Ellsgraven: October 2012

The panther, when unsummoned, dwells within a cave on the snowy peak of the great mountain Io, which is the mountain of the dream. He is the lieutenant, messenger, and agent of the goddess, Darja, who is also called the angel of solace.

The panther, too, is an angel of solace, one who lives by the Healer's Oath, but not absolutely. Possessed of a great cat's teeth and claws, he has the potential to act as a guardian over chosen wards of the goddess.

Von--for that is his name--is the sole example of the species Panthera apotheosus and as such exhibits these features: he is purely black, not simply a melanistic mutation of a typical jaguar or leopard. No spots are visible in his coat, nor were they ever there. His coat is seamless ebony.

He is much larger than any earthly panther, with a mass and stature equivalent to the largest of African lions, though obviously without a mane.

And lastly, his eyes are a very pale gray.

Von is often referred to as "the panther in the snow", due to the white expanses of his homeland, and his tendency to appear in winter. The winter is his time of greatest influence, the season that his spirit springs from, though he can travel into any month.

I will wait just inside the door to the underworld for you. That gray-black stone tile thick with dust, just before the sudden descent (a rollercoaster angle) is where I will crouch and breathe on my hands for warmth. I will wait for you, so that we will go on down together, to introduce each other as a good man and a good woman among the milling souls of the recently dead. I think they will greet us as people always do when thrust together into a situation strange, worrisome, but calm enough and free enough from signs of peril that panic does not seem a natural response--I think they will welcome us, and ask us what we think, and if we have any news from the world above. And they will already know the answer before it leaves our lips: no, sorry, it doesn't look like the government's going to send relief anytime soon. The living world, like a howling blizzard, will cease to seem like a thing to return to, and we'll all begin exploring the uncharted lanes of what comes next. We will move down the subterranean mountain, carrying the coals of a future hearth to where existence opens, once more, the plains of the waiting flowers.

Ellsgraven

12/21/12

Von

Afterward

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