The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
—
Everything is fa l l i n g
a
p
a
r
t.
It is a blessing that Aster knows nothing of the way the world is supposed to work, that she was born beneath a sun hung in the sky as still as though stuck on the end of a pin. If she had any idea of normal, that horses did not cut time with silver knives and vanish, that snakes should not shake themselves out of sand and bears should not wear butterflies for eyes, she might go mad.
Around them the island is sloughing itself like a snake sheds its scales. Black pits open up (where do they go? To the water, or below that?) and the sky is filled with a terrible roaring as bits of blue burst open like overripe fruit. It is too much to focus on, and so the filly of bone-white and gold ignores it (except when she must keep to her feet, when the ground lurches beneath her like the back of a whale) and focuses only on the snake, and her brother, and
the relic.
It shines like the sun, like dying leaves flaring gold, like nothing she’s ever imagined. It shines like the light of other worlds when the seams between them were pricked open by her mother’s dagger. Even when she blinks it is golden-red through her eyelids, and it pulls and pulls her, and oh! How Aster wants it.
But there is the snake. And there is her twin.
She wonders if the beast and its teeth of sand will crumble against her skin if it catches her, or pierce through and through. It is too loud and chaotic to think; she leans against Leonidas and whispers I will go first, and go left. When its eyes are on me, take it.
If she can’t have it, she wants Leo to. (And then they will share it, as they share all things).
Smoke and fog is coming down. It’s harder to see the snake (harder for the snake to see them?) and Aster trembles like a falcon poised for its first flight, eager and afraid, her heart shuddering in its little cage.
There is no more time.
Aster runs.
weeeee
a
p
a
r
t.
It is a blessing that Aster knows nothing of the way the world is supposed to work, that she was born beneath a sun hung in the sky as still as though stuck on the end of a pin. If she had any idea of normal, that horses did not cut time with silver knives and vanish, that snakes should not shake themselves out of sand and bears should not wear butterflies for eyes, she might go mad.
Around them the island is sloughing itself like a snake sheds its scales. Black pits open up (where do they go? To the water, or below that?) and the sky is filled with a terrible roaring as bits of blue burst open like overripe fruit. It is too much to focus on, and so the filly of bone-white and gold ignores it (except when she must keep to her feet, when the ground lurches beneath her like the back of a whale) and focuses only on the snake, and her brother, and
the relic.
It shines like the sun, like dying leaves flaring gold, like nothing she’s ever imagined. It shines like the light of other worlds when the seams between them were pricked open by her mother’s dagger. Even when she blinks it is golden-red through her eyelids, and it pulls and pulls her, and oh! How Aster wants it.
But there is the snake. And there is her twin.
She wonders if the beast and its teeth of sand will crumble against her skin if it catches her, or pierce through and through. It is too loud and chaotic to think; she leans against Leonidas and whispers I will go first, and go left. When its eyes are on me, take it.
If she can’t have it, she wants Leo to. (And then they will share it, as they share all things).
Smoke and fog is coming down. It’s harder to see the snake (harder for the snake to see them?) and Aster trembles like a falcon poised for its first flight, eager and afraid, her heart shuddering in its little cage.
There is no more time.
Aster runs.
weeeee
