The Rising Of The Sun

by Heatherly

It got cold that winter in time for Christmas.

Well, in the sense that we had just shifted to a winter climate, and according to the calendar I started keeping that year, it was Christmas.

It could've been the middle of summer. I had started keeping a calendar 6 months earlier, randomly declaring it to be the 4th of July because I wanted a reason to celebrate and because we were in a shift that felt like the middle of summer.

But it didn't matter.

Tara immediately declared that since it was almost time for Christmas, it was also time for Solstice. She wanted a tree. A real tree. With decorations and candles to welcome the sun back on the longest night.

We ended up settling for a bonfire.

Kate thinks we're crazy. Probably are. But then again, she was the one doing the deed with Frosty, so I think the craziness factor on our part is minimal.

Besides, I think we need it. We need ... something. Something normal.

Tara and I met a Jono a few shifts ago, and he kept talking about how we have to accept that the shifts are the way of life now, it won't change, the world's going to end, etc. Doom and gloom.

Well, maybe. But I'm tired of doom and gloom. Even if this is the way the world is now, even if no one ever 'fixes' it--we have to try to have a normal life.

It's so bizarre. When I was with the X-Men ... no. I won't say it that way.

Before the shifts. Yeah.

Before the shifts, my whole life was fighting, struggling--I never thought I'd have a chance to be 'normal.' But this--this traveling, living day by day, coping with whatever the shifts throw at us--this is as close to normal as I've ever had. No superheroes, no 'living in fear', no end of the world/universe that we're the only hope to stop.

Just living. Day by day, at the end of the world. It's not so bad.

I think I'm doing ok. We've met a lot of people that got really screwed up when the shifts came. Crazy. Nuts. But I think I'm pretty sane, most of the time. It took me a while to get over losing everyone -- Wolvie, Ange, Paige -- the whole X-Crew. But I had to get over it. So I did.

Tara ... well, Tara seems ok. She acts really strong and all, with being a witch and stuff. But really. She's pretty ... broken.

Her last girlfriend fucked her up royally. Apparently she was doing drugs or something--the magical equivalent anyway -- and got this girl killed in a car accident. And then committed suicide.

Tara still thinks it's her fault.

And Kate -- jeez. Kate was sleeping with Frost. I mean -- really. That's fucked up.

I know she's not the Kitty I knew, but still. Talk about sick mental images.

Oops. Time to go. Tara says it's time to start.

The witch has started her Solstice ritual. I can see her through the smoke of the bonfire, sitting calmly, hands clasped by her lover, chanting while sparks of magic shimmer around her.

It's a foolish risk. They both know how unstable magic is in the shifts, and yet, they use it. I can understand using it to survive--Tara sometimes has a sense for when and where a shift will come, and that is certainly useful.

But using it this frivolously? To celebrate some kind of religious event? We don't even know what day or month it truly is--or year! We don't know how time exists in the shifts. It's foolish.

Jubilee tried to justify it to me, some nonsense about needing a sense of normality, stability. Truly, I think it is simply Jubilee's trademark impulsivity. I know she's not the Jubilee I knew, but that character trait has certainly stayed the same.

I step closer, watching them. The magic curls and swirls around them. Tara continues chanting calmly, Jubilee is busy watching the air shimmer and move around them.

"Kore, Amaterasu, Pele, we call you.
Mithra, Horus, Dionysus, we call you."

It's pointless. Calling on deities that don't exist to celebrate an event that isn't really occurring in world that isn't even real anymore. Wasting magic that could be used for some productive purpose on ...

"God of light and fire, Goddess of renewal and rebirth, we call you.
Elements of earth, of fire, water and air, we call you."

But perhaps this is productive in its own way. Tara certainly seems brighter and more focused than I've seen her in days. She has a joy in her eyes. I ...

I remember...before. I remember lighting candles. The wax dripping on my hands, the fire dancing before me. I remember the berakhot. I remember having that look in my eye.

I remember ...

"Can I help?"

She smiles and hands me a candle. I step into the circle, the air and light dancing across my skin.

Perhaps it is pointless. But I hold the candle in my hand and. I want to remember.

It's an old, old ritual. Maybe the oldest there is. On this longest night, will the sun return?

It doesn't matter that this isn't the longest night. It doesn't matter that we don't really know what season or month or year it is. What matters is the question.

Will the sun return? Will light come back?

Everything is twisted and broken, reality strained and spinning against itself. Worlds and universes collide and intertwine, throwing seasons and people and time and life and rock and air and ocean and hope into this twisted tapestry.

Will the sun come back?

I can meet myself, and fight myself and watch myself be killed--and still exist. I can watch my lover live, then die, then live, then walk the worlds in some shattered version of herself.

Will the sun come back?

Some days I don't know how to exist in this world. I don't know how to keep breathing when the air itself is continually changing. I don't know how to walk when the ground beneath me doesn't know whether it's earth or rock or sand or water. Jubilee is so incredibly strong to keep going everyday-but she doesn't see that.

Will the sun come back?

It's the oldest ritual. We call on the Gods and the Goddess, the spirits, the elements. We call the sun to return, for spring to come from winter, for birth and rebirth. We call for hope. And it doesn't matter if the day is wrong, the season wrong, the earth itself wrong-what matters is the question. Will the sun come back?

Will the world continue to spin, as broken and shattered as it is?

Will the sun come back?

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