Several months pass with no word of his presence. No sign or hint of his voice, or the sight of his pale face and steady gaze. There was once a hope, a blind, maddening hope Nöelle had held on to. Supplying comfort, an unyielding strength fraying at the edges as the inhabitants of Terrastella prepared for the festival. A child’s hope waning in the dim light.
 
He would become a song, a patchwork of pieces eroding with the years. It scared her to think she might forget her father’s face – the low depth of his voice, the warmth it carried.
 
His smell.
 
She clawed her mind for recollections of bergamot and cedar wood, heavy metallic earth, and acrid coal. But could not pinpoint, with any degree of certainty, which of these in any combination might embody his shadow. No such cure to remedy the wound.
 
Anger prompted the delicate wreath in her possession. Held together by a base of thin, dead branches woven together. Wild flowers and late autumnal foliage decorated the exterior.
 
It was silly to think keeping busy would ease the unrest building behind her gaze. The work of procuring various makes of cloth, the gathering of materials, and the dying process took the majority of her time. At the end of the day leading up to the harvest, she sat under candlelight and worked on the wreath. Lost to the hour of the night, editing and adding various arrangements of flours and bramble. Attempting to create balance with the type of leaf and various stems of aging perennials and weeds.
 
That morning she stopped just short of the square. Locks of silver braided loosely – free strands lilting with the subtle push of air. As her eyes regarded the prized figurehead of Terrastellan worship, she released a tired sigh.
 
Not this again, she thought to herself. The people adored their god, Vespera. To show any dissent meant forfeiting a stake in the kingdom – or simply a home. She was confused by her arrival at the square, taking in the idol’s figure. Vespera’s jeweled eyes appeared sad from Noelle’s view. Though she thought she knew better, thinking, ‘Even gods burn.’
 
And their worlds died with them.
 
Despite her skepticism, she willed her limbs forward. Passing by the gaze of the guards nearby. It was early enough that the crowd was sparse. And perhaps, she could afford more time to observe this strange act of worship. Or perhaps this worship came about with confessions, or for hopes and dreams to be spat out and caught by some whirlwind – and heard, to some degree.
 
Or never heard.
 
Nöelle paused just ahead of the statue. She felt sick. The kind of soul sickness that burned your belly – that filled its edges with the uncertainty of the future. Or perhaps, it was the thick smell of scented oil bubbling up inside her head that made her feel dizzy.
 
She glanced briefly to those who had already placed objects at Vespera’s feet. Fresh fruit, homemade textiles, various bouquets strewn about… Whispers of their prayers made the air thick with expectations and perhaps – the harmony, shared by some.
 
The fae finally placed the wreath down.

“Can you save him?” She mumbled allowed.

“Bring him home.”

Noëlle

eyes that fire and sword have seen
and horror in the halls of stone

Stella almost forgets tonight.

She chases erasure, flushed and fingering loose the tight knots of her heavy once-was. That which wraps around her like an overbearing, unwelcome caress. It does not love, it only greeds. It folds her under the weight of itself, making her smaller and smaller in the process. Subsuming the tangled, delicate lights of her astral soul; ebbing, like hungry, swart mouths, all the marvellous beauty that came before. (Long before…) It makes her, it; a singular being, swaddled too-tight in memory, creasing the lovely lines of her face and mooring her spirit to a tombstone of moss-grown marble and far, far, far too many names to count.

Were her lips not black, they would be stained a pale pink, phantoms of a deep red with hints of oak. As it is, her breath is a sweet bouquet of smoke and vanilla, her eyes a little less focused than they ought to be. She smiles, twirls; laughs as she passes by merry-makers in clutches of moonlight, they themselves liquid and fruity; dry, astringent, soft, delicate notes of horsehair and sweat and spirits spilt on yellowing grass. Lute sounds like violet, flute like bright, bombastic pink against the blackened blue of night. A septillion blinking stars (nameless, unknown, strangers in a strange land) gyrate around a single, indeterminate point it space, swirling against the bright, impressionist sky.

She disappears into it.

She disappears into it, her tail – (too long; and how annoying, the braids are falling out, letting loose; oh well)  – carving the curved meander she makes into the dirt and clusters of light-hewn poppies, mallow, and beardtongue. She follows not the stars tonight (for the refuse to stand still) but the distant sound of music, a much more earthly thing than the star-gazer is accustomed. She smiles – it is a watery, bright smile – as she skips towards the bank of the Rapax; her astronomical instruments thumping precipitously against her sides, the agouti and white fur shifting on her back. She takes a moment, never stopping just shifting ever-more sideways, to reach back and pull it straight with her teeth, giggling softly. “Manere posuit.”

It is the strings of lights, like processions of fae in the night, that catch her eye, head jerking up to watch with silent, gaping awe. They furl themselves around the throat of a nearby woman, like a necklace of argent starlight; crown a man like living, illumined jewels. She steps forward, head tilting, fur shifting, instruments thumping; silver hooves tracing a small, inelegant pirouette. They unwind, in a tightly choreographed gesture, from the hair of a stranger. Slipping through the chill air, with the faintest hum, they find her jealous skin – curling up her leg and breastbone to touch with tickling tenderness the swanlike curve of her neck.

She giggles, pale lashes fluttering shut as she begins to hums an old trapper’s ballad – of maidens bonny-wild upon bedsheets of bear-pelt – and to her bawdy delights they flocks, festooning the nooks of her form in light.

Hover for translation
@Ipomoea

At night, I like to come down to the water and remember.

I listen to the sea churning in the dark, and I marvel at how it sounded exactly the same on the other side of the world, in that place we brought war to– or, no, not war. Freedom, it was freedom.

It was justice. And no matter how tired I am of it all, I will always fight for it. I will always fight for her, until the end of days.

I listen to the crash of the waves and I think of how small my daughters were when we left Novus. I try to recall being that small myself but all I remember anymore is a blue-grey smear of sky and the smell of smoke. I've lived long enough and come so far from my birthplace that my childhood memories are torn and crumbled. They say you die once with your body, and again when the last person who remembers you forgets. I feel suddenly like a murderer and then I remember-- oh wait-- I am.

the thrust of my halberd through flesh. the crush of bones. the sound of someone drowning on their own blood. How, how, how could I forget?

Or, really, how couldn't I?

At some point you realize: all men bleed the same, even the evil ones. In war all men die the same, too, surrounded by filth and ash. Sometimes they go out crying, sometimes screaming, sometimes mouths drawn into a dumbfounded “O” of surprise.

I almost envy the ones who never saw it coming. I know my death will not be a surprise like that. It trails behind me already– I see it there at the corner of my vision, lingering in the shade between the trees. Patient, so very patient. He’s been waiting for me the moment I was born.

Death bites into an apple, leans back into the loamy earth. I think he might be listening to the sea, too. I think he might be remembering. The wind blows gently against our backs.

Death and me, we’re as much at peace as we’ll ever be.

I know I should be grateful.

The clouds part and moonlight makes her entrance, dancing silver on the water. There’s someone else here, too, someone who is not death and not the moon. I hear them step forward softly in the sand behind me. I remember when I was young I always wanted to be alone. Since then I’ve grown to appreciate any escape from my thoughts.

“Nice night.” I call out quietly, without taking my eyes off the sea. Holding so tightly to my memories, and feeling them slip slowly through my grasp anyway.


E I K
the world, a double blossom, opens:
sadness of having come,
joy of being here.