& wait for something to root
to rot or blossom
or die without sunlight
to rot or blossom
or die without sunlight
I do not think I recognize her. But I think — I think I wish I did.
Isolt knows that she is a monster.
She can see the truth of it reflected in the eyes of every horse she meets, the way they see her not as a person, but as a thing that is other, a thing to be feared. She can see it in the way the streets clear when she walks down it side-by-side with her sister, their ribcages locked together like a secret between them. And when the forest falls silent around her, all the rabbits and squirrels and woodland birds hiding in their dens and nests from the wolf that waits at their door.
She can see it now, as she looks down into the waters of the lake and sees not herself, but someone that is other.
Unicorns should not want to become something else, she knows, she knows — but still when she looks down at the reflection that does not feel like her own, she feels the bits of root and weeds wrapped around her heart tremble like caterpillars waiting to transform. And she thinks of her sister, with her wisteria lungs and poppy heart, and the sorrow she has seen reflected in her eyes. She had wondered once how she couldn’t turn her sorrow to daggers the way Isolt has turned her pain to a wrath by which to consume the world with.
But now, she thinks she understands. Now she can feel that nameless wrath slipping out of place to show the scars that still lay beneath it.
Around her the pond grass and river reeds are curling, their flowers collapsing into a fine dust that spins in circles across the water. Isolt watches them bend down into the water, bowing their heads against the surface like they, too, were surprised by their reflection.
She wonders if they, too, want to become.
Unicorns should not be waiting for metamorphosis. But as she leans closer to the water she holds her breath anyway.
Isolt dips the tip of her horn against the glassy surface of the water and draws lines through her reflection. She stirs the bits of pollen and rotting leaves into the waves to watch them sink.
And when she sits back and waits for the ripples to settle, as rivulets of water spiraling down the curls of her horn and drip down her brow, she hopes a new reflection will form.
@e-cho for whoever!
Isolt.
