ultima

“The Mountain did not presume. The Mountain did not say to me, ‘I command you: stay.’ She asked, and I gave answer. And you?” The air sparkled again, cast in the shapes of birds. “You forbid me.” A burst of blue sparks. “You fear loss above all things on this earth. You hold what you love so closely you risk smothering it.” A feather, sizzling as it fell to the earth.

“So you lie to yourself,” she said finally, and the air went still, her magic receding. She could not help but think that he looked terribly pathetic in his anger – it didn’t merit her scorn, because he was still love to her, but it evoked a bone-deep sadness, so deep she could have drawn from it like a well. This was beyond her expectation. Whether it was the hour or the season, or circumstances outside of her knowing, she had thought, at least, that he would have some support for her. But he had thrown the first stone. “You insult me, again and again.” She was not at fault for defending herself when the first words to his mouth were not of his fear – which she could have understood if he had only admit them to her – but her so-called folly.

And how will we know? How, if we don’t try? If she had never been taken from her home, if she had never met that crocodile’s stare across the blazing miles of the Flats, if she hadn’t wandered aimlessly for a year, searching for nothing – she wouldn’t have met him. Everything that built up to this moment was a dance of trial and error, but he couldn’t bear to believe that she knew the steps. She could feel it strongly, even through her indignation that he would dare reach for her wings with intent of clipping them – 

He did this out of love. And, Love, she thought, unblinking, was such an ugly thing. She wondered if she should have screamed, too.

But she was deathly calm, the glass between them streaked with rain. Snapdragon mashed his face against the side of her neck, staring solemnly at the Tilney. At that moment, the girl’s heart was so far the cat could barely see it through a telescope; he could only feel the jitter in its orbit, struck off-kilter by the threats, the ready poison. “If you think me a snake now, then a snake I shall be. I shed my skin and I grow, as you would will me not to, as you would will Maude not to.” And yes, he agreed, slowly closing his eyes. “You keep her, Tilney, as long as you can.” Love is such an ugly, ugly thing. 

“I’ve never sought to own either of you, or be your foundations.” (I am only a star you might see by. I am only a crocodile, watching, waiting.)

“Goodbye.”

Unfolding her wings and averting her eyes at last, she ducked beneath the canopy and back into the downpour, to the shore. For a time she stood there, her gaze raised to the heavens, as if searching for a sign. Then there was a breath, a lull in the pattern of raindrops—

And she was gone.