the sun shines low and red across the water,
There is nothing more than the howl of the wind and the growl of the sea for so long that Avesta starts to count her heartbeats by the violence of the storm. Her body feels hollow each time the sea crashes against her bones, like her skin is just waiting for the brine to replace all the hot-blood of it. Another wave-star races across the horizon and she walks belly deep into the water before her realizes that she was moving towards that comet of white.
Take me with you, her heart is sobbing at the waves and she feels as empty as a cave when that star fades into the black.
She startles when the flower presses against her, cheek to cheek, shoulder to shoulder (wanting to wanting). It seems like another natural thing for them to be, tangled together like two lost stars instead of the roots her and her twin tangle like. Although she has never felt like a half a thing waiting for something else to make her whole. Avesta has always felt like the full moon waiting for her constellations to tell her stories long after the sun has risen to knock them below the belly of the earth.
For a moment she wants to ask who the girl's mother is, or what colors the flowers are, or a hundred other questions that rise up in her throat like lava when she turns away from the sea. Instead she only learns against the girl like the waves are leaning against her (waiting, waiting, waiting). “You could be. We could be anything.” When she blinks she's thinking about that star racing the horizon and her hungry wolf waiting on the cliff. Could girls raised by dragons and magic and wolves ever be just mortals?
Her blood tells her, over and over again, no.
“Aster”, she echoes the name as another roar of thunder and sea scream out. It sounds like AS-TER, like magic and and wild things that have decided to name themselves. Somewhere, in the bit of her not filled with the storm and the brine and Aster, her memories are trying to tell her something. Like that name is a part of something else, something missing, something like the sea.
But she's young, and a unicorn, and by the time Aster asks her question she has already forgotten what it is her memory wants her to remember. “No.” The word sounds like a lie on her tongue and she wonders if the girl can hear her heart screaming ownership beneath its cage of skin and bone. “I live in Denocte.” Avesta wants to tell her that she lives in the castle in a room with ruby walls and paintings that never sleep no matter what hour the day is. She wants to tell her that she lives in the city just up the cliff where the bonfires blaze until the blood turns to jasmine.
She inhales all the electricity of the storm and quivers when a wave not far out rises into a dragon larger than their heads. Soon it will be time to go--
Soon, but not yet.
“Do you live there too?” Aster looks like she should live in the gardens where ivy looks like lace and cooper grass feels sharp and sweet when she naps in it. She looks like the castle, all bone-white and golden and slick with shine-- like wonder, like dreaming.
And yet, Avesta isn't sure what answer it is she's waiting for when she finally looks away from the sea.
@Aster
