Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Imagine if my insides held a solar system.

Here is my stomach, hot and glowing blue,

where all the energy radiates from, out through the rest of me.

Here is my mind, made of many moons, always admiring the beauty

of my pieces.

My fingers reach like the distant dwarf planets, cold to touch,

and the gamma sun rays flow like veins

to the organs of the rest of me.

Intestines: gas giant.

Kidneys: water seas.

Cratered wasteland: appendix.

And the

LANDSCAPE OF A HEART,

you can find her

all spread out

in the asteroid belt.

Chapter Text

Examine

We went to witch school, you and I,

hidden in the outback of Australia--

which witch school,

the one shifting between realms

of new times and wild climes,

the one with the potions plot

and spellcaster squad,

the school for the demon kids

who drew fickle fire from the air.

The one for the weirdos with wings

abandoned by their mothers,

the ones with scales to stretch instead of skin to scour,

the ones who came from realms of ice

or realms of fire.

But we were neither demon nor weirdo nor clevermen,

we were maidens of fifty

raised on stories

where the knight kills the dragon

and saves the damsel

and they live happily ever after.

We left home and our truck broke down

and the dragons got us,

the demonkind,

and we took that rescue from the scorching desert

in the talons of a dragon

like news that we'd been captured.

Waited years

in derelict dorms

for a boy

to save us.

And it's funny

I don't recall,

if it was you

or I

who first

gave up

on a shiny knight

and noble steed,

and determined to save herself.

I don't recall,

if it was you

or I

who joined the demons first

(my heart, my heart

the tyrant;

avenge me of my enemies,

join them to destroy them,

join them cuz you love them).

Maybe they put a spell on us overnight

and we both fell

fast

together,

maybe we went

insane from the waiting,

but any way it happened

I can still recite

the mantra

that took over my mind,

"Join them cuz you like them

join them for the honor

join them for the flames

join them for the traitors

join them, live for eons,

join them just to live

join them, you,

join them

damsels of despair

sisterhood of spite

witches in the desert

hunters of the knight."

live forever

What's the biggest asteroid of my heart

still spinning 'round inside me?

I don't think it's you.

Maybe it's me.

Maybe it's the knight I killed

on my seventieth birthday

since a part of him lives in me.

(We drank his blood

to live longer

like the yara-ma-yha-who

taught us from his fig tree.)

Perhaps it's not possible to tell what the largest asteroid is,

since so many chunks float on this orbit

it'd take more time than I care to spend

to categorize them.

Even though

I have all the time in the realms,

it's still time

I don't want to spend like this;

I'd rather not

inspect these insides

any more than I have to.

So maybe that's the largest asteroid of my heart

still spinning around,

seeking power over me--

this fear

of finding out

and knowing

what all my pieces hold.

Sisterhood of Spite

Do you remember

any of our friends' whereabouts

from witch school?

I know Dylanthia went back to the ancestral lands,

Pogoth crossed the rainbow snake and got eaten,

and Xlthan fell into a mirror where they met a new crew to hang with.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if any of my friends were actually friends.

Like, you remember transformation class with Elder Cragthorn,

right?

Not for the first time, our mortality held us back--

can't shapeshift if the bone grinding kills you in the middle of the process.

Can't shed all that mass to change into a bat

without somehow getting it back

if you want to be human again.

But the fourth class we took on transformation,

our friend Gacks stole my plans to manually draw mass from the shade world

three different times.

And she said she was just "pranking" me,

just testing my abilities

in case

Hatter and Chire

broke into my rooms

instead of her.

You shouldn't have beaten me to figuring out how to shapeshift.

I had it, nearly, three times.

I had it.

When our teacher awarded you top marks,

that's when the whispers in my head started,

wondering how friendly these friends were,

pranking me,

scoffing at my roundabout efforts.

So I schemed

like I was back at being a schoolgirl,

trying to impress boys with my nails and hair,

jealous of the other girls who kept guys draped around their shoulders.

