| The entire world waits for her as she hovers at the precipice of indecision, a last leaf of autumn clinging to a world where all is bright, in the face of a winter storm.
Storms can be beautiful, her brother says. She does not respond. Her balance is too precarious; a single word may tip the scale, and she is not yet ready to take a step in one direction or another. The dancer stands, poised for motion, taut as a bowstring and perfectly still.
Every atom of her body quivers. Not a whisker or an eyelash shifts.
It is not her first time locked in this position, frozen between a clean, empty slate and a rich, shadowed novel, a long ago whispered story of magic and betrayal and the safety and terror of the pristine, the new. It is not the first time her hooves have brushed on the mossy loam, her eyes have gazed on the misty wood; she is no virgin to these mysteries, no stranger to the far side of the crystal wall. She has been a crimson shadow on the outskirts of the forest, a dancing cloud of smoke and sparks, flittering and flickering and fading out of view. She has stood upon the precipice of her past before, balanced and swayed, twisted and coiled, and inevitably, inescapably, collapsed back into the bright monotony of a road less traveled, a life less lived.
Fire dancer braces against the collapse of her will, and finds that it does not come.
Her escape route is blocked.
She can not retreat.
Fuck.
It is not her breath alone. It is not her heart which pushes the blood and shifts the tide, not her lungs which swell with decision and fade to dust. It is not even the voice of Natraj alone, echoing through the hungry cavern of her mind, illuminating dusty crevasses and softly suggesting she bring them to light. When it had been only her, her weight was not enough to catch on a breeze and fly free of dismay, her teeth were not enough to tear away the shadow settled firmly to her brow, her fire was not enough to burn through the hazy mist which settled behind black eyes. When she had been alone it was enough to keep herself afloat- and now, all at once, she was expected to fly.
It is dizzying.
She falls.
For the first time since the darkness caught her in its crimson grip, she knows hands wait to catch her.
---
Copper child exhales at last, a breath she did not know she held, a weight she did not know she carried, and takes a step closer to the great glass wall. "Why couldn't Gaucho just build a wall?" she asks, not for the first time, but for the first time aloud, dark voice cutting into the afternoon air, breaking through the birdcalls which echo through the woods. Her brother grumbles half-heartedly, not really listening to his sister's voice; he is too preoccupied by the delicious wealth of new scents and sounds, the rustling of mice and lizards waiting to be tracked. Natraj's joy at returning to the Edge almost perfectly mirrors his sister's quiet, bubbling anxiety, her aching desire to turn tail and run.
The only thing that holds her place is the knowledge of Amaris behind her, a scaled bulwark blocking her escape with merry laughter and succulent love.
She has never hated her cousin so much.
She has never loved her so much, either.
At last they find the gap in the wall, the space where glass gives way to emptiness and possibility, and the fire dancer pulls to a hesitant stop, heart fluttering with heady, unbidden anxiety. She can remember, faintly, the construction of the thing; can recall being a child in its great shadow, running free and heedless through the mist as adults buzzed and worried and watched. How strange, that she should come home so changed- that knowledge should leave her heavier, with more questions than answers, more regrets than delight. She is not the copper girl with the messy braids who had lived at the edge of the world and stared into the ocean, curious and unafraid.
But then, it is not the same Edge- not her Edge.
She is no longer free to step past the wall, unbidden and ungreeted by sentinels and guards.
She is here for a purpose, as the Queen of the Throat- no longer a princess of the Edge.
She sighs.
But at least she is not alone.
@[Amaris]
[ They've come to ask for a glass trinket from your crafters <3 Please let Amaris post first! ]
THE FIRE DANCER
for it was I who walked among the falling stars, and did not burn | |
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