god knows, i am dissonance; makai, any

[Oksana]

you taught me the courage of the stars before you left

how light carries on endlessly, even after death

She is the color of rust, of ancient things. She is the color of flame, of fire – a phoenix from the ashes of a ruined world. Where others have been broken by this impossible unbecoming, a world torn apart and rebuilt with the pieces of its own splintered bones, she is whole. Whole, but for the family she has not found; whole, but for the other half of her dark, ancient heart. She does not worry about her children, their children, for she knows the wild that burns in their veins, knows the strength and the resilience because it is her own. This blood damns them, it is born of dark and havoc, it breeds chaos, and yet in this new world it will be their salvation.

They are made for ruined things.
They are made to thrive in the dark.

She races like fire across the green of the meadow, copper and white, bright and burning, unchanged but for the absence of the wings that used to unfurl above her shoulders. It is strange, but she does not miss them, she had never fallen in love with the sky like some of her family had. It was impossible to love a place that she could not share with Makai. But she does miss the magic, that little bit of electricity coursing through her veins, sparking like stars beneath her skin. It was the only piece she had of her mother, the only thing that linked her to where, and who, she came from. As it faded, as time moved forward and pushed her on without it, would it change her?

Thunder rumbles in the distance, splitting the quiet of a blue and bright summer noon, and her racing feet slow to a halt. She turns in a half circle, casting her eyes back and up at the steel-bellied clouds that hang low and reach out across the horizon. It is still too far, too bright, to see the flash of lightning but she knows it is there all the same and she yearns for it. Storms are wild. They are ragged and beautiful, chaotic and unpredictable, and she loves them (needs them) for the way they remind her of Makai, of the black stallion who had been like a shadow. It feels strange to be without her shadow, now.

So she does not search for shelter as the grey of the sky deepens, does not flinch when the clouds swallow first the sun and then the open, aching blue. Instead she waits, eager, strange in her wildness, with her chestnut and white face upturned to the sky to catch the first drops of rain when they come and leave damp, bronze dapples against the red of her naked back. She craves this wild, this world, it is the only place she fits anymore.

oksana