I S O L T
My mother taught me to rend, to ruin, to consume. She taught me how to tear antlers from deer and to pull hearts from between ribs. She taught me to feast until the pain of hunger goes away. I learned it well.
Isolt watches the girl and the deer with her dead gaze. She watches them as a god watches mortals, not understanding the unspoken words that tremble on looks between them, not caring what they mean.
She cares only for the dead thing that twitches in the ground. That cries out for her. That is still running in its dreams, that is still remembering the taste of life and aching for it. Isolt has no heart for the living but for the fox — for the risen thing she will make of it — Isolt will move the world for him.
Starting with a girl and her deer, if she needs to.
Her horn swings precariously between the two, wondering which of them will be the first to fall upon it like a sword. She hopes it is the girl; she imagines her death will be sweeter than his.
But before she can decide, Maybird steps forward. She presses their shoulders together, tucks a wilted flower into her mane. And she whispers a warning that carries less weight than if it had been snarled, or screamed, or even tapped against her cheek with her bird’s beak.
Isolt laughs.
It is not a kind laugh.
“The dead outnumber the living, girl.” Her voice is a snarl, a warning, a promise. “And one day, we will be the rulers of this earth.” She has seen it in the daisy eyes of each of her creations, in their pollen-spore hearts that beat brighter and faster than the muscle one in this girl’s chest. She smiles with her feral smile as the girl leaves her, and oh, oh, oh! how she aches to be following after her, carving lines in the snow, trailing blood enough to create rivers of it.
But the fox cries weakly with its rooted jaw. So Isolt turns to it.
She brushes the nose from his fur with a gentleness she reserves only for the dead and for her dearest sister. And when she turns to leave, to return to her gardens, to her twin, to their magic that twists together —
the fox drags itself on broken, frozen legs after her.
@maybird !
did we just finish a thread?! that last reply is gorgeous and I am going to have to keep re-reading it.
"wilting // blooming"
