Episode 7: The Thundering Hooves

ext. meadow path night

A dirt path that snakes down from the top of the tallest hill in the Moon’s Meadow. Alice walks down the path, humming. On either side, the greenery bends and flows in acknowledgment of her movements. Her feet, clad in laceless, waterproofed dreary brown dress shoes kick up small clouds of dust as they shuffle through the dirt, the dirt settling her sockless ankles.

Alice walks alone. Her eyes flit wildly from side to side, a habitual attempt to avoid simply staring at the ground in front of her. Alice would never look up if she had the choice. Looking up is a pain. Seeing the endless sky, the towering buildings and worst of all- the faces of others who cross her path. Alice never knows what to do with her face, how to meet the gaze of others. Eyes are worse than empty skies to her- eyes contain more mystery, more obscurity, more potential for pain. Eyes are the signalmen for a code Alice never learned and could never hope to decipher for herself.

Alice never looks others in the eye when she speaks, always looking just past them or playing at some prop in her hands like a middle school play actor struggling to recall both their lines and their blocking. As such, Alice always gives the impression of a cutout rather than a fully formed person, her mannerisms stiff and contrived when summoned forth, her speech either too loud or too soft, tones too exaggerated or falling flat. This is a person born without the spark necessary for spontaneous communication- spoken or unspoken- that most stride into with ease.

As such, Alice is both describable and yet impossible to summarize. Her friends, such as they are, would likely meet your questions with a shrug or a crooked smile. Who is Alice? Who can say, really?

But one thing Alice is not is shallow. Beneath the malfunctioning face, the broken, downcast gazes, the nervous hands and the consistent stream of obscure lies that escape her lips, Alice is impossibly deep. When Alice decides on something it is because an unimaginable series of checks and balances has triggered deep within her guts, clicking together to create a decision that to all others will seem quite sudden and arbitrary.

Alice knows she is a new world of magic and danger. She knows an incredible monster is at her back- the World Machine. She knows a lofty goal is ahead of her- The Tower. She knows what her one, ill-advised wish is- The Great Silence.

And she knows she wants to move forward. So Alice walks.

But Alice does not walk alone.

She stops, not turning around.

ALICE
You can walk next to me.

The Pale Horse emerges from behind her, fading in from air, a wisp of smoke taking form. It isn’t a spooky smoke, but an inviting one. It’s the smell and volume of menthol wisps on a college patio from a time in your life when you didn’t worry about your lungs- or the company you kept.

Alice was a smoker, once, before smoking became too great a pain to keep up. An irony- the higher Alice’s payscale reached, the less time she was allotted for smoking. She never quite smoking so much as she gave up trying to smoke. And perhaps this is why her first instinct upon the Pale Horse arriving is to inhale deeply, not considering how odd this might seem to anyone else, much less the Horse itself.

She begins walking again, the Horse trotting along beside her now, keeping an even pace.

ALICE
You're not going to try and stop me, huh?

PALE HORSE
Energy spent trying to dissuade a fool is energy wasted.

ALICE
Well. Good.

They walk quietly for a few moments. Alice never fears silence. Prefers it, actually. Silence is safe. Simple to manage. Comforting. Luckily for her, the Pale Horse is a creature of few wasted words. The Pale Horse is an existence of silence, its sentience and protagonist status newly found, unwanted, and foisted upon its being. In a contest of insufficiency, the Horse surprisingly wins. For once, Alice is the first to break the silence.

ALICE
So you're a horse.

PALE HORSE
Your point?

ALICE
Why would a horse climb a tower?

PALE HORSE
Hmph.

ALICE
You're not going to tell me.
(pause)
I guess I don't care. But you care. I can tell.

PALE HORSE
And why do you wish to climb the Tower?

ALICE
(shrugs)
Because I saw it. And when I woke up in the meadow, it was what I wanted most to do. I always do what I want.
(pause)
I bet the path to the Tower is dangerous.

PALE HORSE
Very. It is likely we will not make it on our own.

ALICE
We, huh?

The Horse does not reply. Alice grins. A point for her. The Horse, like the Alice, makes its choices with little fanfare.

And despite what it may project otherwise- it has chosen the Alice.

