Tugging me close to her body, she begins to shift around me, forming the shape of a frosty nest. Still swaddled by the soft length of her tail tendrils, I watch her churn, stiff as a board as she fusses, getting comfortable in the space surrounding me. Like I’m some precious egg.
She settles, releasing a deep, contended exhale …
I don’t breathe. Can hardly think, looking up at the silver aurora tangling with the moons like the silken strands of a different tail.
Something jostles …internally. Loosens the sense that I’ve shared moments like this before.
With another.
There’s a shifting sensation within me, like an organ lurched sideways. My body temperature drops, ice sludging through my veins as my Other rises. As though she’s about to rip me back and take control.
She doesn’t.
Instead, she settles just beneath my surface, still and silent. A quiet presence that feels so much more monumental than I allow myself to understand.
Líri coils tighter. The sort of hug you can’t wrestle from, even when you’re desperate to slash the world apart so you can break down in peace. Leaving me with the only option of softening into her hold, blinking away pesky tears she dabs with a gentle press of her snout. Cold kisses that linger as I sing—deciding webothneed my calming song, dammit.
Time becomes unfathomable while we lay together, watching the aurora dance to a silent beat, kissing every moon on its journey across the sky. And I become quietly aware of Líri’s heart thumping like a drum. A sound that calls to me, louder with each passingthud. With each tear that slips down my cheek, kissed by a Moonplume who seems just as lost and lonely as I’ve been for the past twenty-three phases.
It’s not until the aurora’s directly overhead that I realize her heartbeat’s chasing mine. A near-instant echo.
I stop singing, tip my head to the side. Líri lowers hers, allowing me a perfect view of her big, gloomy eyes.
A quiet understanding passes between us as her cold embrace seeps through my skin, past my ribs, and binds my heart. A gentle pressure that crumbles my face. Because deep down, I know …
I’ve felt this before.
My Other recedes, nuzzling so far within me I lose all sense of her presence. Something that feels too much like a silent blessing.
A buried part of me wants to scream. Thrash. Break. But I drown those feelings and hold Líri’s speckled stare, falling into those bottomless orbs like a star tossed across the sky. A cold plunge that’s achingly familiar.
Sensing the watchful presence of every prick of light sprinkled around me,onelures me forward. A distant silver speck that stands out from all the rest.
I find myself reaching for it. Like standing atop a mountain, stretching my hand toward the sky. Pretending I can pluck that silver speck loose and cradle it close to my chest, even though it’s far beyond my reach.
Something sharp lodges between my ribs, rendering me breathless.
Voiceless.
In more agony than I’veeverfelt.
Pearly wings sweep around me from behind and bandage me in a tightembrace. Quiet acknowledgment of the hurt threatening to bleed me from within. But it doesn’t fix me.
It simplynotices.
Again, that pressure comes. A frosty claw holding my heart, gently squeezing.
This time, there is no resistance.
The organ softens, then splits like the shell of a serpent egg. A cool ache seeps through as my heart skips a beat, then pumps in unison with Líri’s sturdy pulse.
She nuzzles into my soul, climbing amongst the shattered remnants of that hollow egg wedged beneath my ribs, pulling shards upon herself, seeking quiet comfort beside a melancholy stone. Because although this feels like the start of something too beautiful to comprehend, accepting this bond is silent confirmation that another first came to pass. That somethingemptiedfrom me to make the space for Líri to fill.
And that—
I don’t want to think about that. Nor do I want to feel this piercing pain in my chest thatjust
won’t
