[SWP] heliophilics

[Apolonia]

I WISHED, I WISHED

THAT GOD WOULD KILL ME -

Even with Solis standing in front of her, Apolonia is not sure she believes in God.

It just doesn’t make sense. Well, alright - not everything has to make sense. But wouldn’t it be nice if it did?

In the wet sand O stands and twirls her hurlbat like a plaything at her side, where it makes a sound of slicing through the air. It could almost skim the hair right off her neck if she weren’t so careful to keep it whirling just an inch away, almost stirring the dark, loose mane that lays flat against her shoulder. She watches Solis glimmer in the sun, and thinks absently that it doesn’t make any sense at all, that a god could be so beautiful and yet so useless.

She does not think of her mother - of the magic that shimmers over her skin like starshine, or the immense heat that wafts from her in the darkness. She does not think of charm, false or real. Nor does she think of her father and the way he pulls new worlds from thin air. She thinks only of herself, and the loud bragging of her heart, and the hurlbat spinning through the air near her ribs: whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, turning atmosphere into ribbons.

As the crowd around Solis thickens, Apolonia finally moves forward. She ducks her head close to her chest and weaves through the dunes like a snake, like a wild thing, and at her feet glimmer things, sometimes, holes in the ground, sprouting jungle plants, cow skulls, but only infinitesimally, here and gone in the same second like a mirage: almost she seems a hologram herself, sparkling in the sunlight where gold meets soot.

She glances up at the sky, where that strange bird circles, with a flat mismatched gaze.

That third eye burns a circle in the middle of her forehead.