the dark is empty; most of our heroes have been wrong.
Men are fickle.
Girls are fickle, too. But in a different way, a way Marisol understands more clearly.
Girl’s hearts stay put. When girls feel a thing, or love someone, it is inherently permanent, Marisol thinks, and it is only the use of their head that stops them from showing so. More than once she has rebuffed someone she loves. More than once she has denied feeling anything at all.
But it does not mean the feeling is not there—only that her head outweighs it. It will simmer there forever, just under the surface. It will push at the bonds her head makes to keep it in check. Often times, the head is stronger. But sometimes the heart will win.
Men are fickle in a way Marisol cannot comprehend, a way that she finds infinitely more terrifying. A man cannot be counted on to love something for years. For that matter, he cannot be counted on to love something the way he did yesterday; sometimes, somehow, he cannot even be counted on to tolerate it the way he did last night.
They are switches instead of dials. On—off—instantly. Girls are fickle from the head, and men are fickle from the heart. One is infinitely more painful to be subject to.
(Orestes was meant to be different. He spoke differently, act differently, and still left her, left his country, left his children, did everything right and still disappeared, said everything perfectly and still broke her heart and how can anything ever be okay again—)
The mountain, though, is permanent.
She is supposed to be a pious girl. But Veneror has evaded her list of priorities ever since she became Sovereign, and even for years before that; something about its towering height, the sheer importance of its existence, sends her into a panic. Even now, standing at its base, looking up at it from under the foamy gray-blue sky, something in her hurts. It aches. Her chest constricts. Just looking at it, she feels its weight.
For a moment there is silence. Just the sound of the breeze, the leaves rustling faintly. Marisol debates turning back. There are altars at home.
But those altars did not stop her husband from disappearing. Maybe this one, she thinks, her heart all-pain, can change things.
And when she starts up the slick staircase to the temple, she is too bruised to even the remember the first man who left her, for the first time in many months.
e is a dancer, he is a figment, he is light itself from the heavens bent onto the body of the sea. Beautiful. Untouchable. Ethereal. Alecto moves among the fire like a flame himself, as though he was made from the royal hues and their burning hearts, as though he’s risen from the yellow flames and painted his eyes in shades of gold. Antlers of light spring up upon his head, glittering as only gold can, dancing with the shadows, marrying them as dawn comes to the world and the night sighs her final goodbye as she lapses into slumber. All of Delumine is quiet, save for the hushed fall of feet from citizens of the Southern reaches who trek into the North - far from their home in the name of unity, in the name of strength.
And he does not mind the brush of bodies against his own.
And he does not push away the eyes that purr along his skin, stroking his ego that arches as a cat beneath their gentle touch.
Alecto dances to the beat of the world, spins stories of Knights and Queens, of Kings and glory. Children gather for tale after tale and then dart away, the same starlight of his skin glittering in their too-bright eyes alongside the wonder that only children seem to hang on to. When they grow up, he knows it will be vanquished like every beast and he thanks Tienar for the pleasures still proffered to him despite the years that have fled from his skin like water down the mountains of Varan.
Today is not a day for thoughts of home, thoughts of the city that once held him, nor the sorrow it brings to know that he does not see his sisters each night and kiss his mother in the morning before heading out into the world. With the fires that burn bright (oh, the fires of Vectaeryn are much more beautiful, but he’ll never tell you so, he’d never admit such a thing to an Outsider) and play upon the eyes as fingers on a harp, he lets himself fall into the world that’s caught him.
It presses bright flowers into his spine, it curls jewels into his skin, it carves names into the annals of his story until he would not forget them even if they forget the name Alecto.
Such is the way of his life that is lived selfishly. A life for himself is a life that is free. And how free he is as he listens to the tales woven by the Shed-Stars that stick to their clans, their little covens huddled together to titter and whisper happily among themselves. When a brave soul approaches, they stop and look into time itself.
Alecto does not question what they divine, but he does not approach them. His is a fate best left unknown.