Sometimes, Clarissa, I think I never really grew out of human school, I just walked away

at graduation

and carried on with life,

and never let it let go of me.

These habits

clung like creepers in my mind:

working for a teacher's red pen, a gold star,

a girl's downfall,

climbing the ranks of the lunchroom

like toppling my classmates

made me worth something.

We learned from the demons to survive,

you and I.

And all our habits we never got rid of

bloomed right up to the surface;

monkshood sisters

in thistle bliss,

"This is how you win school,"

they whispered from our memories,

"you be the best,

and if you can't be the best

you make everyone else worse."

These habits

got us gunning at each other's skulls

like drugged cassowaries on a warpath--

do you remember

what you paid Gacks to steal from me?

Do you remember

what you said to Xlthan

to make them flee into the mirrors?

Do you remember

scaring off Dylanthia and Pogoth

so they'd never

return?

You rotten cheater

thief

I hated you

by our sixteenth year,

did you ever figure out it was me

who poisoned your salad

before your spellcasting duel,

did you ever figure out it was me

who turned your rainbow potions project green,

did you ever figure out

who

ruined your summoning circle

after you stepped through

to the realm of mountain dragons,

and made it so you could never come back?

Chapter Text

Examine, Isabel,

why you removed yourself

from all this feeling.

Isabel, Clarissa,

sitting in a tree,

best pals forever,

don’t you see,

first leave family

then hurt friends

then earn witch names

on a graduation stand.

First comes love,

then comes terror,

then comes capture

at a dark school no one’s ever heard of.

Mayhap they should’ve let us die

in the desert

in our broken down truck

instead of giving us

shelter

where the realms met uncomfortably.

We escaped twice through the flickering door, you and I--

or was it three times, you’ll have to correct me--

but never turned up in Australia in the same century.

That

second or third try

killed our hope

of ever going home,

so not long after the demons brought us back (again)

we moved out of the small bedroom they gave us

and asked if they’d sign us up for classes--

if you can’t beat them,

join them,

and beat each other

but only behind

each other’s backs.

My heart always had a purpose,

though my mind never knew it--

of course I loved magic,

loved the idea of waving a wand

to complete my chores

or fix a broken engine,

loved the idea of flying

over traffic jams

and crowded grocery lines.

My heart always knew

it should be more powerful

than any human who had ever lived.

And the scent of girlhood

kept these memories:

if you can’t be the best

take down the best,

stand on the pyramid of your fallen peers.

And if the rest

try to topple you,

treat them like friends

until they let down their guard

then stab them.

My heart always had a purpose

for power

though the seeds never grew

until given the chance.

But no, your disappearance

isn’t why

I broke this piece of me,

cut off its eternal rhythm.

Your disappearance

was a result

of my knowing you would’ve done the same to me

in a heartbeat.

Witch names/from that age

Upon my graduation from the demonic witch school

in my hundred and thirty-second year,

I chose the name Kook,

Witch Kook,

and didn’t care how silly it sounded.

At least it wasn’t Isabel.

Witch Isabel

sounds like a question

my second grade teacher would ask,

“Which Isabel does this assignment

belong to, Isabel B. or Isabel D.?”

Yet nobody’s asking, “Which Kook

does this belong to?”

because they’re probably too afraid to ask.

At the age of one thirty-two,

Witch Kook

packed up all her supplies,

all her class notes

and potion recipes

and spell diagrams,

burned them in the fire

on Grickle’s head,

then pocketed a dozen matches

made of waxed demon scales

so she could perform the ritual to summon them back

wherever she needed.

Then she walked out the school’s doors,

hardly caring if she wound up in

prehistoric Australia

or burning Karth, home of volcanic dragons.

But maybe she should have cared.

Maybe none of this would’ve happened

if she had.

Though they always say that, don’t they,

“Maybe nothing bad would’ve happened,

if only I’d done this thing differently decades ago.”

