She blinks, awakening to the harsh brush of rough stone beneath her fingertips, surprised to be standing. Images flood, not fall, into her eyes as they blink and pull her out of the trance only the deepest of art-making can bring. Her nose just a breath away from that same stone, she cannot see the art that must be there. The smeared paint on her fingertips tell her it is there and that she has made it. Or been a part of its making.
The echo of a whispered possibility of a somewhere else that might have been or might be floats down, soft as rose incense into the cave. How does she know this place is down? Because nowhere this dark could exist anywhere else.
Rose calls to her, she follows.
She moves through worlds, free. Memories of a someone who might have been her a lifetime ago float in as scents change and light becomes a possibility. Those memories dance and flow around her, brightly painted scarves she doesn't need to wear. She feels no chill in this air.
Steady footsteps, her own, land and ground on each step as they appear before her. She climbs, breath strong, steady, and sure. No rush, no effort. She does not wonder about what comes next, there is no next, only now.
Exiting what was and what has been, seven staircases later, her feet are met by the caress of morning dew, soft medicine like the tears she has wept, a promise of a sun that will rise. She casts a final glance to the steps she has climbed, the unseen spiral they formed. It is done. She sits in the grass wet with the promise of morning and becomes part of that promise.
