and I tremble and grow pale
for I am dying of such love
for I am dying of such love
Sweet girl she is! whose face opens at the presentation of flowers, though her teeth in their smile should perhaps not be so sharp. But O has never been scared when she shouldn’t be, and not even when she should, and she only smiles back sweetly to match the look on Anandi’s face. She doesn’t think of it as goofy. Only unreasonably beautiful.
Now her stomach curls and her whole chest burns, and it feels like her mother’s magic, bright and beautiful like swallowing the sun. It’s hot against the back of her teeth. The already-small space between them seems to tighten and narrow. “Oh,” she says, and bats her lashes just a little (who would’ve guessed?); “Oriental poppies. But I’ve heard people call them Wonderland flowers, too.”
Only in the old books. Only in the oil paintings, titled in a language that died out long ago. Only in the mouths of the oldest of old tribes, who live and die in those corners of the desert where they still call the sun ra and braid bones into their hair.
But O has spent enough time in Solterra to know all of that. Even if, in this iteration of her body, she hasn’t quite lived it.
Anandi suggests they go for a walk, and who is she to say no? Happily obedient, a hunting dog set upon ducks, O follows with a smile and her head held easy-high. The jungle holds its arms out to her. A lush, dark green that smells like rain and dirt and lovely magic. Even in the dead of night birds are singing from the treetops. She’s sure, even without seeing, that somewhere inside a flock of butterflies is waiting for their kiss.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs. “And people think it’s intolerable, but it isn’t, just the right amount of dangerous. There’s no fucking up, not in the desert; you’re smart or you die, like it should be. Sand to the edge of the world. Cacti, flowers, skeletons, ghosts. At night it’s like—it’s like being on the moon, everything gets so still and so, so silver. Like you’re on a planet no one else gets to know about.”
Without trepidation (but also without really thinking), O reaches out. She bumps her careful teeth against the so-close curve of Anandi’s hip, and smiles into her skin, and the touch of her lips grows sharper before it lets go completely.
“And the ocean?”
Now her stomach curls and her whole chest burns, and it feels like her mother’s magic, bright and beautiful like swallowing the sun. It’s hot against the back of her teeth. The already-small space between them seems to tighten and narrow. “Oh,” she says, and bats her lashes just a little (who would’ve guessed?); “Oriental poppies. But I’ve heard people call them Wonderland flowers, too.”
Only in the old books. Only in the oil paintings, titled in a language that died out long ago. Only in the mouths of the oldest of old tribes, who live and die in those corners of the desert where they still call the sun ra and braid bones into their hair.
But O has spent enough time in Solterra to know all of that. Even if, in this iteration of her body, she hasn’t quite lived it.
Anandi suggests they go for a walk, and who is she to say no? Happily obedient, a hunting dog set upon ducks, O follows with a smile and her head held easy-high. The jungle holds its arms out to her. A lush, dark green that smells like rain and dirt and lovely magic. Even in the dead of night birds are singing from the treetops. She’s sure, even without seeing, that somewhere inside a flock of butterflies is waiting for their kiss.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs. “And people think it’s intolerable, but it isn’t, just the right amount of dangerous. There’s no fucking up, not in the desert; you’re smart or you die, like it should be. Sand to the edge of the world. Cacti, flowers, skeletons, ghosts. At night it’s like—it’s like being on the moon, everything gets so still and so, so silver. Like you’re on a planet no one else gets to know about.”
Without trepidation (but also without really thinking), O reaches out. She bumps her careful teeth against the so-close curve of Anandi’s hip, and smiles into her skin, and the touch of her lips grows sharper before it lets go completely.
“And the ocean?”
