The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
—
Time is a powerful magic.
There are the words that might form the net of her life, sure as the last limits of the galaxy, sure as spider-silk weaving a web caught between each tree in the forest. Even slow with sleep (or perhaps because she is already half-dreaming) a little thrill goes through her, a crystal-moon shiver. She does not notice the way her mother is searching the ferns and the shadowed splinter-light through the forest for a pair of eyes that look like her own. She does not say but I want to know now. Already the girl is patient, as patient as a tree, slow roots reaching deep.
But oh! She does want to know, and more than that to have - to open worlds before her like ripe fruit, peaches bursting sweet beneath their soft skin. With her brother, she thinks, she will learn these mysteries. Together they will find a key of their own - a weapon of their own - a way to cut the worlds that sweeten for them on the vine of time.
She smiles to hear her name on her mother’s lips; she meets those lavender eyes with her own, a color richer than any man-touched treasure. No Midas could make her, little fawn of the wood, child of time. Her smile only grows (like a vine) when Florentine whispers in her ear, and the truth of it makes her blood sing, even as a little sigh slips out between her petal lips.
Our blood is made to travel Time and bring worlds kneeling beneath our fingertips.
For Aster it is as good as a prophecy. She nods, solemn as a saint or a judge.
And then, because she is only a little girl, after all, and not a dryad or a god, she opens her toothless mouth in a yawn. Even a creature of time cannot forego the laws of age, and she stretches up to her mother’s ear to whisper “I love you, mama.” This done, she beds down in the golden sunshine, curling her legs beneath her dappled back as tidy as any fawn. And in her dreams there is no time at all, but only home.
@Florentine closer for you <3
There are the words that might form the net of her life, sure as the last limits of the galaxy, sure as spider-silk weaving a web caught between each tree in the forest. Even slow with sleep (or perhaps because she is already half-dreaming) a little thrill goes through her, a crystal-moon shiver. She does not notice the way her mother is searching the ferns and the shadowed splinter-light through the forest for a pair of eyes that look like her own. She does not say but I want to know now. Already the girl is patient, as patient as a tree, slow roots reaching deep.
But oh! She does want to know, and more than that to have - to open worlds before her like ripe fruit, peaches bursting sweet beneath their soft skin. With her brother, she thinks, she will learn these mysteries. Together they will find a key of their own - a weapon of their own - a way to cut the worlds that sweeten for them on the vine of time.
She smiles to hear her name on her mother’s lips; she meets those lavender eyes with her own, a color richer than any man-touched treasure. No Midas could make her, little fawn of the wood, child of time. Her smile only grows (like a vine) when Florentine whispers in her ear, and the truth of it makes her blood sing, even as a little sigh slips out between her petal lips.
Our blood is made to travel Time and bring worlds kneeling beneath our fingertips.
For Aster it is as good as a prophecy. She nods, solemn as a saint or a judge.
And then, because she is only a little girl, after all, and not a dryad or a god, she opens her toothless mouth in a yawn. Even a creature of time cannot forego the laws of age, and she stretches up to her mother’s ear to whisper “I love you, mama.” This done, she beds down in the golden sunshine, curling her legs beneath her dappled back as tidy as any fawn. And in her dreams there is no time at all, but only home.
@
