The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
—
Oh, she is eager to watch that supple blade cut the air and find a world where there is nothing.
Aster remains silent, watchful, a little slip of moonbeam against her father’s dappled shoulder. Her eyes drink in the sight of her uncle and his coat of stardust, her mother and her shining gold. And that little sliver of trembling air that opens to a sky that is not their sky, a world that is their world (as all worlds are, as Florentine has told her).
There is no sound of birds or insects, so sigh of sea or breath of wind, to disrupt the sounds of their family. And then the breeze of that other world rises, and tangles through her curls, and there are birds crying there (she has never before heard birds, Time has stolen the voices of the island) and how badly she wants to step through then! She curls her little carved cheetah more tightly against her breast until it is as warm as her skin; she watches her uncle the king step through, touches her muzzle to her father’s side as he follows. Aster remains as still as a hidden fawn as Lysander kisses Florentine and is gone through the doorway her mother has made.
And now that doorway shivers! The filly shivers too, her blood as alive as sparks, no fear but excitement. After a world of full-stillness, at last things are happening, and she is too young to see the worry and fear on her mother’s face. She presses her lips against her mother’s neck as she goes through that shrinking door -
and out the other side. There is Leonidas, and there is the waterfall (still frozen, bound tight by Time) and there is the grass and the forest and the glaring sun and the blue blue sky.
And nothing else.
Aster whirls now, her small ears pinning, just in time to see the cut sparking like a god weeping ichor and flame. When the dagger snaps she thinks it is the loudest thing she has ever heard, and she presses her side into her twin’s, still staring, until movement and sound draws her golden-eyed gaze down to their feet.
There, much like the foals that stand above them, are two cheetah cubs, the hair of their backs long and silver, freckled with spots the way the twins are with golden dapples. How strange, she thinks, and lowers her nose to the boy-cat, who stares back at her with dark eyes. When she whuffs at it gently it bats a paw at her nose and she withdraws with a snort, half-wary, half-delighted at this newest mystery.
But the motion of her brother draws her attention to him, and silently she receives the shard of dagger, examining it closely. It smells hot, like the magic of the island, strange and unnatural. She is examining it still, the cub mewling at her feet, until her twin begins to call out.
“Hush,” she says then, when his cries fail to rouse even a bird from the trees. Aster thinks that if there is anything left to hear them, it maybe ought not find them. When he tucks himself against her (the way they tuck against Mother, against Father) she runs her muzzle over his shoulder just as Florentine had soothed her days before. “Hush, Leonidas,” she says again, remembering what their mother had said. Wherever your brother is is home.
“Our blood is made to travel Time,” she echoes, though Aster does not know what the words mean. Yet she holds the piece of dagger tighter still, tight enough to cut and taste her own blood (if it were not magic holding it). “They are not lost. And we…” her gaze falls then to the cheetahs, clinging to one another the same way they did, familiar and strange. The only living things for miles. “We are not alone.”
Aster remains silent, watchful, a little slip of moonbeam against her father’s dappled shoulder. Her eyes drink in the sight of her uncle and his coat of stardust, her mother and her shining gold. And that little sliver of trembling air that opens to a sky that is not their sky, a world that is their world (as all worlds are, as Florentine has told her).
There is no sound of birds or insects, so sigh of sea or breath of wind, to disrupt the sounds of their family. And then the breeze of that other world rises, and tangles through her curls, and there are birds crying there (she has never before heard birds, Time has stolen the voices of the island) and how badly she wants to step through then! She curls her little carved cheetah more tightly against her breast until it is as warm as her skin; she watches her uncle the king step through, touches her muzzle to her father’s side as he follows. Aster remains as still as a hidden fawn as Lysander kisses Florentine and is gone through the doorway her mother has made.
And now that doorway shivers! The filly shivers too, her blood as alive as sparks, no fear but excitement. After a world of full-stillness, at last things are happening, and she is too young to see the worry and fear on her mother’s face. She presses her lips against her mother’s neck as she goes through that shrinking door -
and out the other side. There is Leonidas, and there is the waterfall (still frozen, bound tight by Time) and there is the grass and the forest and the glaring sun and the blue blue sky.
And nothing else.
Aster whirls now, her small ears pinning, just in time to see the cut sparking like a god weeping ichor and flame. When the dagger snaps she thinks it is the loudest thing she has ever heard, and she presses her side into her twin’s, still staring, until movement and sound draws her golden-eyed gaze down to their feet.
There, much like the foals that stand above them, are two cheetah cubs, the hair of their backs long and silver, freckled with spots the way the twins are with golden dapples. How strange, she thinks, and lowers her nose to the boy-cat, who stares back at her with dark eyes. When she whuffs at it gently it bats a paw at her nose and she withdraws with a snort, half-wary, half-delighted at this newest mystery.
But the motion of her brother draws her attention to him, and silently she receives the shard of dagger, examining it closely. It smells hot, like the magic of the island, strange and unnatural. She is examining it still, the cub mewling at her feet, until her twin begins to call out.
“Hush,” she says then, when his cries fail to rouse even a bird from the trees. Aster thinks that if there is anything left to hear them, it maybe ought not find them. When he tucks himself against her (the way they tuck against Mother, against Father) she runs her muzzle over his shoulder just as Florentine had soothed her days before. “Hush, Leonidas,” she says again, remembering what their mother had said. Wherever your brother is is home.
“Our blood is made to travel Time,” she echoes, though Aster does not know what the words mean. Yet she holds the piece of dagger tighter still, tight enough to cut and taste her own blood (if it were not magic holding it). “They are not lost. And we…” her gaze falls then to the cheetahs, clinging to one another the same way they did, familiar and strange. The only living things for miles. “We are not alone.”