For a moment, he pauses. Delumine’s lights wink on in the early morning. They begin to trail out their doors and into the sea of Denoctians, threading their own bodies among those of the South until they are a throng of death and life, until they are a song as old as time itself. Their voices rise together and their laughter is a poultice applied to a gaping wound.
He is not truly one of them.
So fresh still from the boat, so new still to Novus, some merchants that recognize him from their land entertain him for a time before he leaves their company. If they stare, he does not know. But of course, they always stare when he walks away, disappearing into the masses again.
It is among the bodies that purple moves as satin. Gems hang from her skin as though they are nothing. Laughter spills from lavender lips and his own tilt up in response. Such is a magical drink, the laughter of others spun into the heart of another, and so Alecto presses forward to find what is so merry about Mesyni this night. Hers is a face common in Denocte, but she is one he has not spoken to...yet.
✦
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you
i'm up against these things i can't see ;
they don't compare ; make me believe, make me believe
As
much as I had fun playing in the snow last season, I’m happy that all the snow has almost completely melted away. It brings a different smell to the world and I like it a lot better than the frosty-ness of winter. For the last few weeks, I’ve been noticing the new buds on the trees and have been watching the plants slowly sprouting from the ground. I especially love looking at the way the ferns are slowly unfurling in the woods. They look really cute (is that weird to say about a plant?) and I can’t wait to see everything once it’s all fully bloomed.
It all helps me forget what happened on the island even for a little. I haven’t told Momma yet (I don’t know how), but I know I’ll have to tell her eventually. I’ve seen the embers spark a few more times now so it’s only a matter of time that she’ll find out… or worse, something serious will happen. I really hope not.
So I’m grateful that she had Tenebrae bring me to the Dusk festival today. Unfortunately, Shadow Man is now blind so she had Bram go with us just in case. I know Momma is worried for me and she knows how I tend to like going off to explore. I know better now after the island, but I didn’t fight her on it. I like having Bram’s company, even if it’s more to keep an eye on me where Tenebrae can’t.
I look at the man now and I feel sorry for him. I don’t know what happened and Momma didn’t tell me, so I’m not sure if it’s too terrible for me to ask. He seems different since and I’ve noticed scars along his body that I don’t remember seeing before. It makes me wonder if the island might’ve gotten to him too but treated him worse than it did to me.
Maybe this trip will help us both then.
When we arrive in Terrastella, my jaw drops. There are tulips everywhere! I don’t know how someone had the patience to plant them all unless maybe someone had magic like Po did. Still, it’s so beautiful and it all almost looks like a soft bed of flowers for me to lay on. I’m tempted to do that, but I also don’t want to ruin them. (Part of me is scared too that my embers will come again and I’ll burn them all down. I look at Bram and he nuzzles my side. I think he knows).
I’m about to nudge Tenebrae and talk about how beautiful it all is, but then I remember- he can’t see them. I frown.
"I wish you could see this. Can you smell them all?" I ask, hoping his other senses might still work and articulate the beauty of all this. I notice a deep purple tulip that almost looks black and carefully pluck it. I bring it to Ten and gently touch his side with the flower in my mouth. "Here, I picked the best one for you. It’s dark, just like your shadows, Shadow Man."
Next to me, Bram sneezes from all the pollen in the air. I start giggling.
Forever, ages ago, when she had been blind, a child had found her, brought her to a festival and told her to dance. It had been so long since she had danced, but how could she now, when the world under her feet felt so strange. She feels him place something in her hair, she does not have to see to know it is a flower there. A lily, he says, and she smiles, and she danced, she danced in a place she has never seen, to music she has never heard, and sang in a silent voice. And then she went to somewhere quiet, where she thought she was alone, and it was only when the dancing stopped, that she wept until those eyes turned blue.
She will always consider all of the different ways that a person can come apart and be put back together again.
She will always think of it as a strange kind of wonderful.
As bruising as it may be.
