WHAT IF DEATH IS JUST ANOTHER
PAIR OF HANDCUFFS
PAIR OF HANDCUFFS
There is a moment—the briefest moment—where Sterling feels larger than himself. He is the quail, floating improbably high above the misty lake; he is the wind, filling the heavy wings of the quail. He is the sun, a distant, watery white eye, squinting down through its veil of fog at two horses, small and ordinary, standing in the shade of an ancient willow.
Then he is himself again, and he does not feel ordinary at all, not with the unicorn looking at him like the answer to a question he no longer remembers asking. He had thought she had looked at him before, but he understands now that that had been no more a look than a blade of grass was a savanna, or a drop of rain a raging sea. This time, when she turns her purple eyes to his, he feels a lurch like thunder in his chest. Everything about her is strange, and wild, and as foreign as the stars—and yet there is something about her that breathes familiar, something soft and tentative that whispers home.
Her nose trembles against his, her breath little more than a flutter of warmth. Sterling shivers. His own breath is slow, shallow, kept even only by an effort of will. When she speaks, he feels the promise in her words, the certainty—
—and the desperation, the air rushing out of a balloon, the unspoken plea. “If I knew how,” she says, and the words are a part of him, he is breathing them in; they are his own words, as surely as if he’d spoken them himself.
There is a sudden glint of brightness, a glare that he feels the urge to turn toward rather than look away. Sterling blinks, and her horn gleams into view, gnarled as the branch of an old tree, gilded by the sun that has slipped unexpectedly free of its murky cover. For a heartbeat he sees her, again, as something entirely apart from himself: a creature woven into the tapestry of earth and lake and sky, more alike to the quail and the willow than to one such as he.
Only then does he notice the grass, the way it blackens around her hooves, the way the blade of her tail slices absently through the rushes, a death as delicate as snowfall. He should feel afraid, Sterling thinks, but it is a distant thought. He thinks only that there is something lovely about it: the black lines etched through the green leaves, like veins spreading inside of lungs; the soft, downy patter of the marsh grass.
All this in the space of a breath—he has scarcely pulled away from her, an inch, maybe two, but all at once the distance seems unconscionable. Hesitantly, the air drawing in like a wish between his teeth and tongue, he rests his cheek against hers. I would not change you, he thinks, but it does not seem the right thing to say. “Perhaps it can be learned,” he offers instead. The willow traces its arcane patterns along his spine. “I’ve never tried before.”
There are so many things, suddenly, that he wants to ask her: Who were you, before? and What brought you here? He doesn’t know her, doesn’t know why he feels this unlikely kinship with her, but he is reluctant to let it go. Finally, his voice half-playful, half-entreating her to pretend with him that anything is possible, he asks: “Who do you want to become?”
Then he is himself again, and he does not feel ordinary at all, not with the unicorn looking at him like the answer to a question he no longer remembers asking. He had thought she had looked at him before, but he understands now that that had been no more a look than a blade of grass was a savanna, or a drop of rain a raging sea. This time, when she turns her purple eyes to his, he feels a lurch like thunder in his chest. Everything about her is strange, and wild, and as foreign as the stars—and yet there is something about her that breathes familiar, something soft and tentative that whispers home.
Her nose trembles against his, her breath little more than a flutter of warmth. Sterling shivers. His own breath is slow, shallow, kept even only by an effort of will. When she speaks, he feels the promise in her words, the certainty—
—and the desperation, the air rushing out of a balloon, the unspoken plea. “If I knew how,” she says, and the words are a part of him, he is breathing them in; they are his own words, as surely as if he’d spoken them himself.
There is a sudden glint of brightness, a glare that he feels the urge to turn toward rather than look away. Sterling blinks, and her horn gleams into view, gnarled as the branch of an old tree, gilded by the sun that has slipped unexpectedly free of its murky cover. For a heartbeat he sees her, again, as something entirely apart from himself: a creature woven into the tapestry of earth and lake and sky, more alike to the quail and the willow than to one such as he.
Only then does he notice the grass, the way it blackens around her hooves, the way the blade of her tail slices absently through the rushes, a death as delicate as snowfall. He should feel afraid, Sterling thinks, but it is a distant thought. He thinks only that there is something lovely about it: the black lines etched through the green leaves, like veins spreading inside of lungs; the soft, downy patter of the marsh grass.
All this in the space of a breath—he has scarcely pulled away from her, an inch, maybe two, but all at once the distance seems unconscionable. Hesitantly, the air drawing in like a wish between his teeth and tongue, he rests his cheek against hers. I would not change you, he thinks, but it does not seem the right thing to say. “Perhaps it can be learned,” he offers instead. The willow traces its arcane patterns along his spine. “I’ve never tried before.”
There are so many things, suddenly, that he wants to ask her: Who were you, before? and What brought you here? He doesn’t know her, doesn’t know why he feels this unlikely kinship with her, but he is reluctant to let it go. Finally, his voice half-playful, half-entreating her to pretend with him that anything is possible, he asks: “Who do you want to become?”
AND MAYBE GOD IS JUST A COP
THAT WE CAN FAST TALK
THAT WE CAN FAST TALK
@Thana
