Warset remembers what had lain in the center of the primordial darkness like a dark sun too furious to hold any color. She remembers the feel of it when her wings had brushed against it on the way to the battlefield. Each time she had wandered to close to the hot molten rage of it, both the absence of everything and the presence of everything, she had felt like a suggestion of a star instead of the soul of one.
It had felt a little like looking at a bloody unicorn who is both the absence and presence of everything. And Warset wonders if the unicorn can feel the echo of something primordial looking out through her eyes when silver and blood-red meet.
She wonders if she can feel it like Warset feels the heartbeats of a mortal, a star, and a predator all beating to different songs in her chest.
“If they are speaking it is not the language of stars,” her voice is a hum and the universe-corpse beneath her hooves trebles, “not anymore.” A feather falls from her wings as they dance as her side to remain balanced as more and more dead stars vibrate with the echo of her song (a song that they cannot recall with dead-wishes in their dead-bellies). Her eyes cast reflections against the mirror at the unicorn’s back and from it another harpsichord swings like a guillotine untethered. Warset does not let it hold her gaze long enough to see the head that has appeared beneath the blade.
She is broken enough already.
All the stars have settled and her hum has almost faded into silence by the time she lights up the tip of the unicorn’s horn with starlight. “What is it that you hear, unicorn?” And had she remembered the name of the thing that lived in the center of the primordial darkness like a sun-- had she remembered she would not have called the creature looking up a unicorn.
Another feather falls from her wings towards the unicorn as if her wings remember that dark primordial sun too, as if they miss it.
It had felt a little like looking at a bloody unicorn who is both the absence and presence of everything. And Warset wonders if the unicorn can feel the echo of something primordial looking out through her eyes when silver and blood-red meet.
She wonders if she can feel it like Warset feels the heartbeats of a mortal, a star, and a predator all beating to different songs in her chest.
“If they are speaking it is not the language of stars,” her voice is a hum and the universe-corpse beneath her hooves trebles, “not anymore.” A feather falls from her wings as they dance as her side to remain balanced as more and more dead stars vibrate with the echo of her song (a song that they cannot recall with dead-wishes in their dead-bellies). Her eyes cast reflections against the mirror at the unicorn’s back and from it another harpsichord swings like a guillotine untethered. Warset does not let it hold her gaze long enough to see the head that has appeared beneath the blade.
She is broken enough already.
All the stars have settled and her hum has almost faded into silence by the time she lights up the tip of the unicorn’s horn with starlight. “What is it that you hear, unicorn?” And had she remembered the name of the thing that lived in the center of the primordial darkness like a sun-- had she remembered she would not have called the creature looking up a unicorn.
Another feather falls from her wings towards the unicorn as if her wings remember that dark primordial sun too, as if they miss it.
It all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate pressing on relentlessly to some destined end.