The only ones who don’t say that are the ones

who graduated with a special focus in the strings of fate,

but I only took two of those electives, in my fifteenth and seventeenth years,

before and after you disappeared.

So I’m among the many in saying

I should’ve cared more

decades ago

but I didn’t, so,

I stepped from the doors of the school

into a new world

and only thought to look back

rather than run.

Chapter Text

I emerged from the school in a thunderstorm,

surrounded by strangers banging pots and tins

and wearing crinkly aluminum clothing.

Of course the lightning struck them.

Of course I learned later,

in the first revolution,

this was a punishment

and the punished believed

if they accepted death with open arms

that God--or whoever the punishers claimed owned them--

would go easy on them.

I didn’t die though,

in the fusillade of lightning bolts.

I had blood in my veins

and flowers behind my ears

and my wrinkled fingers built a puppet of petals and red cells

to die in my stead.

The thunderstorm vanished oddly quickly after the lightning.

So I stood in a puddle surrounded by aluminum graves

on a stone mesa

exposed to a shimmery sun,

with shiny copper domes poking up

in unnatural knolls

around me.

I picked the second closest one--

not wanting to deal with

wherever these aluminum wearers came from--

and walked toward it.

That’s how I found

my first hero.

Pocket of Rage

Sorry, sorry,

my bad,

I don’t have the words

for why.

Make

a mistake

break

a cake

freak out

 and shout

  end the tear duct drought

 stab Gacks

and slay racks,

I’m so angry

I could just cry

the whole time.

What is the lesson,

say what is confession

don’t mess with witches then ask us a question,

shut up

song in my head

no

no

no

it’s all wrong

where did the pocket full of rage go,

must’ve dropped it

must’ve tossed it

to the clouds

let it rain

tears betray me

I was going to write up a letter

about how angry I am

to save it for posterity--

the Witch Kook

and her broken heart,

A cautionary book

on how not to let

rage take you too far

Tsk tsk

don’t be like the old witch,

dear children--

if she ever had any of those

(she didn’t)--

just take her at her word

that you don’t want to be like her.

Angry.

Consumed by fury.

Crying half the nights

she should’ve been asleep.

Darn it I’m angry

because someone said I shouldn’t be

and that really ticked me off.

But I was angry before that

‘bout something someone said

that got me feeling like words

should require safety warnings

and hunting licenses to use.

And I was angry before that

‘bout how long it was taking me to learn,

and I was angry before that

cuz the heat was pouring sweat on my neck

in our stupid truck

and I’ve been angry

because I’m insecure and keep trying to convince

myself

that I

belong

with the demons.

Do you believe in an omniscient being

who loves everyone, even them?

I sometimes think

that if there is someone

who loves everyone

the point of all that love

loses meaning

when handed out so equally.

Cuz if everyone’s super, no one is.

So more than the annoyance of heat

and classes

and insecurity

I think I’m angry about that.

The love.

That I have an overflowing ocean of love

but so does everyone,

and I don’t think I want to be loved like everyone,

I think I want to be special.

I think I want to be important.

I think I want to be powerful enough

to say “stop” and “ do something” and “ help me”

so that somebody actually does.

Or maybe that is love,

being important and special and powerful.

Is that love?

I just don’t know if anyone except you has listened to me,

so what’s the ocean of love really accomplishing

if love is supposed to mean you care--

I mean, probably some kid I babysat

a hundred years ago

listened when I said “don’t cross the road,”

so hooray

a person has functionally and literally done what I said

but what about, like, something that mattered to me?

What about

when I say

I need you

right now

to let me cry at your feet

and throw my pocket of rage at you,

and if that comes

with my whole dress

maybe I need you

not to laugh at my wrinkled body,

maybe I need you to see me totally exposed

and not turn your back.

Is that too much to ask?

I think I’m angry about that.

About how many people have turned their backs.

