[open] no one's listening anymore

[spectra]

Spectra

She survived only because ghosts cannot die.
Because half (or perhaps more than half) of her was already dead.
Born dead. Carved out of the earth by a father who had mastered death. 
Half ghost, half viper. Cast out into the world by a mother who had not loved her, who had not cared to nurture the living half and had no interest in the dead half either.

The ghost had wandered, flickering at the edges. Soft.
She had ached for death. Not this death that was not death. 
But ghosts cannot die. 

She wanders still in this eternal darkness. Soft.
There are times still when the edges are hard and she is more viper than ghost and hunger roils in the pit of her gut. But the grasses here have all wilted and when she takes them into her belly they leave her feeling even emptier. So she dissolves all over again. There is no good in being a viper. 

She is drawn to the scales more than anything else. They remind her of the mother who cast her away. Not that she feels any particular fondness for the mare, but there is something to be said for the familiarity of it. She goes a ghost, all soft edges, transparent. Galaxies spiraling through the atmosphere and so little else. 

“You look like someone I knew once,” she tells the mare and then sighs a spectral sigh, “but she was nowhere near as pretty as you are.” Does the ghost know that she, too, is painted with galaxies? Has she ever caught sight of herself? Has she ever been viper long enough to dip her mouth into the river so that she might catch her reflection there? Does she know that she resembles this stranger more than she resembles the memory?

ALL I WANT IS BEACHES FULL OF DEAD BIRDS. A FLOOD OF LIMBS
WASHED UP ONSHORE. SEASCAPES SPARKLING BRIGHT WITH BONE

@[Tirza]

@[The Monsters] mess with her equus viperous too please!!