"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
he darkness is all she has known. She was born into it (high, cold walls of a cave colored in the peeling paint of a father’s magic), and she grows within it. Yet Kamaria cannot say she understands the darkness. Deeper than that, she knows that it is unnatural and does not suit her well. The shadows feel too heavy, pressing on her young body and pulling her down. They make her want to find an isolated piece of their cave and dream of something different until it becomes a reality. Though she can’t grasp what sunlight (or the lights of the night that may one day call to her the strongest) is, Kamaria has an itching feeling that this darkness is not all there is to life.
She has kept her questions to herself, even when she watches her mother stare into the sky for endless hours, even when they visit the northern lake and Kamaria is forced to stay away from the nearly-frozen waters. They ruminate within her, the questions; they soak into her dreams and write themselves on the red rocks. And her questions scream when the darkest shadows (she calls them Hunters, for lack of a better term) stalk across their home, so Islas gathers her tight, and they run home.
Finally, Kamaria feels like she might burst. Her skin feels hot, even in the eternal chill the darkness brings, and her delicate features twist into a face of confusion. While they search for a meager meal, the girl finally lets one single question slip out. “Has it always been dark?”
So strange for a daughter born for starlight to ask a question about light she has never known from a mother who had fallen from the galaxies herself.
You think I'll be the Dark Sky so you can be the Star? I'll Swallow you Whole.
She had never imagined herself as a mother. The very idea had made her uneasy at first, afraid that she wouldn't know how to actually raise a child. There were so many instincts that she simply didn’t have, things that she did not understand. Though she had been raised by a mother that clearly loved and adored her, Islas had never really reciprocated Ryatah’s affections. None of it—the emotions, the need for touch and reassurance—came natural to her.
The idea that Tiercel would be here had been the only thing that made this not seem impossible.
Knowing that she would not be alone, knowing someone that knew her, and her weaknesses and pitfalls, to keep her from ruining it all.
When everything had settled, when the realization that Tiercel was gone and she was doing this on her own hit her for the hundredth time, it felt like every ounce of darkness came crashing directly on top of her.
Grief was not an emotion she has ever felt, and until now she is not sure if she knew it existed. She wanted to stand and stare at the lake where the vortex had been. She wanted to search every inch of this land the way he had looked for her stars. She wanted to no longer feel this ache-like anger and despair that swelled inside of her chest when Kamaria was asleep and she would stare at her and think this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.
She hasn't even let herself wonder if their daughter inherited anything from starlight. She wasn't sure if they would ever see starlight again, and with Tiercel gone, she isn't entirely sure if she cares if it comes back.
Her attention is only partially on Kamaria right now, most of her energy focused on their surroundings. Every strange shift of the wind, every rustle of brush, had set her on edge. Being away from the cave made her uneasy, but she knew she could not keep Kamaria locked away there, as badly as she wanted to. When she had been a child she had not understood why Ryatah insisted on Islas and Cavern staying close; she especially had not understood it as a newly-born star. But seeing Kamaria and the way she looks so small against the infinite darkness as if it could swallow her whole if she drifted away too far, Islas thinks she understands.
Her purple-black eyes turn to her daughter at her question, the smallest of smiles edging across her lips. “No,” she says with a quiet, almost imperceptible laugh, realizing that she has failed at telling her what life had been like not that long ago. She is again reminded of something Tiercel would have probably handled; that he would have told her stories of the sun, had asked Islas to tell her stories of the stars.
On her own though, Islas had been too focused on everything else—on simply surviving.
“There used to be the sun, and it lit up everything. You could see every rock and tree for miles.” Islas had never much cared for daytime, and it was strange to describe it and find that she almost missed it. “And every night the sun would disappear, and it would be dark, almost like this.” There is a pause, and she does not let her eyes lift toward the sky the way they longed to do. She looks only at Kamaria’s young face, finds the parts that remind her of Tiercel because she can’t help but to place a finger directly onto that wound, and says, “but it was full of stars. They look like a million pinpricks of light from down here, but….” she trails off, and doesn’t finish the thought. Instead, she reaches over, and gently brushes her nose across Kamaria’s forehead. “You’ll get to see them someday.”
he darkness twists her dreams into reality. Even though it feels unnatural and heavy on her skin, it calls to Kamaria with a mysterious song. It whispers about what used to be, what could have been, and what will be. In the hazy moments between awake and asleep, Kamaria sees her father fill their cave’s empty mouth. She hears his laugh, smells his warmth, feels his touch. Tiercel’s face is different every time; sometimes, he is a brilliant white to mirror her mother. Other times, he is darker than the shadows. Most of the time, he doesn’t have a face at all — just a soft glow radiating from atop his strong neck and a feeling that brings her peace.
And as Islas talks, the shadows draw away like the beginning of a story. Kamaria pictures the vast expanse of Loess highlighted beneath a light that paints color into the stone. She imagines the twisting trees cutting their place out from among a crystal-blue sky. She watches as the shadows drag themselves into their homes, finding the shape of her body below her legs. When her eyes move toward Islas’s face, the girl sees how the warmth of the sun makes her mother’s ivory skin sparkle.
Islas mentions the nighttime, and a mirror image dances across the girl’s mind. Her cream-and-navy face turns toward the sky, and she can almost see the stars. A galaxy spins above their heads, hundreds of perfectly-circular orbs floating through a swathe of midnight. Kamaria feels something call to her, a deep, primal instinct that makes her skin itch and her heart want to leap from her chest and run among those picturesque stars.
She cannot understand the torrent of emotions that blossom within her mother, but Kamaria can sense their kindred spirits; she feels the twin cords tying them to something higher than Loess. “It sounds nice.” Perhaps one day, she will experience the things Islas mentions; eventually, she might witness the light and dark she sees only in her mind’s eye. “Do you miss it?” Then Kamaria pauses, another question burning so profoundly into her tongue she must spit it out. “Do you miss my dad?”
