there's only darkness at the finish; any

[perse]

i wanted pomegranates— i wanted darkness— i wanted him. The sun does not know what to do with her indeed, nor does she know what to do with it. This world is bright, it hurts the eyes. She aches for the gloom, the coolness radiating from stones (you’d think hell would be warmer, and while sometimes the air did stink of brimstone, there was always a chill to the air). She is too much for the light, a woman of burnished steel, a sword drawn. (Is she dangerous? Perhaps. She’s never tasted blood – save for her own – but she is property of a god, and perhaps there is a dark heart inside her yet.) The foal skitters, perhaps frightened, and she does not know what to do. She has no maternal feelings, the foal is simply a small creature, something Other. (They are all Other, to her. She evolved, in His lair, evolved past being equine, surely. A girl reborn in fire, in ice.) What are you doing out there, it asks, and she wants to spill the story but she catches herself. The foal doesn’t need to know, wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t care. It is too young and stupid. (As she herself once was, following at His heels.) “Vaermina,” she repeats, the word curious but somehow lovely, like an incantation in a spell book. “My name is Perse,” she says. It is not the name her mother gave her, but rather, the one He bequeathed her some shadow-stricken night, and she’s loved it (and Him) ever since. p e r s e ------------------------------cordis x spyndle