02-19-2017, 08:57 PM
It’s a wonder, to be made whole.
A boy who was born a glass house in a world of stone-throwers – a boy who died - is the kind of boy who most appreciates this particular fact. To most, it was a thing they bemoaned – the stripping of their powers, a great equalizing shriek across the land – but to him, it was a miracle. His body, thick and solid, his wings changed from useless paper-thin things to something strong, the kind of wings that can bear things aloft.
(What’s the opposite of a wonder? Of a miracle? The opposite of this is dying beneath a wolf-girl’s feet, the opposite is falling in love with things that would destroy him.)
(Though waking up, alive, was a miracle, though it was only one side of the story, his side. Her side: a bargain, a promise to a magician with shadows in her eyes and venom in her smile. Not a miracle, after all.)
Though he is whole now, a normal horse, by anyone’s eye, he does not seek a kingdom. Kingdoms leave a bad taste in his mouth (he remembers waterfalls, and slick rocks that would shatter him if he took one errant step), he prefers the meadow and the forest, prefers a nomadic nature. It’s in the forest that he now wanders, stepping along a path lit in moonlight.
He doesn’t meant to startle her, but he does, her small motion catches his eye. A darker mare, wings folded to her back.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t meant to interrupt.”
He says this as if he had happened upon a conversation rather than simply upon her and the stars, and he chides himself a bit. He wonders if he should continue on, but he is alone – much too alone – and he is braver, when he is whole, when he is lit by moonlight.
contagion
be careful making wishes in the dark