Soleil
Lonely, yes. Halo is so quiet and still in the winter. Like a hibernating thing, half dead and dreaming. Soleil doesn’t like it, doesn’t like how it reminds her of the bears in their caves that her parents warned her away from. There are so few children, and even Luka can’t entertain her always. So when the vixen presents the ningo like a peace offering in the guise of bloody brutality, Soleil brightens like her namesake and doesn’t hesitate to grab for the crooked, half-plucked wing with her little hands. Her own laughter nearly as high as the fox’s, harmonizing strangely over the snow and brick.
It feels strange to tug with limbs instead of teeth, but Soleil plants her knees to the altar and tugs and wriggles as best she can between giggles that make her arms feel like overcooked noodles. Feathers cascade around them, cold congealed blood smearing on her brown hands and the vixen’s muzzle in pretty shades of crimson. When the wingbone snaps Soleil gets jolted back into her butt with the force of it, and stares down at it clutched in her hand, surprised. Laughing immediately after, she plucks the feathers further and scatters them around. Only to pause and consider the dull, uninteresting flight feathers. These she plucks and places in her hair like a crown, and walks on her knees to offer the same for the fox’s thicker fur around her neck. “Hold still, I can make you pretty,” she insists brightly, clueless to how the macabre display would unnerve so many others.
It feels strange to tug with limbs instead of teeth, but Soleil plants her knees to the altar and tugs and wriggles as best she can between giggles that make her arms feel like overcooked noodles. Feathers cascade around them, cold congealed blood smearing on her brown hands and the vixen’s muzzle in pretty shades of crimson. When the wingbone snaps Soleil gets jolted back into her butt with the force of it, and stares down at it clutched in her hand, surprised. Laughing immediately after, she plucks the feathers further and scatters them around. Only to pause and consider the dull, uninteresting flight feathers. These she plucks and places in her hair like a crown, and walks on her knees to offer the same for the fox’s thicker fur around her neck. “Hold still, I can make you pretty,” she insists brightly, clueless to how the macabre display would unnerve so many others.
let us live like flowers, darling
wild and beautiful and drenched in sun
wild and beautiful and drenched in sun
