01-15-2017, 01:13 AM
(Somewhere, in a land of shadows, far-far-away, there lived a wolf – a golden monster – and day and night he searched high and low for indigo.
He searched first for the queen. But she was very good at hiding herself.
He was beside himself, until one day, he found the princess...)
***
She leaps, and when she does, her wings make a soft woooosh that she finds rather pleasant.
She twirls and they crack and spit sparks into the cold, night air – like tiny, hot stars of her own.
They vanish, though, just as quickly as they are let loose.
The winter air chokes them out, limiting their lifecycle to a a few seconds or so – but a blink of an eye to the venerable celestials above. That is fine. She flaps her wings again, forcing heated air around her slim, smooth body, and they belch out a hundred more, flitting up towards the treetops, ringed in moonlight.
She smiles, watching her own galaxy dance, orange and hot, far, far beneath the cold, dead one that hangs far, far above. She imagines it must be jealous, that solar system, for she has seen that space up close. She has bared witness to the sad, bloated corpse of the moon; the mean, distant savagery of the sun. It had been a dream, of course, though it had felt so real – that clenching, squeezing, choking vacuum; that place without air and gravity, made of such utter nothing and darkness.
The way the stars spelled out death, in no uncertain terms, because that imagined place was not for her but Giver, and had been so terribly hostile…
But in the following hours, that dream had taken root. Grew. Burned and feasted and then quelled, becoming her own mythos. Alight is, after all, gullible – so easily fooled by fairytales. And what a tale to tell! Of a thousand tragic deaths; a bare-bone maiden, losing her jaw to the sea; a prince and his pretender, that black-bonneted tramp; the true princess, forsaken; a room made of stone, for him and her, towering far above a pine tree ocean…
Fire, bursting forth from a fissure of aberrant thought. A punishment.
A flower-haired being. Her saviour.
A voltaic magician. Her hope, restored!
***
She laughs bright, high, joyous laughs! Like those she used to make when she was but a girl and he was still her man. She dances! Leaps! Twirls! Runs! Hurtling into darkness, leaving tracks of meltwater and charred bark in her wake. Darkness and much more surrounds her, in these places of parables and bedtime stories – places of beauty, like the shore opposite Tephra, where she had come first to stare across at that friendless island. It had not, in the manic frenzy of her mind, felt like the last time. But it felt powerful – like looking across at it burning alive, with everyone she ever loved still tucked inside.
She turned and ran.
***
She slows, giggling and breathing hard. Through the tall, slim birch trees, moonlight drapes like a soft haze, and between their bodies, fog hangs thin and wispy. It reminds her, faintly, of home, before home had been consumed and spat out in a hundred tiny pieces, and turned into a hot, black island. She pulls her wings safely to her sides, hugging herself in their warmth. There is, she finds, a comfort in the deafening silence of this place. It is, to be sure, a stark contrast to the fervent celebration she had sought doggedly since leaving the magician in the meadow.
It is, she thinks, serene.
She is, in fact, a silly girl.
***
(Wherever the princess went, he went, too. The wolf, however, was devilishly sneaky, and the princess never suspected a thing! He watched her with a keen eye. He learned the way she spoke and the way she danced! twirled! ran!
He was, of course, hungry.)
***
Alight hums.
It fills the trees with such joy.
It is a song, perhaps, that she learned from mother, many years ago. Or one of her sisters. Maybe a tune of her own device, but she thinks it is beautiful, and besides, there is such a thing as too quiet. The serenity is slowly mutating. It is clenching – squeezing – her gut, ever so slightly. It is… hardening, like the pit of a peach. She smiles, shaking her pretty, slender head, and hums on.
She thinks – though she tries not to – that she is being watched. A common enough feeling, of course, in such a place and at such a late hour.
That pit grows. Heavy, now, as a one of the smooth, shiny stones she used to dig up from the Meadow’s river bed. She smiles no more and those soft, brown eyes peek nervously around, through the haze and the fog. But whatever is watching her, it seems, is devilishly sneaky. “H… hello?” she means to call out boldly. It is a whisper, instead. From her lips, there is no more music, and in her gut the muscles there are screaming. She shakes, shivers now, for it seems her wings can no longer make up for the ice that forms inside her veins.
She runs. Hard and graceless through the deep, sticky snow.
She glances behind and to the sides frantically.
The pit is no longer a pit but an abyss. Tears whip back from her eyes, running behind her ears and freezing in the tangle of indigo hair. She wants to scream, but everything that moves to join the night tangles up in the back of her throat. She has known fear, in the moment she found herself separated and alone on the top of a mountain range; the moment she looked death (spelled out in stars) in the eye and knew there was no other way. But this is something different. It is raw. An awaking of something most base and animal in her brain.
