The way every once in a while,
it catches the light and starts smoking.
I could not stay away from the island. And I didn’t want to, not even after last time. It captivated me, as all wild things did. So when the seasons changed and the snow began to fall and whispers began to spread like wildfire through the court, I knew it was time to return. I had to see the landscape of stars-turned-glass for myself, and seek whatever answers (or what mysteries) might be found in the island’s new form.
We turned West, my wolf and I, and we began to walk through the slowly-falling snow.
My first thought upon seeing the island reborn was that it was beautiful. But it was always beautiful, in some way or another. That day it was beautiful in a way that suggested dark secrets hidden just beneath the soil. Some wickedness or sacrifice, some terrible price paid for the pristine beauty of all that wondrous glass.
I became uncomfortable when I walked deeper into the island’s embrace and was met with visions of myself. I didn’t much like my reflection-- I could never match the girl in the mirror with myself, and I hated that she is what everyone else saw. In short, I did not identify with my reflection, and so it was deeply unnerving to look at myself.
The reflections on the island were easier to handle because they weren’t all me. I mean, it was my reflection but… always a little older, always a little different. Some versions of me were crying, some were laughing. Some just stared, dead-eyed, lost in a sorrow so deep they were no longer present. In some I held a bow, others an axe or a paintbrush or herbs. Sometimes I was a dancer, draped in sheer white silk, diamonds woven in my long mane. Furfur was always present in some form another, and as I started to suspect the reflections were all different branches from the tree that was my life, I took great comfort in his presence, dark-eyed and wary and the only constant in a sea of change.
I stepped forward, the ocean-weathered glass under my feet protesting with a crunch, and somehow I found myself before a massive mirror. My reflection in it was familiar. It was just me, as I was in that moment, surrounded by a hundred different versions of myself. Suddenly a girl stepped forward in the glass. Red as blood, white as bone.
As I looked upon the glass my face grew older. At first it was exhilarating to see my foal-softness melt into something harder, fiercer. My cheekbones grew sharp as knives and my eyes deep and knowing as rivers. Even my horn grew longer in slow spirals, a corkscrew digging ever deeper into the sky. Then my edges began to soften once more. Wrinkles creased around my eyes, my back began to bow with the weight of years, and the color slowly faded from my mane.
All this time the girl in the mirror watched me unchanging. As my gaze met her in the glass she tilted her head, and at the same time there was a subtle movement of red in my periphery. Behind me. I processed this all with a speed that seemed like honey dripping (in reality it must have only a second or two) then whirled around with a startled shriek, head lowered to point my twisted horn to hers. A unicorn’s greeting.
A unicorn’s warning.
I relaxed slightly a moment later, seeing she was not about to attack. “Gods, you startled me.” I shook my head with a laugh, feeling foolish. I once would have used the word scared, but I didn’t feel fear much anymore. Still I was still on edge, defensive. “Did you… see?” I gestured at the mirror, where my body was now slumped on the ground, wheatgrass and sunflowers sprouting through my ribcage. It was... personal.
I hoped she hadn't seen.
The way it will cleave and grow
like antlers.
A S P A R A
@Isolt (@Danaë welcome too! totally up to nes/sid <3 I didn't write her in but you can just have her pop up at spook aspara)