How that number isn’t that high,

yet I’m still scared to show my feelings to anyone new

while still wanting to.

I’m angry at myself for that fear.

And I think I’m angry my friends knew how to be friendly

but only as far as it helped them get a head for a brew,

I think I’m angry at how much I lay on the line to sacrifice

without meaning to

until it’s too late and taken

then I wonder how this desert in me got to be here

like it isn’t obvious who stole the water,

I think I’m angry at my former-friends for shouting so much about stupid things

I think my anger will add force to the word “stop” to make its power more real

than witch magic

I think my anger can do for me what friendly faces don’t,

I think it can save me when I can no longer keep myself afloat.

So yeah I got my anger

all knotted up in a pocket

unforgotten

and it’s weighing me down

yet fueling a fire

through the storm.

Hello. Can you hear me

screaming?

Strings of Fate

My two elective Strings of Fate

classes had the names

“divining the weave of the future”

and

“karma as a lens for interpreting the past.”

In my fifteenth year I studied karma

and in my seventeenth I studied weaves;

yes, I know the stereotypical approach would be to

learn about the future before kicking you out

to see if I’d succeed

and grow paranoid of the past after kicking you out

to make sure nobody saw me

but no,

first I had to figure out

if you’d been lying to my face.

Then after, I had to figure out

if I’d ever see you again.

Yes, I wrote the first (and every) letter to you,

knowing you would never read it.

How you like that,

Clarissa,

you who’ll never read what I have to say to you?

You’ve got no defense now, do you?

In my fifteenth year,

karma taught me

you knew how to punish

and get blessed for it,

and I knew how to take persecution

and think better of you for your sympathy,

but when I unaligned

my good graces

from your smile

the game changed.

You knew how to punish

and get blessed

but I learned how to inbreed blessings

in cesspools

and make

curses

behind your back,

I used your

blessed children against you,

and after you were gone

the Strings of Fate said

I had torn us apart for all time

and I cried

that I’d never speak to my friend

of over half a century

again

or maybe

that my friend

of over half a century

quit being my friend

long ago.

Then I used the salt in the tears

to scrub your journals clean

and erase

sketches of your summoning ring

so no one could know

where you went

in order to follow.

And I never took another fate class

to learn what might’ve happened in the strings

if I’d used the water

and opened a waygate

to your realm

instead.

Probably,

a dragon would’ve eaten me.

Maybe one

had already eaten you.

Because the strings 

had decreed

we’d never meet again

and regardless of our what-ifs

and wishes,

the strings make sure

they’re never wrong.

My first hero

The copper dome could’ve been a school

or a mansion

or a hill somebody polished.

But people definitely lived inside,

I could hear them

talking,

their machines

buzzing,

noises drifting to the mesa

like heartbeats through a demon’s skin.

I walked under the icy sun

to the second closest dome--

no need to see

why the aluminum people

from the nearest dome

got zapped,

yeah?

But the side I approached had no door, and I felt too lazy

to walk across the stones and sagebrush

to search for one

so I drew myself a rune for a snitch-demon door and wriggled inside

the pinhole.

The interior smelled like grease. Like hot welding tools and metal.

No one greeted me,

slipping from the pinhole and standing on human feet,

except some rats

with copper teeth

and greener tails.

In the distance, through inscrutable

railings

and poles,

machinery whirred, lights flickered,

voices rumbled,

walkways rattled.

I shuffled between wires and rats

until I could peer into the foot of a street

where children silently played

with steel hoops

and fraying dolls

and dirtier hair.

Hoping my cloak

didn’t look too dragon-black for these strangers,

I approached the road, leaning on my walking stick

when I could,

crawling

when the pipes made me.

One child

with pigtails

noticed me under the plumbing

and said,

“I’ve never seen a grandma scootch before.”

That got the rest of the children to stare,

abandoned steel hoops wobbling down

while I twisted my cane into the dust

and hoisted myself up.

“I’m not a grandma,” I told them. “I’m a witch. Do you have those here?”