Terror.
She glances behind her, but she can see nothing. She could try to listen for her pursuer, but the pounding of her heart mixed so loudly with the forceful way she charged through the crust of the snow, it would be of no use at all. She moves to look ahead of her, constantly vigilant of a path to shake herself free and clear, but the birchwood is endless and vast. More so than she remembers.
In the corner of her eye, as she turns forward, something solid appears (as if from thin air), in her way. She tries to stop, stiffening her front legs and sliding much father than she might have hoped. She collides with it, hard yet warm. Not something, but somebody (or something, but with a heartbeat, in any case). She reels back, finally letting loose a panicky, shrill scream. She twists around, barely managing to keep to her feet, to run back in the direction she came.
She slams into something solid, yet warm, again.
The second impact freezes her – that harrowing moment when the lizard brain ceases to see a way out. (In no uncertain terms…) Alight gulps, her chest heaving. Slowly, miraculously, her eyes focus on the mass in front of her.
***
“Are you alright?”
His voice is like gravel and dust, further manced by the horrid, dry air of his kingdom come. He looks down at her with furrowed brow, wearing a crown of mighty, curved horns, ringed in moonlight. She is, compared to him, a tiny thing. Like a baby bird. (A fragile thing.) He watches her with flat, black eyes, though she thinks she can see some concern in them. (Hope it a funny thing. So is desperation.
Fear isn’t funny.
But it is useful.)
He runs his tongue over his cracked lips.
“N-n-n… I-I was… am… s-someone was f-following m-me,” tears well in the corner of her eyes. He tilts his head, like a bird might, and smiles… softly.
“Was there?” The man does not take his eyes off her, “are you sure?”
She shivers, nodding. “I… I’m sure t-there was…” slowly, the pit is closing, like a set of teeth coming together. “I, swear…” – the river stones always had a way of feeling lighter when still submerged in the water – “...I felt it.”
He makes a low hmmm sound in his throat and inclines his wide, crude head, “this is not a safe place.. Surely your mother must have told you that?” he clucks his tongue, disapprovingly… gently, tsk-tsk. “In any case, nothing to worry about now.”
She had of course, her mother. It would be unfair of Alight to say otherwise. (Of course she had. Giver had always taken to mother’s warnings better.) She flushes under her bright, golden skin, the fear leaching from her mind, as if being taken from her by this man, graciously, “...stupid of me,” she whispers coyly, looking up rather more boldly now, to get a good look at him.
Alight is, of course, a gullible girl.
(Oh, the things she has believed! Does believe…)
—but reality is a funny thing, it has a violent streak. And as she searches his strange, lovely face, she finds she cannot deny the similarity...
(So much like my Giver…)
***
(One day, the princess led the wolf to the queen, in their kingdom of Pine! And he was so very excited to see her again.
But before the wolf could tell her the good news, that he had found her lovely daughter, the black king came and chased him away.
But the wolf was ever so patient. The wolf could wait them all out.)
***
The golden stallion watches as her brows furrow, a curious look crossing her bright, brown eyes.
He draws his tongue over his lips.
He remembers the first time he ever saw her. She had been… dancing, with the boy, through his forest. She spoke quickly and ceaselessly. Sung and hummed. She played princess and the huntsman with the boy.
Had her mother not warned her? Her mother, it would seem, lacked in vigilance. (He had a knack for fucking the irresponsible ones.)
But was that really a revelation, after all? It takes a special kind of carelessness to approach him for a second time. She had. And she had paid – made him pay, too. Though, he’d dare say the price he exacted had been a fair bit steeper. (He can feel, as if they have their own minds and heartbeats, the three knots of gray-pink scar tissue on the underside of the jaw. Three, because the fourth had failed to strike true.
He treats them like a talisman.)
A fair steeper price, at least in the physical sense. Not that it had mattered a wink. Because here she is, a miracle, from a ruined body.
Beautiful. “You have such pretty hair. What is your name?”
***
“Who are you?” she takes a step closer, bringing her wings around in a halfmoon towards him, shedding brighter light than just the moon. “Alight,” she adds, kindly. (And he smiles just a tiny bit wider.) She can see, now, the hideous wing that hangs limp at his side (she would shudder, but it would be horribly unladylike); she can see the grooves in those great horns and the strange way his toes are split. In the darkness of his eyes she can see, past the glaze of her own fire that dances there on the surface, that they are brown. Not black, though almost. She can see the way he is shaped so much like Giver… so much.
She can see, best of all, the smooth, bright gold of his skin.
***
“Who do you think I am?” he looks down on her, that fragile little thing, “I am a king,” he says, with a wry, crooked smile that she does not see properly, “and you are a princess. I can tell.”
