ultima

Her gut was full of waves. That must’ve been why she came down to the ocean so early that morning, too early to call ‘day’, face bare, hair unmade, eyes still half-shut with sleep. No birds singing. Hardly any sound but sea-sound, the waves sweeping up and down the coast, tugging at her hocks. Stars, foreign and unintelligible overhead.

It was the jealous half-dark of summer, never comfortable for too long, poaching scraps of time from a generous sun. The sky ahead of her was inky and bruised, and behind her, shifting softly to rose. Rich with potential energy, that. Like waking up on the right side of the bed, in the quiet hour before the ladies woke; Minerva had been up for hours already, but she was savoring the silence, humming something lilting and off-key, expression soft, head tilted just so. Ultima used to lie in those dark blue moments and count them. One breath at a time. In. Out. In again. And on the hundredth exhale, maybe, sometimes the hundred-forty-first: blackbirds. Then the robins. Then wrens and the black caps, and the thrush, the distinct treet treet treet— Light just beginning to trickle through the heavy thatch of branches and boughs, speckling her windowsill, catching the dewdrops caught in the grooves of her windowsill, the smell of petrichor wafting faintly over the rise of her windowsill— And the birds would swing by on their colorful wings, and their beaks would open wide with cheer, jaws unhinging, raw breath, gullets like tunnels to—

She shrank all of a sudden, wings pinned hard to her back, head tucked to her chest as if the mild breeze troubled her. Alien, she thought to herself, the feathers on her neck tall, ruffled. Stranger in a strange, strange land, with strange problems and strange ways. 

Lucid was the word for it. Evening and afternoon never phased her, but morning revealed the truth like a spyglass, or cold water; one found her secrets out, and the other sent them shivering, wildly, into wakefulness. What was she doing here? How long was she staying, and why? Cowardly thing, vapid thing, lurking here, dancing through the woods, trilling about—

PRIMROSE WON'T BRING YOU BACK, GIRL.

Feel of teeth on her neck. Her heart floundered, eyes wide and unseeing. She struggled for a long moment and then shut them, tightly, the long doll’s lashes trembling.

One. Two. Three. Four—

dear god, make me a bird so i can fly far away from here

ultima

Was she the same girl she was before? Was she different? She couldn’t tell; her face was still familiar at the edges but the eyes were foreign, harder and brighter in the Helovian sun. When she went combing through the woods with Tilney, she felt a pang of nostalgia and a vague sense of otherness, spurred by the sound of her own voice, her quick remarks, her laughter. Who was that? Dancing over the brambles, exclaiming over burdock? That girl was loved fiercely and tenderly and she wore it like gold laurels on her brow, but that was not Ultima, Light of Morning and Sound of Dawn.

That was Alph. Alph always woke up early and didn’t need to be roused. Alph loved Tilney and blackberries and the feel of garden soil beneath her feet, much like Ultima— But not.

Everywhere they asked her, ‘And who are you?’ and initially it had been such a simple question. But the answer was becoming more and more difficult to even whisper, where once it had been such a thing simple thing to say, to shout – I am! The Lady Ultima, crowned fairest by the stars in heaven and the birds beneath it! The river knows me. The earth keeps me. Every tree and every rock in this blessed Wood sings my name, and if you ask them (head high, smiling cheekily, honest as only children can be), they will tell you: “I … am … ”

Startled, for starters.

“Oh!” Her wings fanned automatically, though the dark, wave-touched sand was solid, capable, and did not fail her. “Oh, you small, dear, precious little—” An ear flicked forward, her chin lifting after it.

Girl, color of sunlight blazing around the flat black silhouette of a mountain. Fire. Consuming, but warm. “You look like a sunset,” Ultima said simply, smiling almost shyly in reply. That wasn’t a word she would’ve used to describe herself before this, but for a minute it didn’t trouble her. The two girls on the beach and the fox spinning around their heels like a dust devil – she couldn’t see it, being a part of the picture, but she felt it. And it felt right. Soft. Delicate, like anything new does. “Like one I saw here, not too long ago. It’s really lovely. Your coat,” she added.

And she had more to say – about the sea and how she hadn’t come from it but she knew someone who had – about how she’d never even known the word “sea” or “ocean” until she came here – about how everything had changed. But the words couldn’t come for some reason, that soft, delicate thing sitting at the top of her lungs, and before she could roll it away: ‘Good morning, ladies. I hope I haven’t disturbed you so early on.’

Her head flicked up again, the smile faltering just barely as the stallion trotted forward, clumps of sand scattering around his fetlocks. She’d been an open door a moment ago, but she felt it closing again, slowly, slowly, shutting a little light away as the hinges swung.

“Good morning, sirs, miss,” she said, glancing at Natraj, and then Tandavi, bright as an ember on the edge of her vision. “It is rather early, isn’t it? I suppose neither of us musketeers were expecting to see another face before the sun was properly risen. I’m –” The curtsy was a deep-seated habit. “Ultima.” The faint, ambivalent smile was new. “Of the World's Edge. And the pleasure is mine.”

dear god, make me a bird so i can fly far away from here