She cannot recall the last time she had come to Dawn. Elena remembers bringing her daughter here, when she had been so small and so new. She met with Po, told him she would come back soon, searched and searched that forest for her little girl until she found her all alone with secrets of ghosts and unicorns trapped in her chest. Maybe, maybe that was the last time she came to Dawn.
It seems only fitting then that he would be one of the first faces she sees.
The sight of him sends her into a story. About a boy who found her at a festival and picked a flower for her. About a boy who could send the entire world crumbling with a single rose. She is beside him, comes before as easily and as quietly as the caress of a spring breeze that finds itself weaving through Elena’s golden locks.
“Po,” she starts, abrupt. “Let’s run through the forest tonight, like we have never grown up.” Her voice was soft but steady; it wasn’t the voice of silver bells or wind chimes. Instead, it was the voice of canyons and eagles and the promise of adventure. She turns then away from him and points in the direction of the forest where childish laughter echoes. And she twists that golden face with an ivory heart upon her brow to look upon her friend of flowers. “Catch me if you can,” and with embers floating off her skin, she slips into the trees.
those are the kind of girls who try to save wolves
do i still taste of war. can you feel the battles on my skin stitched across my back
A feral man, Arawn loves his freedom. His wilderness. His war. Somewhere in the taiga forests, in her endless beauty, the immortal moon embraces Arawn with a lusty whisper of primordial need. Beneath the breathless whispers of dusk, by grotesque eve, Arawn dances into the night like a wild, ravening animal. Arawn is a godless man – a heathen king, a pagan prince. In the dead of night, by the baying, fog-chill and purring want of the sickle moon that shines low with silver lust and hellish sanctuary – Arawn laughs, Arawn howls. Arawn begs his blood to spill. His voice croons like infernal flames viciously crackling against deadwood. His laughter is so devilish, so empty, it all but echoes like siren-songs in the deep, crying woods.
With the raw taste of whiskey on his breath, with blood running down his mouth, and the caress of fire and ash, still clinging possessively against his reptilian skin, he feels so unholy – so wanted. So reborn. With divine blood coursing his veins, he can feel the heat of thunder crashing like God's wrath in his heart. Still, even with all this twisted joy coiling like bile in his throat, he can taste the memory of the flames consuming him alive. He can feel the iron shackles, that bound his wrists and locked him in a kingdom made of the wretched Underworld. Arawn embraces his new-found freedom with a twisted, devilish smile. With a ragged breath of passion, of desire, of criminal need, Arawn breathes in the raw moonlight with unadulterated ecstasy.
His heart bellows with rage. His breath falls thick with sin and avarice. He wants to consume worlds. He wants to devour the universe. With darkness so unholy, it pours like black oil through Arawn. When the moonlight falls upon his masculine form, he can feel his every nerve being set on fire. His body coils like a python against his kill. Purring and reptilian by the effervescent whispers of moonlight. His rugged form dances like a predator dances around it's kill, hackles raised and fangs bared with instinctive hunger. When he finally spears the wild boar with his horn – delivering its heart to the slaughter house – a hunger snarls through him, too. He licks the blood from his lips. He whispers. He laughs. He smiles, inviting the stranger with a husky purr. Dark and impossibily sinful, handsome and arrogantly male. "Won't you join me in this feast?"
do i still taste of war. can you feel the battles on my skin stitched across my back
Arawn laughs in the darkness. His voice echoes with cruelty and criminal want. Beneath the hazy moonlight he smiles like a heathen prince. His muscles are drenched with moist crimson. His body glistening red, so visceral and unholy. It is not his blood that he washes off his saturated physique; his muscles rippling by the darkly, laughing rivers of a black, Delumine stream. The water feels cold beneath his touch – it darkens with all that vermillion blood, washing down his frame. It swims against his muscles like forbidden silk. He can hear it whispering to him. Darkness is a drug he swallows, greedily. Darkness falls against his toned frame and he drinks the nocturnal ambience with a low growl of want and ravenous need. It is always the darkness he finds beautiful. A siren call for his devilish heart.
