She is consumed—every fine, level line of her cloaked in a shifting, blinking brightness. Star-like; earth-bound, she pirouettes, and despite herself—despite the sweet, fermented tang across the breadth of her tongue—each whirl become more fluid. More elegant. More and less controlled at once until she has mastered the undoing of herself. Taken command of that which rebukes any sort of direction. Free. Free—something she has not felt that in some time. Free, all while darkness dogs and desires and seems intent upon feasting not on the margins, but on the heart.
Tonight is not made for such things.
For worry, and the way it creeps as finger across the throat.
For memory, and how it grows like weeds in the darker places.
For omens, and how they splay across the whorl of the sky above her, indelible as tattoos and unknowable except that she knows she has seen their make and measure before.
Not for blood, or monsters; or worlds left bone-white, colourless—as if each mountaintop and dell, each inlet and copse of birch, were rendered ghost-made. Soul-things, devoid of life, but existent in skins and bones of ash and ichor and anamnesis.
She twirls faster.
Ducks and throws her delicate head.
Hums until only that and the lute-strings and the soft singing somewhere below exists, painting with colours previously unknown to her on canvases of black. Illuminations of her girlhood. Of her and Kyrr. Of her father, slipping a sharped hunting knife across the belly of a deer, spilling from the surgical opening a galaxy of pink, orange and violet. Of the northern lights, moving like blades or souls across the sky. Of Nordlys as it was. Of Edana as it was. Of everything as it is not anymore, until she is heaving and damp in the nooks with sweat and she comes to a still for a moment—huffing and humming quietly—a string of fireflies loosing from her ornamentation and casting off to another merrymaker.
Her swimming eyes find him, beautiful and crowned in flowers of blooming light and in strings of noctiluca, as she is, for they find home on his unremembering, too. She smiles, steadies herself against the dizziness. She finds within herself the yearning, heavy feeling of loneliness and quells it; promises it free reign when the night is over. But for its sake, she laughs lightly and takes a step towards him, bowing her head with some flourish. “Why, of course,” and it doesn’t matter that she does not know him, or that there is such unspoken darkness wreathing their illuminated bight of river, only that they both desire the unravelling tonight has offered.
A rare gift. “I’m Stella…”
Her bright, blue eyes blink with a sort of childlike mischief that is no longer characteristic, and she tosses her long, wild hair—scattering some bugs into the night before they race to alight upon the slipping braids—before she tilts her head to the side and winks, “let’s go!” Almost, so very almost, brushing him as she passes, she rushes off, bucking and striking out, an errant ember; indulging in the delciousness of running from something.
Tonight is not made for such things.
For worry, and the way it creeps as finger across the throat.
For memory, and how it grows like weeds in the darker places.
For omens, and how they splay across the whorl of the sky above her, indelible as tattoos and unknowable except that she knows she has seen their make and measure before.
Not for blood, or monsters; or worlds left bone-white, colourless—as if each mountaintop and dell, each inlet and copse of birch, were rendered ghost-made. Soul-things, devoid of life, but existent in skins and bones of ash and ichor and anamnesis.
She twirls faster.
Ducks and throws her delicate head.
Hums until only that and the lute-strings and the soft singing somewhere below exists, painting with colours previously unknown to her on canvases of black. Illuminations of her girlhood. Of her and Kyrr. Of her father, slipping a sharped hunting knife across the belly of a deer, spilling from the surgical opening a galaxy of pink, orange and violet. Of the northern lights, moving like blades or souls across the sky. Of Nordlys as it was. Of Edana as it was. Of everything as it is not anymore, until she is heaving and damp in the nooks with sweat and she comes to a still for a moment—huffing and humming quietly—a string of fireflies loosing from her ornamentation and casting off to another merrymaker.
Her swimming eyes find him, beautiful and crowned in flowers of blooming light and in strings of noctiluca, as she is, for they find home on his unremembering, too. She smiles, steadies herself against the dizziness. She finds within herself the yearning, heavy feeling of loneliness and quells it; promises it free reign when the night is over. But for its sake, she laughs lightly and takes a step towards him, bowing her head with some flourish. “Why, of course,” and it doesn’t matter that she does not know him, or that there is such unspoken darkness wreathing their illuminated bight of river, only that they both desire the unravelling tonight has offered.
A rare gift. “I’m Stella…”
Her bright, blue eyes blink with a sort of childlike mischief that is no longer characteristic, and she tosses her long, wild hair—scattering some bugs into the night before they race to alight upon the slipping braids—before she tilts her head to the side and winks, “let’s go!” Almost, so very almost, brushing him as she passes, she rushes off, bucking and striking out, an errant ember; indulging in the delciousness of running from something.
@Ipomoea
☽