They didn’t understand a word I said

since I spoke a hundred-year-old dialect

of Australian English

mixed with some demon and dragon accents

while they spoke

something I learned in a language class

but forgot the name of

and never had the two teeth on the roof of my mouth

to speak properly.

“You’re tall,” another said, and threw a gray doll at me.

My cloak repelled it with a puff of smoke.

I sighed, and grew the teeth on the roof of my mouth

to talk, swallowing pain and blood 

when they cut my tongue.

“What’s this place called?” I asked, mouth bleeding.

“The City,” they said.

“Does The City have a name?” I replied. “What about this region?”

They blinked dull eyes,

like even though I was interesting enough

to stop their play

I wasn’t interesting enough to combust

a sparkle in their gaze.

“Is there somewhere I can find food here?” I asked.

“Not tenth street,” one said.

Another elbowed him. “Don’t tell old ladies where you live,

they’ll put squirpoons under your pillow.”

“I didn’t tell her where I live!”

“I live on fourteenth street,” another said. “Can you give me a squirpoon?”

“I live on seventh!” Another kid threw a doll at me, and my cloak repelled it.

The kid laughed, scooped up the doll, and threw it again. It bounced off 

to the ground.

I tightened my cloak around me. “Please stop that. I’m new here, I’m just looking for some food.”

“Oh, no one has food,” another kid said. She picked up a steel hoop

and kicked it across the street,

this tiny, oblong square of open play space

between hissing pipes and concrete houses

in uneven rows.

“Not anyone here, anyway.” She glared at me.

That should’ve warned me

what I’d scootched into.

Instead, I smiled. “Should I catch the rats instead?”

The doll kid threw it at me again. A few other kids laughed.

“Good luck with that,” Hoop Kid said. “Weapons are banned, and if the patrols find traps,

they punish the closest household.”

“I don’t need traps.” I turned back to the pipes, plucking a yellow petal from behind my ear,

twirling it for the kids to see. To see, in case they knew anything of magic

or waratah flowers.

But the kid with the hoop scoffed. “What’s that, straw?”

Oh, if I’d taken more classes in the Strings of Fate,

I might not have dismissed the inkling

tightening around me

like a sweater.

Instead, I blamed the pressure on

more kids throwing dolls at my dragon black cloak,

I blamed the itch

on dust getting under my sleeves,

I blamed the warmth

on getting out from under the icy sun.

So I smirked at her. “It’s a flower petal, actually.

You want to see what I can do with it?”

Chapter Text

The kid had a name.

Most kids in The City

didn’t.

The City

discouraged naming people,

said names distracted them from

their jobs

in the factories,

in the farms,

in the offices.

Only the patrollers got names:

if you chose to join

(technically, everyone who joined

chose to join

but

you got food if you did

and they sometimes fed your family too

and there wasn’t much food if you didn’t),

they gave you a number,

and the higher up the ranks you climbed,

the shorter your number got.

But this kid had named herself Rails,

and she secretly thought of names for all the kids

she played with in the street: doll kid

was Laughs,

the youngest was Youngee

the oldest was Orange-ee,

because his skin looked orange.

I didn’t tell her

that on earth

a hundred years ago

that’d probably be a slur.

Of course,

Rails and Laughs and Orange-ee and the other five kids

would probably die on earth--

I didn’t know what I inhaled here

but it wasn’t oxygen,

and the protection spell

I’d set before I left

was fading

like an insect’s cocoon.

So before I hunted rats, I showed Rails

a summoning circle,

told her she could mess up the symbols in the dust

if she wanted me to change into a monster and crush her

and her whole home.

She scoffed at that too,

and kicked a foot through a symbol--

I did notice, before completing the circle.

I just wanted her to know I was serious.

So my walking stick finished the symbols

in the dust.

