08-31-2015, 09:22 AM
this one goes out to you; my little h e a r t w o r m Space, nothingness, and the voice. The voice is odd, it reminds of her Iris and Corsair, of good times. It reminds her of her mother, of Judea, of bad times. All this, and at once it is like nothing she’s ever known or imagined. Once she might have marveled at this, all this, the stars around her, the impossibility of being. But now, she is just so tired, her body hurts (she thinks a rib is broken, taking breath hurts, aches). The voice is inside of her, writing itself across her bones, and though she might have once fought, she lets it. She lets it wash over her, into her. She does not assume she will return to Beqanna. She is not entirely sure she wants to. There is nothing for her there – Iris was a dream, the castle was a dream. She wants to go back there, where she was a god, where she built animals from nothingness and the lions lay with lambs, where Iris had wings and together they touched the sun. The veil lifts, and she realizes she is not alone. There are their faces, and that is hard enough to face. Worse is the memories, their experiences seeping into her like sewage and she lives more lives, ones she does not want to live. She is Rhonan, and there is a bird. It is different than the birds she built, black and rough and small, but she feels the attachment there. It is not a family, not like she built, but she cries for the crow, too. And then she – Rhonan – is running and then there are friends, are enemies, and mostly there is a boy named Noah who is there and then he is screaming. There is a woman and she is feasting, tearing into flesh, and Heartworm realizes it’s a parallel to her life – crows for children, friends who die beneath each other’s hooves. She is Tyrna, with a family and at this her heart twists because she knows the love there, she had it herself, children dreamed into being. Tyrna’s son meets a fate much like Iris, brought through by wolves rather than starvation, but the end result is the same. She realizes there is something else inside Tyrna, a wolf of another’s making, a dark heart, and she feels the wickedness inside, nestled right next to the love, and she wonders at the dichotomy, at what it must be like. Tyrna makes her own friends, the same path at Heartworm, the same as Rhonan – but not the same, as Sunny meets his end bravely, willingly, as Heartworm had tried and failed to do. She is Tyrna, waking to a valley of the dead, trying to break them into being, and she doesn’t know if it’s from despair or from that dark wolf-heart. She tastes the madness on her tongue, coppery and bright, and wonders what’s left, for her. She is Nadya, remaking a kingdom into its glory, fulfilling a bloodline’s promise. She makes a utopia for herself, full of magic and power, but the kingdom crumbles. And then her die is cast, friendships forged (her heart aches at the child’s presence, at the surety of her fate). A warm bath, a healing bark, a family forged in the ash. And she does what Heartworm could not – she meets her fate, head-on, gives herself to the horde. But it was a mistake, it turned her into one of Them, a monster, a slaughterer, and Heartworm feels the bloodlust, the hunger, and it terrifies her. The taste of meat on her tongue, wet and terribly wrong. She is Jaide, and she too remakes a kingdom. It is full of strange animals, and she wonders if Jaide knew them or dreamt them into being. One she recognizes – a jaguar – and it tears the throat out and Heartworm’s stomach twists as she thinks of Corsair, running mad, of the panther who took him down. Once more, the dream fades and she is on that infernal mountain, making doomed friends, and there is a stallion who tries to take what is not given. Jaide’s final act is much like hers – an intention of self-sacrifice, of nobility, but one bypassed by another, a foolish friend, and she watches in mute horror as the chestnut dives before the herd. She takes to counting. She begins to sup upon her own flesh, and Heartworm is reminded of how her own heart tasted. Pick two. She does not want to. She would name herself, go, fulfill the sacrifice she was too cowardly to give the first time. She is past caring, she is already broken. She has no kingdom, no lovers, no children. (No children, except in dreams, she reminds herself, bitter.) She is not supposed to play this role: the executioner, the judge, sending them to their fate. Pick two. A command, a desire in her to obey. ”Tyrna and Jaide,” she says, thinking of wolves and the taste of flesh, I’m sorry, she tries to say, tries to explains she would if she could, but the demon has muted her, and she is quiet now, amongst the stars. |