her. On a stump between them, though, he left a piece of bread soaked in honey. The sweet smell overcame her. She took it into her hands and ate it. Even as she relished the sugary, yeasty taste, a weight entered her body. Corporeality anchored her to the ground; and she wept.

The man returned the next day. Semper hid from sight, but he had good hearing and found her. He took her to his home. Poor girl! His mother said. You must have been hidden from the small gods to arrive here so. Come, come.

The man’s mother and sister clothed her; his father fed her; and the man, his name Lasol, taught her their ways. Semper grew heavy with the weight of the ground in her. Solid and opaque as any animal of the earth.

Years passed. One spring evening, Semper stood in the garden of the cottage she now shared with Lasol, belly big with his child. A murrelet flew overhead. Heteor!

I found it, he said. Come, I’ll take you there.

But I am of the ground now.

I will take you still.

Semper felt her belly and looked at her cottage, but her heart swelled to think of seeing the Virens again.

Heteor bore her to the sky, where a line of murrelets flew in place like flags on a kite string, guiding them up. They lifted so high, everything became smaller than from any mountain top.

The dusk palace appeared out of the air. Her Virens.

They alighted on an outer walk, narrower than Semper remembered. As she climbed, no one appeared. At the uppermost tier, all was still and empty.

Why do you cry? Heteor asked.

They’re gone.

No. Your family are here.

Soft, warm breezes pressed against Semper's hands and cheeks, and enveloped her. They swept away her tears. Semper sunk to her knees. The breezes followed. Loved ones she could no longer see. Her mother, father, sisters, friends. They held and encircled her. A small, weightless stone on a string was looped over her neck. A piece of the Virens. For that day she stayed and remembered.

Every year, Heteor brought her back to the Virens, and her family held her. One spring, in Semper’s last days, after Lasol had passed, Heteor’s great great grandchildren descended. And she knew it would be her last time.

The murrelets swept her upward. Semper whispered a yearning for the sky and the Earth. Her stone necklace dissolved with the wish. She flew upward, but did not lift her feet from the ground. She reached them into the earth. Her body stretched long. Stirrings moved through her. Growth sprouted from her arms and back--"branches. She grew higher still, strengthening and hardening. The murrelets lifted her until they could fly no further.

In the branches of the tall tree she had become, they nested. Her children kept homes at her feet. The dusk palace often visited, brushing against her highest branches. And in that afterward, she was both of the air and of the ground. Semper of the Virens.

Reviews

[Annette Pisano-Higley]

“In the branches of the tall tree she had become, they nested. Her children kept homes at her feet. The dusk palace often visited, brushing against her highest branches. And in that afterward, she was both of the air and of the ground. Semper of the Virens.”
Elegant, lyrical prose. Ceeduir, your words and bejeweled images flow and leave flourishes on the page. Myth, fantasy, metaphor, allegory are all here. Celtic? Druid? You take us to a world that is in the sky and in the earth all at once. You have so much talent my friend. Keep writing and don’t be afraid to shine your light!

[Arundass TP]

A beautiful story. Enjoyed reading 🙂