It said only one thing, over and over, a repetition of inescapable anguish
Danaë has never quite understood the sound of the wolves in her heart or the bay of the wendigos rotting in a pit of corpses that echoes in the black behind her eyes. She has never understood hunger, and wanting, as deeply as her sister can (and mother more than that). But, when his voice echoes back in the almost-silence that had been filled only with the butterfly heartbeat of the too-alive organ in his chest, she understands.
And maybe this is the nature of unicorns, to want something outside the thick fronds of the forest reflecting in the feral shine of their eyes. Maybe it’s not hunger that they feel but a wanting so deep, and so dark, that they must eat a universe to fill it.
Had she any thoughts, but that baying of a wendigo, they would have been thoughts of sorrow and suffering for the wanting of his heart. At her back her tail tap, tap, taps a warning into the stone that cares nothing for the spiders and the butterflies She’ll never escape the darkness, she realizes, but she can love it anyway (when she sees it in the pooling spiders catching flies upon his antlers). When he pulls away she does not follow because she knows that she’ll never stop following if she takes that first step so soon.
Her heart, her hunger, that unicorn thing in her belly, tells her to cleave the wall out around him until there is nothing left but stones and vines holding together his bones. And she wants to listen, she wants to close the distance he takes by way of horn, and tooth, and blade.
She wants to be Isolt, who does not listen but takes.
Isolt, who might say like a war what she says like a sighing sonnet, “Your death and nothing else.” Isolt who would not have a look in her eye that says, and I would love you then. Isolt who would follow the boy just to water the mold with his magic and feed the spiders with the flies that would follow quickly on the heels of his death.
But Danaë cannot be her sister no matter the fervor in which she begs her heart to become it.
So she only watches the wall close around him. She only listens only to the lub-dub of his butterflies and his heart.
She listens so intently that by the time the wall has closed and he is gone that her tongue has already taught itself, by way of song, the sugar in his thick-forest blood.
And maybe this is the nature of unicorns, to want something outside the thick fronds of the forest reflecting in the feral shine of their eyes. Maybe it’s not hunger that they feel but a wanting so deep, and so dark, that they must eat a universe to fill it.
Had she any thoughts, but that baying of a wendigo, they would have been thoughts of sorrow and suffering for the wanting of his heart. At her back her tail tap, tap, taps a warning into the stone that cares nothing for the spiders and the butterflies She’ll never escape the darkness, she realizes, but she can love it anyway (when she sees it in the pooling spiders catching flies upon his antlers). When he pulls away she does not follow because she knows that she’ll never stop following if she takes that first step so soon.
Her heart, her hunger, that unicorn thing in her belly, tells her to cleave the wall out around him until there is nothing left but stones and vines holding together his bones. And she wants to listen, she wants to close the distance he takes by way of horn, and tooth, and blade.
She wants to be Isolt, who does not listen but takes.
Isolt, who might say like a war what she says like a sighing sonnet, “Your death and nothing else.” Isolt who would not have a look in her eye that says, and I would love you then. Isolt who would follow the boy just to water the mold with his magic and feed the spiders with the flies that would follow quickly on the heels of his death.
But Danaë cannot be her sister no matter the fervor in which she begs her heart to become it.
So she only watches the wall close around him. She only listens only to the lub-dub of his butterflies and his heart.
She listens so intently that by the time the wall has closed and he is gone that her tongue has already taught itself, by way of song, the sugar in his thick-forest blood.