He searched first for the queen. But she was very good at hiding herself.
He was beside himself, until one day, he found the princess...)
***
She leaps, and when she does, her wings make a soft woooosh that she finds rather pleasant.
She twirls and they crack and spit sparks into the cold, night air – like tiny, hot stars of her own.
They vanish, though, just as quickly as they are let loose.
The winter air chokes them out, limiting their lifecycle to a a few seconds or so – but a blink of an eye to the venerable celestials above. That is fine. She flaps her wings again, forcing heated air around her slim, smooth body, and they belch out a hundred more, flitting up towards the treetops, ringed in moonlight.
She smiles, watching her own galaxy dance, orange and hot, far, far beneath the cold, dead one that hangs far, far above. She imagines it must be jealous, that solar system, for she has seen that space up close. She has bared witness to the sad, bloated corpse of the moon; the mean, distant savagery of the sun. It had been a dream, of course, though it had felt so real – that clenching, squeezing, choking vacuum; that place without air and gravity, made of such utter nothing and darkness.
The way the stars spelled out death, in no uncertain terms, because that imagined place was not for her but Giver, and had been so terribly hostile…
But in the following hours, that dream had taken root. Grew. Burned and feasted and then quelled, becoming her own mythos. Alight is, after all, gullible – so easily fooled by fairytales. And what a tale to tell! Of a thousand tragic deaths; a bare-bone maiden, losing her jaw to the sea; a prince and his pretender, that black-bonneted tramp; the true princess, forsaken; a room made of stone, for him and her, towering far above a pine tree ocean…
Fire, bursting forth from a fissure of aberrant thought. A punishment.
A flower-haired being. Her saviour.
A voltaic magician. Her hope, restored!
***
She laughs bright, high, joyous laughs! Like those she used to make when she was but a girl and he was still her man. She dances! Leaps! Twirls! Runs! Hurtling into darkness, leaving tracks of meltwater and charred bark in her wake. Darkness and much more surrounds her, in these places of parables and bedtime stories – places of beauty, like the shore opposite Tephra, where she had come first to stare across at that friendless island. It had not, in the manic frenzy of her mind, felt like the last time. But it felt powerful – like looking across at it burning alive, with everyone she ever loved still tucked inside.
She turned and ran.
***
She slows, giggling and breathing hard. Through the tall, slim birch trees, moonlight drapes like a soft haze, and between their bodies, fog hangs thin and wispy. It reminds her, faintly, of home, before home had been consumed and spat out in a hundred tiny pieces, and turned into a hot, black island. She pulls her wings safely to her sides, hugging herself in their warmth. There is, she finds, a comfort in the deafening silence of this place. It is, to be sure, a stark contrast to the fervent celebration she had sought doggedly since leaving the magician in the meadow.
It is, she thinks, serene.
She is, in fact, a silly girl.
***
(Wherever the princess went, he went, too. The wolf, however, was devilishly sneaky, and the princess never suspected a thing! He watched her with a keen eye. He learned the way she spoke and the way she danced! twirled! ran!
He was, of course, hungry.)
***
Alight hums.
It fills the trees with such joy.
It is a song, perhaps, that she learned from mother, many years ago. Or one of her sisters. Maybe a tune of her own device, but she thinks it is beautiful, and besides, there is such a thing as too quiet. The serenity is slowly mutating. It is clenching – squeezing – her gut, ever so slightly. It is… hardening, like the pit of a peach. She smiles, shaking her pretty, slender head, and hums on.
She thinks – though she tries not to – that she is being watched. A common enough feeling, of course, in such a place and at such a late hour.
That pit grows. Heavy, now, as a one of the smooth, shiny stones she used to dig up from the Meadow’s river bed. She smiles no more and those soft, brown eyes peek nervously around, through the haze and the fog. But whatever is watching her, it seems, is devilishly sneaky. “H… hello?” she means to call out boldly. It is a whisper, instead. From her lips, there is no more music, and in her gut the muscles there are screaming. She shakes, shivers now, for it seems her wings can no longer make up for the ice that forms inside her veins.
She runs. Hard and graceless through the deep, sticky snow.
She glances behind and to the sides frantically.
The pit is no longer a pit but an abyss. Tears whip back from her eyes, running behind her ears and freezing in the tangle of indigo hair. She wants to scream, but everything that moves to join the night tangles up in the back of her throat. She has known fear, in the moment she found herself separated and alone on the top of a mountain range; the moment she looked death (spelled out in stars) in the eye and knew there was no other way. But this is something different. It is raw. An awaking of something most base and animal in her brain.
Terror.
