12-22-2020, 01:40 AM
take my soul & make it undone
be the one, be the one to take me home and show me the sun. i know, i know you can bring the fire, i can bring the bones. i know, i know you'll make the fire, my bones will make it grow.
Wishbone had been dead for six years, but it had felt like an eternity in the Afterlife. Each day had been longer than the last; perhaps her longing for Life and her daughters had made the days drag on. The fierce burning of the gray sun and the restless glow of the gray moon had given her enough light to explore her realm of the Dead, but she had only met a handful of souls. None of them were familiar to her and most of them were popular figures from a world decades beyond what she knew. It is why she is surprised to see the same haunted look in Svedka’s eyes that darkens her own reflections. It is why she was surprised to see Warrick’s face on the other side of the river, in a domain where he never should have been.
She wonders if they had simply missed each other, or if there were different versions of the Afterlife. When she wakes to a morning so full of color and life she loses her breath, Wishbone questions if her Afterlife would have had looked different if she had been ready to die. Recognizing the shadows in her brother’s eyes, she’s curious if his Afterlife had been as gray as hers (little does she know of the tortures he endured, of how the shadows have darkened more than his eyes but also his heart).
Svedka’s reaction brings her eyes away from the stars. Although she hadn’t noticed it before, the glow of the summer moon illuminates the scarring on his body. Wishbone is unblemished from her death, an entirely new body that remains elegant and golden despite the torture she endured on the Ischian beach. She wonders why magic has chosen her as a recipient, instead of her brother (and again she does not know of the tortures he has endured, of how the magic had given him an unwanted ability that made him feel as if his body was not his).
It isn’t the fact that Svedka acknowledges ‘there’ as a place they both know too well, but rather his reaction that surprises her. Wishbone assumed her older brother knew about their father’s death — perhaps told by his mother’s seeing eye, perhaps experiencing Warrick’s death firsthand, perhaps hearing from one of their siblings or Solace’s children — and her dark brows pull together at his confusion.
“I never saw him until a strange experience with a bunch of strangers,” she admits quietly. The siblings’ mixed reactions of confusion, distrust, and grief put further weight on her chest. Wishbone’s eyes drop to the inky sand below her feet, where the nighttime waves lap calmly at her heels as if there is not a brother and sister who are desperately perplexed by the intricately-unfathomable twists and turns of life (and death).
Staring into the ashen granules of the beach gives Wishbone an idea. She thinks of the bones that lie deep beneath the layers of dirt and ash and grass, each season bringing another blanket across the bodies of the dead. The onyx woman knows her magic does not extend into the Living or those who have recently passed away, but if Warrick truly was dead, it would have happened at least six years ago. The muscle and blood of his body will have disappeared into the mouths of maggots and time, leaving behind the polished structure of his bones. This, she knows, she can find.
Her amber eyes slide closed and for a moment it seems like only her gold marking is visible in the starlight. The tide surges up to kiss her knees as she fixates herself on the world of bone and decay. Saltwater laps against her dark skin with a spirit that had previously been mere whispering, but Wishbone doesn’t notice it among the voices of the Dead’s bones. She hears their throats calling out the names of the spine or cannon or rib they belong to and by the time her eyelids slide open again, there is a faint trickle of blood glistening out of her left ear.
There had been hundreds of names, but none of them were Warrick.
A weak, fatigued smile drifts across her gold mouth. “I think you’re right.” She takes a step toward Svedka but it turns into a stumble, weary as she is from searching the ruins of the Dead’s bodies. “He must be alive. I can’t find his bones.” Wishbone hopes he won’t question this magic; she is too exhausted to answer the question and the western breeze that rides on the waves feels strong enough to push over her suddenly-drained body.
She wonders if they had simply missed each other, or if there were different versions of the Afterlife. When she wakes to a morning so full of color and life she loses her breath, Wishbone questions if her Afterlife would have had looked different if she had been ready to die. Recognizing the shadows in her brother’s eyes, she’s curious if his Afterlife had been as gray as hers (little does she know of the tortures he endured, of how the shadows have darkened more than his eyes but also his heart).
Svedka’s reaction brings her eyes away from the stars. Although she hadn’t noticed it before, the glow of the summer moon illuminates the scarring on his body. Wishbone is unblemished from her death, an entirely new body that remains elegant and golden despite the torture she endured on the Ischian beach. She wonders why magic has chosen her as a recipient, instead of her brother (and again she does not know of the tortures he has endured, of how the magic had given him an unwanted ability that made him feel as if his body was not his).
It isn’t the fact that Svedka acknowledges ‘there’ as a place they both know too well, but rather his reaction that surprises her. Wishbone assumed her older brother knew about their father’s death — perhaps told by his mother’s seeing eye, perhaps experiencing Warrick’s death firsthand, perhaps hearing from one of their siblings or Solace’s children — and her dark brows pull together at his confusion.
“I never saw him until a strange experience with a bunch of strangers,” she admits quietly. The siblings’ mixed reactions of confusion, distrust, and grief put further weight on her chest. Wishbone’s eyes drop to the inky sand below her feet, where the nighttime waves lap calmly at her heels as if there is not a brother and sister who are desperately perplexed by the intricately-unfathomable twists and turns of life (and death).
Staring into the ashen granules of the beach gives Wishbone an idea. She thinks of the bones that lie deep beneath the layers of dirt and ash and grass, each season bringing another blanket across the bodies of the dead. The onyx woman knows her magic does not extend into the Living or those who have recently passed away, but if Warrick truly was dead, it would have happened at least six years ago. The muscle and blood of his body will have disappeared into the mouths of maggots and time, leaving behind the polished structure of his bones. This, she knows, she can find.
Her amber eyes slide closed and for a moment it seems like only her gold marking is visible in the starlight. The tide surges up to kiss her knees as she fixates herself on the world of bone and decay. Saltwater laps against her dark skin with a spirit that had previously been mere whispering, but Wishbone doesn’t notice it among the voices of the Dead’s bones. She hears their throats calling out the names of the spine or cannon or rib they belong to and by the time her eyelids slide open again, there is a faint trickle of blood glistening out of her left ear.
There had been hundreds of names, but none of them were Warrick.
A weak, fatigued smile drifts across her gold mouth. “I think you’re right.” She takes a step toward Svedka but it turns into a stumble, weary as she is from searching the ruins of the Dead’s bodies. “He must be alive. I can’t find his bones.” Wishbone hopes he won’t question this magic; she is too exhausted to answer the question and the western breeze that rides on the waves feels strong enough to push over her suddenly-drained body.
@[Svedka]