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For those who feel small and quiet. Spread those wings and roar.
Bulder, God of Ground, sculpted the sphere with one belted bellow, building a sturdy globe that did not spin.
The Goddess of Water came next. Rayne fell upon the ground in a billion yearning teardrops of unrequited love, puddling in Bulder’s dips, filling his gorges with her gushing affections.
Clode—Goddess of Air—who hinged on the precipice of immeasurable madness. Her voice was a ribbon of silk, soft to touch, unless it turned to the side and slit you with its edge.
Ignos was a glutton for Clode. The God of Fire feasted on her. Consumed her. Loved her so much he could not breathe without her.
Many beings filled all corners of the world, but none the Creators were more proud of than the great winged beasts that lorded over the sky. The dragons.
the Sabersythes thrived—big, bulky beasts with black and bronze and ruddy scales. With ferocious aptitudes that could not be matched. They made Gondragh their spawning ground.
Less volatile than their distant kin, the Moltenmaws found their home in The Fade. In Bhoggith—a foggy scrap of marshland that gobbled almost everything in muddy, sulfuric burps. Their honed beaks were sharp enough to slash, their claws just as severe. Veiled with feathers as colorful as the ever-vibrant sky in their part of the world, no two Moltenmaws bore the same glorious palette.
Being farthest from the sun, Netheryn was the darkest crown of The Shade, bearing a cold so deep it could turn the blood of most common folk slow and sludgy. But not the Moonplumes, with their luminous, leathery skin so chill to the touch. With their long silky tails and eyes a crush of glitter and ink. Tucked amongst snow and ice and a hungry quiet that swallowed sounds then spat them out like a warning roar, the Moonplumes flourished, growing in number, strength, and brilliance.
Caelis himself was set within a sterling diadem embellished with a collection of runes that bore malicious strength. Enough to keep him trapped within the stone for eternity, so long as the runes had something to feed on. A guardian. A mighty fae warrior known for his strength and wisdom was bestowed a gift from the Creators themselves: power immense enough that he was able to host the Aether Stone upon his brow and keep Caelis contained. A gift that passed down his familial line like skipping stones.
Until one aurora rise, for the first time in more than five million phases . . . Another moon fell.
Red for Ignos. Blue for Rayne. Brown for Bulder. Clear for Clode.
Places to be, hands to sever.
I think back to someone else I once knew. Someone else with an easy smile and warm regard. A female who’s now a vaporous memory that doesn’t bang against my ribs or heart. Not after I tied all those heavy, painful parts to a rock now anchored to the bottom of my icy internal lake. Companionship is something I work hard to avoid. And mostly succeed. The harder you care, the more fragile everything seems. Easier to just . . . Not.
Survival’s funny. Some wear it like a whisper, others like a scream. Mine’s a scorched skeleton of flame-forged rage that keeps me upright. Keeps me moving forward.
None of them looked malnourished, but there’s more than one way to starve a soul.
Sadness is like stones that stack inside you, making it harder to move. Ignorance is my self-preservation tonic, and I’ll swear by it until I die.
That in their eyes, it was tame. Sereme later told me I’d looked out at her through black, glittery eyes, face splashed in blood, canines bared, and that she knew I was broken beyond repair, in desperate need of an avenue to channel my rage. I see it differently now. I think she saw me, surrounded by the mulched bodies of freshly slain folk who’d come to hunt me down, and decided broken things make the sharpest weapons . . . so long as you fetter them to yourself so they don’t fly away.
“You chose to live,” she seethes. “Sure, it’s no longer on your terms, but at least you’re breathing. I’d think you’d be more humble toward the one who saved your life.” I click my tongue, trying to imagine a world where someone would deign to help another without expecting something in return. Failing. Thousands of times I’ve been pieced back together. Only once was it for my own benefit—but Fallon’s dead, her light extinguished, all that goodness gone from the world.
“My life has never been on my terms.” I stand, wrap my veil around my face, then gather her quills off the ground and lump them on the desk, rearranging them in order of size. Just the way she likes. “And I refuse to accept this as living.”
If I could ball myself up like a Moonplume and nestle amongst the stars when I know my time has come, I would. Not that I think many would seek me out, but I’d die knowing I left something bright behind in this beautiful world sketched in so many shades of ugly.
Heartbreak has a tone that echoes through the ages, and her voice was laden with it. I don’t want to look at my favorite moon and think of things that hurt. I want to look at that small Moonplume and imagine it had a beautiful life full of happy things that make your heart heavy with love. Perhaps that makes me a coward, but I have to pinch my smiles from somewhere. And that moon . . . It never fails to give me exactly that. A smile.
She pretends not to worry about me; I pretend not to worry about her. We coexist in parallel with zero expectations—bar the odd supply list and the fancy things she makes for me—and it works blissfully. Perfectly. I wouldn’t change a thing.
just as fast as my rupturing resolve, crushed by a mountain
And that part . . . It’s tired. Lonely. Lost. Sad. More broken than I’ll ever admit. That part of me just wants to stop and never start again.
So many assholes, so few fingers to count them all.
Love a good hope charge, futile as it is.
A wound is never fully gone.
I love living, painful as it’s been at times. I love the colors of our kingdom and the way our clouds are ever changing. Ever shifting. I love the way the dragons soar through the tombstone-riddled sky, entirely untethered. Love the feel of fallen snow peppering my skin, and the way a frosty, south-born breeze nips at my nose, numbing the tip of it like an icy kiss. The backs of my eyes burn as I think of that little wonky moon I’ll probably never see again . . . I love that most of all.
I’m so much stronger than these slashes on my back, the story they tell a rippling echo I don’t want to be heard by anyone. An echo I’d rather take to my grave than sit here all slumber while they digest it—keeping it alive in some form or another.