The circle and symbols glowed,

bursting into flame,

and I didn’t change into a monster

but my cloak did catch on fire

so I had to put the hood up

so my face wouldn’t burn

and the pillar of orange light

dancing on the pipes and

off the copper

wall

made her scream.

“Told you,” I said.

Dragon black cloaks

hold flames

like sea mammals hold breaths

so I undid the knots and threw it off me with a gust of wind

so the flames could heat some tangled pipes

and I could carve a new circle on the ground

with my walking stick.

“How’d you do that?” Rails whispered.

“I’m a witch,” I said, completing the new circle,

and the spring warmth of the protection spell floated around me,

settling in my lungs like dew,

on my skin like a gel.

“What’d that one do?” she asked.

“That one lets me breathe here.

It also

shields me a bit from the heat.”

“So you can catch rats like that?”

She poked fingers at the ground. “Making circles?”

I chuckled. “I have a faster way to catch rats.”

And I waved the flower petal.

Then I spat on it, bloody saliva beading on the waxy plant.

“Ready?” I whispered.

Her forehead crinkled.

“Don’t move,” I said,

and uttered my demon incantation

of death.

A mutter, a distant yowl

floated from the petal,

drifting toward the nearest life source--Rails.

I whispered that it’d feed on nothing there

but thin skin and thinner bones,

and blew it toward the dome wall.

The mutter ballooned, and half a dozen rats plummeted

from the pipes overhead.

Rails yelped and covered her

dirty bald head.

“Told you,” I said.

Then I drew the mutter back

and inhaled the life force.

Took off a couple years, at least.

The petal in my hand crumbled,

and I picked up the smoldering cloak.

“Want to learn how to cook over a dragon fire?”

Training barrage

Studying amongst immortal demons

and dragons--

keeping myself alive

on life force

and blood--

must’ve messed up

my sense of time,

cuz Rails sped

like a rumbling train

before I had time to look back.

She didn’t spend seventy-something years

at a witch school,

but she learned what I taught her

about fighting spells

just fine.

And I was too excited

to have someone to teach,

to think about

her anger management,

her resentment,

how maybe she shouldn’t have

started using hunting spells to hunt

things bigger than rats.

She led those kids

and the people in the cracking concrete houses

to steal food

out of the palace

hanging from the center

of the copper dome.

Rails vowed to take the names of patrollers

who stood in their way

(by killing them)

and give names to all her followers, and

I watched

like a pet owner

when an exotic koala

breaks into the lion pen,

knowing the koala

knows magic

but not knowing

if that will even the odds.

Only when the palace

fell

from the rafters

did I think

maybe my little koala

has made herself a king

and I didn’t prepare her for that.

Only when Rails didn’t feed the new kids

growing up

and told everyone

the next dome over

had all the food

so they’d better invade

the storm summoning people

who believed in a God who punished the wicked

did I wonder

what I’d set in motion;

only when

Rails

established trade routes between the conquered domes--

some hadn’t known anything existed

outside their bubble

until she invaded,

not that that

lessened their chances to

win

by much--

did I wonder how far she intended to go;

only when

the children in The City

grew richer

than the governors

of the outlying domes

did I wonder

when the train would stop;

only then

did I wonder

if Rails

was still that kid I knew

who named her own people,

eager to feed them--

or if she hadn’t changed at all

and I should’ve taught her to.

I thought, as she ruled,

maybe my sense of time

would speed all this up

and she’d die before I knew it

but no

she figured out

how to take life

to keep her from dying.

But she didn’t go after rats

and things hiding in the rocks,

she made it an honor

for a family

to sacrifice a child

and grant her another two years,

then bestowed riches on the family for life

so more families would do it.

One time, I tried to talk her down.

