Chapter 1: ❅

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You approach the edge. You spin around the sun once, twice; sinking mangled feet in the grove of stone. All that is yours, the dance, everything: it is a gift, freely given. Life squirms in your veins. The world blurs in stunning fractals, dancing in silver spun light. Sickening. And beautiful. Always beautiful. You doubt you could ever stop loving the world.

Tip-toeing on sandstone, blood whetting the cliff, you rise and peer over the edge.

The dance reaches its climax. The rock sings below your feet, pulsing as it comes animated, red as life. The cliff edge heaves up, crackling and rising, blood and sun boiling the earth. Rebirth by fire is an ancient magic, predated only by sacrifice.

Pain is ascendant.

World shivering, bright and rapturous, it ensnares you.

Euphoria creeps and your toes inch over. As light as you are, the breeze could take you, surely. You could fly. You have yet to do that, in all your lives—despite what you've become. You are as immortal and wild as any of your brethren, but you are not a bird. It is beyond you, for now.

Your honey-mead braid tickles your shoulder and goose-flesh prickles your neck.

You awake, perturbed. You do not like interruptions.

Yet the rock quiets, magic slipping away. The world does not take more than what is owed. By birthright, you owe nothing. It has not stopped you from giving before, yet... You obediently return from the edge. The fates have intervened, so you will see the rest of the season. It is but one among many, stretching senselessly amid eternity. There is nothing but time.

Soon again, you think, the abyss will beckon.

You have always been patient.

 

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Sometimes, in autumn, the salt flats bleed into the sky--becoming one at the horizon. Nature becomes a distorted mirror as violet storms blot the ground and the sun finds its twin. Magic is potent, here. Truths become falsehoods and lies become real.

You have always been curious what you will see.

You shrug off your sandal and ease your foot into the empyrean, saltwater burrowing between your toes. The world stills to a hush. Maybe you will catch fire. Miss a step and fall into the sky. You look down and there is nothing. You are unable to see the mirage as anything else. The water recedes around you, whining. It wants you to entertain impossibility.

You scoff. Despite being made of belief, you are not a creature of one.

The saltwater giggles and rises, spiraling into the sky yet just as deeply in the ground. It beckons you closer and with a sigh, you look. Magic twists. Suddenly, you see yourself and stare. You are human in your reflection. Blonde hair instead of twine; brown eyes instead of murky deer eyes; whole instead of half.

The hole in your throat pulses angrily.

You cannot feel the boundary line. There is none, now, between this world and the next.

Inhuman, cold one, the wild God whispers. You live? Odd. Gracious of you, venerable one.

Dizzy, you tumble into the salt, awakening murky waves. Ripples die out in half-staccato time. The storms clear and sound rushes back. Gurgling in the stagnant water of a God, you wheeze and clamour onto your side. You inhale and exhale, each breathe teaming with salt's bite. Fear is still distant. There is truth of your coldness.

The murmur slips away and you remain.

 

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The high river descends into fog and cloud. You drag your fingers through it and vapor kisses your nails, water dripping down your wrist. You drift aimlessly. You do not know where the river leads. It is not strange to you, this unknowing. It is a choice. A snowflake falls and you catch it on your tongue. It tastes of winter and distant nostalgia.

When you were still human, you rode through a cloud as well.

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On a canoe, with your mother, as humans do.

It is the only thing you remember.

The river twists and tree roots dig into mountain rock. You float, thinking. Humans die easily; they can't even ride along the stream. It is too cold, too fast, and they stand no chance. You giggle to yourself and let everything drop. The hole in your jaw bubbles.

The world beneath is dark, alien in its still shadows and sepia grays. You shiver as river silt touches your back, the crustaceans wiggling in displeasure and shifting about in the sand. Your stomach brushes something brittle. When you touch it, a part snaps against your fingertips, muted in the water's depths. You frown--it wasn't a stick. Not any animal either. You grip the first thing that doesn't break and tug: supporting the weight of it all with ease, you break the surface.

A single skeleton bobs in the water.

You gasp as it leans into your shoulder and laugh a little.

Then, something just out of reach burns.

And it burns-

-pluck a star now, dear. Crush it in your grasp, twist it into something new, and dye it your heart. Hear it crack, as you churn backbone and vertebrae. Watch it splinter. Swallow. If it punctures your jaw on the way down, it's good luck. Be careful not to scream; the burning you feel is normal. Then, clear your throat and enunciate.

That's your wish.

"I wish—"

Be careful, now.

Wishes are nebulous. Caked and powered little things, twinkling in kaleidoscopic fractures of light. Their brightness is painted in fool's aluminum. Their spark tugged loose, the hairline fracture hugging the surface. A raw star is raw, all dead god and evil man and primal savagery in your stomach. You are not a star. You are inferior. It will always win. Now, think and be quick: is your wish worth it?

"I wish to live."

You make a foolish star, love.

Death would have been kinder to you.

 

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In spring, you meet the first person who is kind to you.

In spring, you walk in a daze along a well-trodden path and a human guts you. You crumple to the ground, dyeing the budding flowers with red taint. They do not know how to kill your kind, so they stab you again and again and again. You watch silently. They leave, pig-ish with their squealing and deeply frightened. It hurts your ears.

You wish the lily was white again and the last of your magic drains.

You are not wild anymore. The river's skeleton changed you as the seasons continued spinning. It starved the haze of your birth and suddenly, you are attacked by yourself. Your heart beats with the force of a thousand drums and you are weighed down by a dread so great your ribs turn to steel. You have no escape.

You are haunted by grief.

The humans return in the counsel of an old human, wrinkled and sagging with loose skin. The human crouches beside you, smelling of nature. A shaman then. Icy iron glints in the their hands. The shaman sets the iron on the ground and draws down your eyes, closing them gently. Soft murmurs fill the meadow. The language is intelligible. Oddly, your body begins to calm, slowing.

You let yourself go limp.

There has been enough of eternity.

In spring, a star is plucked from your throat and you die.

 

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