half of me for growth, the other for decay
I am looking for that sickness again. For the black sludge filling the flower-veins instead of water. For the specks of black crowning the edges of the petals. I am looking for something — anything — in the tulip fields that is imperfect. I am looking for the death that I know exists. And when I find it, it settles me in the way the colors, the life, the vibrancy never has.
I
solt watches her go. She is glad that she runs.If she had not run, she might have gotten caught in the circle of blackened flowers that grows, and grows, and grows. She might have been overtaken by the rage that she suddenly cannot contain. The risen field mice that suddenly snarl like wolves and drag their broken bodies from the soil might have torn into her yet-unbroken skin, might have scarred her.
And she, the unicorn of death and dead things, is glad that this one thing has escaped her.
Her field mice come to her, turn their teeth against her own fetlocks. They gnaw at her coronets. They scratch their way up her legs.
And she lets them. For each nip of her own flesh is one less at Elliana’s. For each one that turns on her there is one less to chase after the girl. Her magic is a feral, hungry thing — it does not care who it consumes, only that there is something to fill the belly of it. She has always known it would consume her one day; to allow it to do so today is no different than to allow it tomorrow, or the next day, or a year from now.
So she watches Elliana run, and run, and run until she is out of sight. And only then does Isolt turn back to the tulips. Only then does every swing of her tail become the killing blow for another flower. Only then does she see the beauty of the rows that were once planted here, if only for the joy of destroying it.
Every lopped-off head of the tulips trails along in her wake, like a small army of death marching after her. Later she will give them to her sister, but for now Isolt is only looking for something to feed to her young army, to satisfy the hunger rearing tall and ugly in her belly.