She glances behind her, but she can see nothing. She could try to listen for her pursuer, but the pounding of her heart mixed so loudly with the forceful way she charged through the crust of the snow, it would be of no use at all. She moves to look ahead of her, constantly vigilant of a path to shake herself free and clear, but the birchwood is endless and vast. More so than she remembers.
In the corner of her eye, as she turns forward, something solid appears (as if from thin air), in her way. She tries to stop, stiffening her front legs and sliding much father than she might have hoped. She collides with it, hard yet warm. Not something, but somebody (or something, but with a heartbeat, in any case). She reels back, finally letting loose a panicky, shrill scream. She twists around, barely managing to keep to her feet, to run back in the direction she came.
She slams into something solid, yet warm, again.
The second impact freezes her – that harrowing moment when the lizard brain ceases to see a way out. (In no uncertain terms…) Alight gulps, her chest heaving. Slowly, miraculously, her eyes focus on the mass in front of her.
***
“Are you alright?”
His voice is like gravel and dust, further manced by the horrid, dry air of his kingdom come. He looks down at her with furrowed brow, wearing a crown of mighty, curved horns, ringed in moonlight. She is, compared to him, a tiny thing. Like a baby bird. (A fragile thing.) He watches her with flat, black eyes, though she thinks she can see some concern in them. (Hope it a funny thing. So is desperation.
Fear isn’t funny.
But it is useful.)
He runs his tongue over his cracked lips.
“N-n-n… I-I was… am… s-someone was f-following m-me,” tears well in the corner of her eyes. He tilts his head, like a bird might, and smiles… softly.
“Was there?” The man does not take his eyes off her, “are you sure?”
She shivers, nodding. “I… I’m sure t-there was…” slowly, the pit is closing, like a set of teeth coming together. “I, swear…” – the river stones always had a way of feeling lighter when still submerged in the water – “...I felt it.”
He makes a low hmmm sound in his throat and inclines his wide, crude head, “this is not a safe place.. Surely your mother must have told you that?” he clucks his tongue, disapprovingly… gently, tsk-tsk. “In any case, nothing to worry about now.”
She had of course, her mother. It would be unfair of Alight to say otherwise. (Of course she had. Giver had always taken to mother’s warnings better.) She flushes under her bright, golden skin, the fear leaching from her mind, as if being taken from her by this man, graciously, “...stupid of me,” she whispers coyly, looking up rather more boldly now, to get a good look at him.
Alight is, of course, a gullible girl.
(Oh, the things she has believed! Does believe…)
—but reality is a funny thing, it has a violent streak. And as she searches his strange, lovely face, she finds she cannot deny the similarity...
(So much like my Giver…)
***
(One day, the princess led the wolf to the queen, in their kingdom of Pine! And he was so very excited to see her again.
But before the wolf could tell her the good news, that he had found her lovely daughter, the black king came and chased him away.
But the wolf was ever so patient. The wolf could wait them all out.)
***
The golden stallion watches as her brows furrow, a curious look crossing her bright, brown eyes.
He draws his tongue over his lips.
He remembers the first time he ever saw her. She had been… dancing, with the boy, through his forest. She spoke quickly and ceaselessly. Sung and hummed. She played princess and the huntsman with the boy.
Had her mother not warned her? Her mother, it would seem, lacked in vigilance. (He had a knack for fucking the irresponsible ones.)
But was that really a revelation, after all? It takes a special kind of carelessness to approach him for a second time. She had. And she had paid – made him pay, too. Though, he’d dare say the price he exacted had been a fair bit steeper. (He can feel, as if they have their own minds and heartbeats, the three knots of gray-pink scar tissue on the underside of the jaw. Three, because the fourth had failed to strike true.
He treats them like a talisman.)
A fair steeper price, at least in the physical sense. Not that it had mattered a wink. Because here she is, a miracle, from a ruined body.
Beautiful. “You have such pretty hair. What is your name?”
***
“Who are you?” she takes a step closer, bringing her wings around in a halfmoon towards him, shedding brighter light than just the moon. “Alight,” she adds, kindly. (And he smiles just a tiny bit wider.) She can see, now, the hideous wing that hangs limp at his side (she would shudder, but it would be horribly unladylike); she can see the grooves in those great horns and the strange way his toes are split. In the darkness of his eyes she can see, past the glaze of her own fire that dances there on the surface, that they are brown. Not black, though almost. She can see the way he is shaped so much like Giver… so much.
She can see, best of all, the smooth, bright gold of his skin.
***
“Who do you think I am?” he looks down on her, that fragile little thing, “I am a king,” he says, with a wry, crooked smile that she does not see properly, “and you are a princess. I can tell.”
![[Image: RS84HN4.png]](http://i.imgur.com/RS84HN4.png)
Pollock x Malis
pixel base by bronzehalo