ALICE

Well, if WE need help, WE should ask your- no, I suppose a horse wouldn't have any of those.

PALE HORSE
Any what?

ALICE
Friends.

PALE HORSE
I have friends.

ALICE
(teasing)
If you had friends you wouldn't be traveling with me. It's okay, I don't judge.

PALE HORSE
Hmph.

ext. forest path night

A darkened forest with tall trees and thick underbrush, notably darker than the meadow path. The night has taken a darker turn. No longer does the Moon’s yellow rays cast a pale illumination on the scene, nor can the star’s soft twinkles populate the overhead. Instead, snaggled wooden limbs snarl out above the path with thick green leaves that blot out the night sky. The Pale Horse and Alice continue to walk side by side, the uneven path rising and falling beneath their careful feet, oversteeping fallen branches and upturned roots.

Not long has passed and the pair continues their conversation as they traverse the tricky path.

ALICE
Maybe the Moon has some friends.

PALE HORSE
Maybe you should stay in one place for more than five minutes, you might have thought to ask.

ALICE
What can I say? I go where the spirit takes me.

Alice stops. Her ears perk, a breeze softly whistling by her shoulder, carrying a few strands of thin, dry hair. She brushes the hair from her face, her hand passing over her ear. She pinches her lobe between her index finger and her thumb for a moment before passing her hand to the pressure point just behind her ear, tenderly pressing it. Her eyes narrow a bit, the pressure producing a bit of pain- a point of focus for Alice in unsteady moments.

A series of small cries- whines, really. Alice quickly bends down to the flowers alongside her path. She cocks her head, bending her ear to them. The calls, a little more clear, but in unrecognizable language, sound like cartoonish gibberish impossible to understand, perhaps never intended to be understood. Alice nods her head. The Pale Horse has also stopped and watches blankly.

ALICE
Oh. Yes. Well, that does sound serious, I agree.

The Horse snorts impatiently. It does not like being left out, and an unseen third party in this conversation makes it uncomfortable.

ALICE
(a bit snide)
I'm sorry, do you not speak Flower?

PALE HORSE
Has it occurred to you that it's odd that you do?

ALICE
Oh no, I talked to plants in the real world too.

PALE HORSE
As though this world were any less real.

This passive moment of disbelief does not escape the Horse. It can’t be said that the Horse takes offense- but rather, an air of cynicism, as one might take with a friend who believes in an outlandish conspiracy. You arch an eyebrow and perhaps laugh it off, or dismiss it with a snide comment, as the Horse does now. But you don’t seriously debate it. Debate begets merit, and Alice’s disbelief in Arcana does not warrant merit in the Horse’s mind.

In fact, Alice does not realize until this moment that she may not believe in the concrete nature of Arcana herself. Perhaps this is a dream, or a panic attack, or a near death experience. Unusually lucid, but even so- it is the here and now. Even so, it lends additional credence to a disposition that is already less than serious. Like waves on the shore, these doubts wash up and recede, giving way to the wake of a new distraction as the flowers whisper their secrets- itself a phenomena that might warrant question if Alice weren’t so welcoming of any distraction, however bizarre it might be, to avoid the potential awkwardness of a one on one conversation.

ALICE
(bending down to the flowers, barely listening)
Huh? Oh, yeah sure. This is so real.

She nods, whispers inaudibly back to one trembling little flower with purple petals, her hand cupping her mouth. She nods again. Stands.

ALICE
They say three people approach- two rides, a third on foot. One of coins. Two of swords. Do you know-

Alice turns to the Pale Horse, who now stands still as a statue, its ears completely erect like little radar dishes.

PALE HORSE
Please forgive this.

The Horse fades away into wisps of smoke. First the outline of the horse is all that remains and then that too even recedes into darkness, leaving nothing but disturbed dust and crumbled dead leaves where it once stood.

ALICE
(hands to her hips)
Oh, outstanding. You're disappearing? I don't even get any exposition on what's coming? Hello? No?

There is no answer. Nothing, not even the breeze, gives way to sound. An uncanny, noticeable Small Silence. The moths of memory begin their feast upon the credulity of Alice’s situation. For a moment she even doubts a Pale Horse stood next to her to begin with.

