prayed to keep my soul
A
re you ready for your grave yet, Elliana? She would ask.Not yet, Elliana would say.
She watches the girl and the flower, the flower and the girl. Her mother told her a story once about a walk in the woods, and how it was scary, but at the end, she found the most beautiful of flowers, the one with the flame that she wears on such special occasions. She thinks of that flower now, in front of Isolt and imagines placing it in her hair, right behind her ear, and let the rest of her hair fall around it. In her mind, Isolt is beautiful, wolves in her belly and all. A girl born from hunger (shadows for light and light for its shadows) was bound to feel such aches in her bones, such desires.
Are you ready for your grave yet, Elliana? She would ask.
Not yet, Elliana would say.
Maybe, she should not be so enlivened to stand here staring death’s child in the face, her pitch fork of stem and petals so tauntingly close. Elli hardly seems to walk, when she moves across the ground she cartwheels, limbs flying around in a circle, hair loose, flowing and tumbling. There are no ghosts in the daylight, but that does not stop her from seeking out that which is dying and that which brings death. Isolt sees red, but Elliana sees blue. Or maybe it is just her own eyes, across that bridge she will one day cross staring back at her.
Are you ready for your grave yet, Elliana? She would ask.
Not yet, Elliana would say.
“Both are beautiful things,” she says, an agreement with the girl if for different reasons. And she is not a botfly when she comes close, but a butterfly, like her godmother before her. Because she is not so interested in the dead things, but what lives on after them. Elliana raises her head to view the horn that protrudes from the girl’s head. She wants to touch it, like her sister’s had pressed against her chest, but her blue, blue eyes are the only thing that rest themselves against it. “Yes, I love your flower,” she says because she is capable of separating the girl from the flower, wonders how long she will be capable of such things. Especially when cuts across the stem and offers it in such a fashion.
Are you ready for your grave yet, Elliana? She would ask.
Yes, Elliana would say.
“Yes,” Elliana says. “But only if you taste it with me.”
Yes, Elliana would say. But not alone.
@Isolt elliana speaks
elliana
—
« ♡ »
—
« ♡ »