Arawn closes his eyes and remembers the taste of a soul between his lips. How it skims his fangs like ambrosia, and slides down his throat like sin, like suffering. When Arawn finally wakes from his reverie, he wakes to whisper of dusk kissing his flesh – to the evening chill of nightfall, that beg his violence to crawl; like curses wound from his ancient, wolven lineage. Somewhere songs are sung in ode to Spring. Fire crawls through the starving earth and midnight skies are charged with witchcraft, ecstasy and laughter. Arawn is the dark, brooding gentleman against the cut of tangled, dancing bodies. Tonight, he is drenched in moonlight and not blood. Tonight, Arawn watches the flames rise higher, higher; as the smoke spirals up and up. Thirsting like arms thrown in intimate prayer against the nightsky. On his breath is the taste of whiskey. He watches the world partying around him through the rich haze of alcohol.
The clearning is obscured by sable canopies – candlelights, swaying to the overture of wind. A zephyr catches in the flickering of a silver moon-haze. The breeze that washes along his form feels chilly – a sinful caress, that lingers with forgotten need. He will see her then, amid the throes of dancing bodies. In the shadows of fire and smoke, she is a porcelain face, with slender features. How the lunar light descends upon the body of a young maiden, with moon-touched curves. "Do you enjoy their music?" Arawn grins, downing another shot of whiskey. "Will you dance with them?"
It has been almost a year since Amaunet stepped into the canyon hallways for a reason other than a night fighting in the pits. The sun is almost a strange feeling on her wings as she walks instead of flies through the tangled shadows and the leering mouths of overhangs. And she discovers, as she drags a wing through the redstone and covers in her body in dust and dirt, that she missed the thrill of hunting in the daylight.
There is a game the Davke children played. The prize had always been a spear stolen from a warrior in the dead of night or a lash by which the other children would bow and play. It was a savage game, she remembers, and sometimes they did not all come back in one piece. But Amaunet always did.
In her mouth she always held the treasure between her teeth like a lion instead of a girl.
By the time the canyon opens up and the trail slants upwards the noon-sun is ripe in the sky (all blinding and hot enough to coat her skin in sweat). She pauses there, on the curl of her hunting trail, and drags her nose against the stone to follow the smell of wing and fury where an Elder Teryr has flown too closely to the canyon walls.
It is the mistake of a thing statied from a kill but it is the single mistake of the beast that will grant her something other than death this day. And if she dies it will be with a feather between her teeth and glory a ember in her belly until it cools.
She sticks closely to the wall as the trail spirals dangerously up to the cave of the slumbering Teryr (or at least she hopes it is sleeping off its kill). Each step is lighter than the last, an ode to the gracefulness of a pegasus raised on the eve of violence. Her warpaint shines like blood: the only adornment she allowed herself when stealth was the only skill that mattered.
There are miles of curving pathways to go but she is not foolish enough to waste her energy or magic on flight. She does not try to speed up or move faster than a crawl when the sun starts to make her skin feel too tight on her skin. Every movement is a study in patience and the preservation of every ounce of her skill.
Because eventually she will have to be faster than a Teryr enraged that a feather has been plucked and stolen from his wing.
The night is as calm and alive and fierce as ever.
Do not race the fire, her mother had told her. She watches them all gather around the flames. She has not seen her mother since she let her go into the forest with the other children to collect pieces to throw into the fires. That feels like ages ago. It was before the forest, before the man, before the embers.
Do not race the fire, her mother had told her. And so she does not race, she walks with a quiet grace that can only be a gift from her mother, but the way she seems to roll herself through the shadows, so unafraid, so bold, that is from the father she has met but does not know. She calls him Dall for his eyes covered in bandages. She will paint him she thinks, when the morning comes and she wakes from her bed. She will paint the eyes underneath it before covering it with bandages. She will paint the moon on his shoulder and think nothing of her own marking from Caligo.