Tell her

I knew a thing or two about irreparable mistakes

and she might want to calm down

before that happened,

but I guess

I then became

her irreparable mistake

because she yelled at me,

told me I was jealous that she’d outgrown me,

told me I was trying to tear her down

and put myself in charge--

as if I wanted

her gilded rooms

her sweeping gowns

these loris-eyed children

sacrificing their lives

on a literal altar

in her bathroom

inscribed with glittery runes--

we fought,

Witch Kook

and Ruler Rails,

witch

of seventy years of language lessons

and shapeshifting spells

and homework late at night,

against conqueror

in many wars,

both

skilled at magic--

she would’ve killed me,

if I hadn’t turned into a rat

and fled.

But her mistake

in not listening to me

was that

Witch Kook

had already mentored one girl

to overthrow The City

and the second,

she could do it better.

Rails

Rails, Rails,

Off the Rails,

hear her wails--

Rails, Rails,

she must fail,

fall to rebels

in these cities,

Kids of Copper,

Honor’s Daughters,

we unite

mesa knights

end the fight,

Rails, Rails,

she has gone

Off the Rails,

make her rail

in our jail,

justice, justice,

down with Rails.

Chapter Text

how long do you think it took me

to leave?

Not just leave

The City,

but leave

the icy sun,

stone mesa

and copper domes

where people and rats lived?

The kid

who overthrew Rails

turned out kind

and fair

as a ruler.

But her

child successor

was

a

brat

quickly

killed

by

his

brother

who

started

a

war

where

half

the

copper

domes

exploded

so

I

taught

another

hero

how

to

be a witch

be a kind ruler

be a wise parent

be a corrective grandparent

or uncle or aunt

but the lessons

fell

totally

flat

on his ears,

he

won

the

war

and

built

a

palace

of

stone

and

kept

greed in there

and

kept

laws

out;

I guess I stayed

after

that

cuz I felt guilty

for warping this land

with witch magic,

so I helped

another rebellion

take over

the palace

and picked no hero

this time

to train

in magic

but then

the Commoners Party

took over

and extorted

the commoners

and

I

got

sick

of

it,

sick

of

it

all,

so

for

my

next

hero

I made a

summoning ring

in the broken

walls

of

an

ancient

copper dome

out of pipes

and dreams,

then

called

a

green

dragon

to

lay

waste

to

it

all:

down

with

the

Commoners

Party,

down with the

commoners,

the

remaining

copper

domes,

the

castle,

the

city--

and

you

know

what?

Those

people

who

died

in

aluminum

armor

in

a

lightning

storm,

outside

a

copper

dome

before

Rails

conquered

it,

maybe

we

should’ve

made

them

our

rulers,

they

who

asked

deity

to

strike

them

down

for

the

slightest

sin--

maybe

if

the

heroes

died

when

they

chose

wrong

we

would’ve

never

had

so

many

wars,

but who’s

up there

deciding who’s in the wrong?

Maybe Rails was right

to slaughter the rulers

who sacrificed their people

in copper-generated

lightning storms,

maybe Rails was right

to set up trade routes,

maybe Exo

was right

to build a stone castle

after the people taught themselves

the spells

to explode copper,

maybe my

green dragon

and their

acid breath

made me God

deciding what was wrong

with everyone

when actually

I had no clue

I was just

pretty sure

I was more right

than they were.

And you know what’s funny?

Hardly anyone

knew who I was,

when I

might’ve been

God.

Rails did.

Her successor Gio did.

A few rebels

in

a few rebellions

did.

Exo did, and

the Commoners Party

knew I was a witch

but not how old.

They knew me

yet

they all treated me

like a secret,

useless

if

given

away,

thinking they could keep me

until they couldn’t.

And maybe that

made me more like God

than the fact

I destroyed them all,

and maybe it should’ve scared me

that I liked that,

like, maybe I should’ve done more

to kill this secret glory

than lay waste

to the secret’s keepers.

Chapter Text

The green dragon

almost didn’t want to go

back home,

she wanted to

fly past the desert

I’d never crossed

and find a sea

and eat

the inhabitants there.

But I told her

if she did,

I’d leave without her

and how would she

meet her lover

when they woke

from the ten thousand year

dream?

