The other-unicorn in the mirror is still watching me. I tell myself it does not matter what she thinks, or says, or dreams; I tell myself it does not matter that she looks at me like she is ashamed to wear my skin. I tell myself it does not matter, but like a star carrying somebody else’s wish, I know it does.
If the dead-stars are telling her of all the wishes they once held, it is only to show her the way the burden of them cracked their spines and sent them crashing down here to this island.
Isolt thinks that if she were a star, she would have been too wild of one to be wished upon. She thinks she would have burned too fiercely for that, that even the mortals would not have dared try to chain her with their own hopes and dreams. She wonders how these stars could have been foolish enough to let it happen, so that all they felt when they crashed into the sea was the sorrow of a thousand wishes that would never come true.
She thinks they are more beautiful now, with all of them stripped away like flesh from a bone.
“No,” she sighs, “it is the language of the dead.” And she can hear them — she alone. Even the pegasus with her star-light eyes and a hundred constellations beneath her wings cannot hear the echoes of a thousand dead wishes caught like pearls between the ribs of the stars.
Always, she is alone with the dead.
If her sister were here she might have wondered what a star looks like held together with ivy and chrysanthemums. She might have leaned in and whispered for them to rise, and become, and to consume dreams instead of bear them.
But Danaë is not here. And so it is that Isolt steps forward and lays her cheek against the star-mirror, and wraps her tail around the bones of it scattered at their feet. “I hear screaming.” A feather that is blacker than the night falls and lays itself against her spine. “And crying.” There the feather grays, and droops, and becomes dust pooling against her heart. “And things reliving their death over, and over, and over again.” She does not try to save them from it, the same way she does not try to save the feather that dared touch her.
“Do you know what it feels like to die, pegasus?” she lifts her eyes back to the blackbird-pegasus perched atop the mirror, and again thinks it is better that she does not come down to find out.
Isolt thinks that if she were a star, she would have been too wild of one to be wished upon. She thinks she would have burned too fiercely for that, that even the mortals would not have dared try to chain her with their own hopes and dreams. She wonders how these stars could have been foolish enough to let it happen, so that all they felt when they crashed into the sea was the sorrow of a thousand wishes that would never come true.
She thinks they are more beautiful now, with all of them stripped away like flesh from a bone.
“No,” she sighs, “it is the language of the dead.” And she can hear them — she alone. Even the pegasus with her star-light eyes and a hundred constellations beneath her wings cannot hear the echoes of a thousand dead wishes caught like pearls between the ribs of the stars.
Always, she is alone with the dead.
If her sister were here she might have wondered what a star looks like held together with ivy and chrysanthemums. She might have leaned in and whispered for them to rise, and become, and to consume dreams instead of bear them.
But Danaë is not here. And so it is that Isolt steps forward and lays her cheek against the star-mirror, and wraps her tail around the bones of it scattered at their feet. “I hear screaming.” A feather that is blacker than the night falls and lays itself against her spine. “And crying.” There the feather grays, and droops, and becomes dust pooling against her heart. “And things reliving their death over, and over, and over again.” She does not try to save them from it, the same way she does not try to save the feather that dared touch her.
“Do you know what it feels like to die, pegasus?” she lifts her eyes back to the blackbird-pegasus perched atop the mirror, and again thinks it is better that she does not come down to find out.