Do not race the fire, her mother had told her. She moves to where they all line up, the fires set ablaze in a path as if just made for her and her alone, and suddenly her world grows small. The smoke comes and it covers her eyes and she pretends that this is what it is like to be that man with the bandages on his eyes, over his eyes. She thinks she can beat the smoke, she move past it and see once more, and maybe one day he can too, out run his own smoke made of bandages and blindness.
A lion does not rule the jungle as a king rules a throne. There are no laws writ by the point of his tooth or the tip of his claw. In his eyes there is not a gavel hammer look of justice, or vengeance, or compassion. Upon the lion’s brow there is no crown and on his shoulder there is no blade. He has nothing but his violence, his hunger, his gurgling belly that demands flesh and blood and bones upon which to pick the sinew out.
But even the lion, with his violence and hunger, is a mere sheep in the face of his lioness when the spring comes.
Amaunet is no lioness caught in the jungle boughs with humidity dusting her cheekbones with dew. She is no thing tethered to a pack with something as mortal as hunger to give birth to the violence in the curl of her neck and the snap, snap, snap of her wings as she pushes back the darkness with the rose gold blush of her skin. Amaunet, born out of a pack of wolves and lions, has long been a creature starved even in the middle of war.
And tonight, just before dawn, she is not starvation but the dark and bloody thing in the belly of it.
Each of her feathers feels like paper and her gold feels like chains hooked and waiting around her pretty, hollow throat. The dunes are clouds beneath her feet rolling and parched of rain. The city’s fire embers smoldering at the coldest edges of her white-blue inferno. There is music somewhere in the distance playing a eulogy to all the soft things dissolving in the acid of her wrath. And when she starts to hum it is the sound of marching feet and men with collars around their necks smiling as they lay their spines upon a butcher’s block.
The low moon is a pearl crown shed from the tangles of her forelock. It is not the scythe it should have been when the stallion told her to come. A lioness does not listen to the lion when he tells her which buffalo to gut from heart to live.
Again, it must be remembered, that she is no lioness. She does not gut from heart to liver to feed the starving pride and the gluttonous king. Amaunet does not share.
But still she waits a week late, an arrogant thing that does not bow her head and listen closely to the tip of a horn laid against her pulse point. Somewhere that music is still playing and her lips are still alive with the wasps in the sound of men with collars around their necks heading off to war.
It has been so long since my hunger has felt like a creature inside of me instead of a feeling. Each step is followed with the gnawing sensation of teeth digging into the lining of my stomach. Miles bring another dimension to the ache in my jaw. By the time I am knee deep in the swamp water I feel more like a thing coming undone than a unicorn.
But I know better than to hunt in Denocte where Fable is always flying low over the plains and sea. Mother knows, of course, that I no longer can sustain myself on apples and grasses. It is the price ‘saving’ me demanded. However I know that the price is mine and mine alone to bear even when it should be hers. Today I will try to be a gentle daughter and not force her to bear witness to the monster she’s made of me.
Sometimes I am still tempted to bring home the head of a fox and lay it at her feet just to watch her eyes grow dark and salted with an agony only killing me might heal.
Yesterday I met a kelpie from the swamp. I had pressed shoulder to shoulder with her, in the market, and demanded that she tell me the secret of living so far from the brine of the sea. It took more than a threat to make her answer, but I am a princess and so there is nothing that I cannot give when it suits me too. Afterall mother can make gold from coal and she owes me something more than even the air from her lungs.
And so today I am knee deep in the swamp until my hair is more green than sea-pale. The swamp kelpie told me that the mirestags stray into the muck and brine to find the mushrooms that sprout there (the ones, she whispered into my ear like a kiss, that bloom only at the full moon). In the same breath she had told me that eating the diseased skin of one would free me from the call of the sea.
I want that with a desperation that is so much greater than my hollowness hunger. There is no price I will not pay to be free of the tide. Perhaps this is the real way that I am a monster in the same way my mother is one.