In absence of anything save a path forward, Alice has but one choice…

ALICE
(sighs)
Then I guess I'll just keep walking-

A flash of white light. Air rushing past Alice's shoulder. Her hair flows upward as a sightless blade passes her. A few severed strands of hair blow away with the rush of air, cleanly severed from the source. Alice’s eyes go wide, her body unusually still in this moment, frozen. Perhaps if she does not move, someone will mistake her for a funny looking tree.

But probably not.

Behind her, trees fall, sliding backwards across clean diagonal slices. It is perhaps best if she is not mistaken for a tree after all.

The object of Alice’s forward gaze is reflected in her saucer-wide eyes. Kneeling before her, garbed in a simple white tunic, long hair flowing loose- the PAGE OF SWORDS, a young, serious man. In his right hand he carries a sword of air, swirling green hues forming the outline of a blade which emits from a hilt of copper brown.

The Page is large for a swordsman- too large, in fact- he is almost laughable, his biceps so large that they hinder the arc of a proper swing, his thighs swollen so that they protrude like small barrels from beneath the breaks in his tunic. His jaw too square, his forehead quite long, his hair clings to the back of his head like the leftover relics of a much smaller frame, attached to the newer, bigger frame out of some misguided affection. Emerald green eyes flash and he rolls his head from side to side in a jerky motion that threatens to remove the skull from the spine entirely before snapping back into alignment.

Behind Alice, pounding hooves. A soft orange-red glow is cast upon the back of her neck. Waves of heat prick at the small hairs, a bead of sweat trickles down her forehead past her left eye. The pounding hooves grow louder, the ground beneath Alice trembling with their approach.

ext. forest path night- flash forward

The same path, the same flowers and trees, the same night, the same Alice and Page of Swords. And yet, different. The scene is cast in a shade of yellow, soft at first, and the scene is motionless, furthering the impression of a moment captured in the amber of memory.

From the side of the forest path, a SECOND ALICE watches the first Alice on the path. This second Alice appears as normal, undrenched in yellow light, clarified in living color. She surveys the scene- the muscular page, his sword of air, the frozen Alice, the waves of heat at her back, the orange-red glow cast upon her bare skin. She notes the wilting flowers and grass, the blackening trees around her- details that the Alice in the previous scene would not notice.

The Second Alice reaches out to touch the first, but as her hand approaches the scene winds forward- slow at first and then with a snap. The red-orange glow- then the heated air- then the passing of a gray blur and a swooping red blade of light, arcing upward in the passing.

Where the first Alice once stood- now but a caricature of cartoonish, bursting flame, the human silhouette trapped within the enveloping flames, clawing to escape its elemental cage.

The Second Alice watches this turn. Then she blinks.

ext. forest path night return

The same path, the same flowers, the same trees, the same Alice and Page of Swords. It is all the same, and not different. There is no Second Alice, there is no shade of yellow. This is the living color of present time.

A blessing of being intuitive is not having the sense to question one’s own eyes. Or thoughts. Or visions, such as they were. Alice doesn’t start questioning now.

Instead, Alice does the sensible thing- she rolls out of the way.

A gray horse with white flaming hooves pounds through the path, rushing by the spot that Alice was just standing in. Alice is not burned alive in mindless agony. Alice lives to see another day.

Yes, Alice lives another day to meet yet another obstacle. In a way this tires her. For all the effort- and seeing one’s own death is an unbearable force of concentration- she can’t help but notice that all the thanks she gets for living is to be met with yet another challenge, yet one more thing that requires exertion. And what thanks will there be for overcoming this?

Sighing, Alice gets up, dusting off her pants. Alice would like a nap. She can’t help but yawn.

Before her the gray horse stamps to a stop, flames receding into its white hooves. A KNIGHT sits upon the back of the horse, and as the horse stamps to a stop, turning back toward Alice, the rider is seen. She wears classical medieval armor of blue steel with a visored helm. In her right hand she holds a longsword of fire, red arcane energy swirling about it. The knight lifts her visor- behind the helm, a pair of ruby red eyes set against porcelain, wisps of cracked red pepper hair peek out.

The Knight raises her sword of fire, its point directed at the Alice…