The way every once in a while,
it catches the light and starts smoking.
I turned and stood before the girls who knew the secrets of becoming and unbecoming.
They were so beautiful.
One of them reached forward to tap her horn against mine, light as a kiss. I felt seen. Although I did not think I was afraid, a chill ran across my spine as though my body sensed I should be. At my side Furfur was still and silent as stone, regarding them in his quiet way. Even in placidity, every part of him suggested not just the speed and ease of collapsing into violence, but the thrill of it. He was unconcerned.
“I couldn’t choose. We’re the same.” Not just me and my dead body- all of the visions. All of us, every version of me reflected in the smooth crystals. I recognized there was nothing between us but a string of choices, conscious or not, some so seemingly insignificant I wouldn’t think twice about them. Dead me, alive me. There was no better or worse... I was and would always be just a series of actions.
I didn’t like her horn pointed at my heart. It was so rude. I lowered my own to meet it, and I guided it aside- back to the mirror, or up to the sky. Anywhere but at me. The grooves of our horns entwined like cogs of a gear. It felt somehow like another invasion of privacy, and I drew back as soon as my point was made. The grating feel of her would linger for a long time, corkscrewing down my horn and into the center of my forehead.
“And you?” It was only fair, I reasoned, that if she asked the question, I could too. I knew full well that life did not operate on fairness, not in any sense of the word- but I did, or tried my best to. I think you had to define what you thought was right, and then you had to stand behind it. Or else you would be as directionless as the wind, eddied in all the cracks and hollows of the world.
(Also I dreamed of being full of righteous anger, all tooth and horn and brimstone, fierce as Isra-- but first, I thought, I needed to understand righteousness.)
My wolf was growing restless. All this death hanging low in the air, all this tiresome mortality. His eyes sharpened as he looked from one twin to another, coming to rest on the one that spoke “I would have given you dahlias and lavender.” He seemed to be slowly growing larger.
I wanted to step back and tell her that she didn’t know me, but maybe she did. I had met strangers that were easy to read as a book, their entire lives written in the lines of their face and the shifting depths of their eyes. Maybe I was that open, that simple. Most of the time I felt like a buffoon. And I did love lavender.
“Why?” I asked. I wanted to form my voice into a fist. To punch the words like a challenge. But plain-faced curiosity softened my edges, unrolled the curled fist into an open palm. What did it matter which flowers grew from my skeleton? In the end, it didn’t mean a thing at all.
The way it will cleave and grow
like antlers.
A S P A R A
@Isolt @Danaë <3