So she helped me arrange

acid-boiled scalps

and horny fingers

clutching bloody

hook noses

frozen in death,

into symbols

in a giant ring

to portal her back home.

And when she tumbled in,

I went with her.

Welcome to the Realm of Green Dragons

acid souls,

dreamer knolls,

emerald scales,

shale-tough tails.

Forest peaks,

spruce-blue trees,

poison shrouds,

wing-swept clouds.

My green dragon ride

called herself Sliptide,

or the equivalent

in her slippery serpent language.

I practiced her name,

receding the upper teeth required to speak

in The City,

though after so long on the stone mesa,

those two teeth in the roof of my mouth

missing

made my gums and calloused tongue

feel like a cave at dusk

longing after the horde of

bats who roost there

every day.

But I rode Sliptide’s back

down from the portal in the sky

over lakes

and hills,

training my ears to understand

and teaching my mouth how to move

slick

as the rain

so I didn’t look back

to the fading summoning ring.

Then

Sliptide took me to her den

where her lover dozed,

had been dozing for nine thousand years.

This was a normal green dragon thing,

they talked in an astral plane

with astral beings

and did things incomprehensible to a mortal witch’s mind

so she couldn’t explain them to me

but they sure did them

for thousands of years at a time.

Sliptide, then, only came through my portal to The City

cuz she was bored

after nine thousand years alone,

and she carried me home

for the same cause--

she showed me

acid art

carvings

deep in the den,

she told me

about her favorite places to fly,

she told me about the

storms,

the indigo sunsets,

how she wanted an egg one day

but only one,

and she laughed about

how her lover almost got stuck in a muddy lake once

trying to catch a fish,

and I let all her stories tumble over me

like they could pile up inside

then burn

hot enough

to erase

memories of desolation--

I asked Sliptide

one night

under the spinning moons

and planet’s rings

if she’d

ever met a witch before.

Not because I wondered about you, Clarissa;

mountain dragons

and green dragons

have fundamentally

different anatomies,

means of reproduction,

and--most importantly--come from different realms.

But I wanted to know,

if she met the witch,

did she eat them?

Where did the witch go

if she didn’t?

What could the witch do

that I couldn’t?

And had the witch lived any lives

resembling mine

full of doomed revolutions?

Sliptide licked her eyes

and said she had, once.

Maybe two thousand years ago,

she met

a seven-winged demon

in the astral realm

who knew witchery.

“What branches of witchery?” I asked,

perched on a rock

with a copper walking stick

across my lap,

a matchstick burning

blue

in my

hand,

like a landing signal to the stars.

“There are branches of witchery?” Sliptide asked.

“Yes,” I said. “There’s

summonings. Shapeshifting. Spoken spells.

Strings.

Stews. Study of realms, study of artifacts.

But they all draw from shared magical roots. Hence

why they’re called branches.”

Sliptide coiled her rocky tail around her two taloned-feet,

long neck craning down close enough to my face for her nostrils to blow fumes at my

snow hair.

“If they all belong to one tree,

why do you care which branches the demon knew?”

“Because that could give me clues about who trained them.”

The match light reached my fingers

so I crushed it out.

“I don’t think,”

Sliptide whispered, air ruffling my eyelashes,

“you would know who trained this demon two thousand years ago.”

I put the burnt match in my coat pocket. “But maybe I’ll know if the one who trained them

also trained me.

Or maybe your seven-winged demon astral projection

trained me.”

“Hmm. Then I regret to inform you, they did not tell me what branches of witchery

they knew.”

“…Okay.”

“What if you tell me what your school teachers were like,

and maybe I’ll recognize one of them,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow. “You saw their astral self, not their physical self.

And I don’t think I could describe most of my teachers’ minds.”

“Alright.” Sliptide

lifted her head, swaying like one of the trees

around our clearing. “Why

is it important that you know about this witch?”

I didn’t answer that.

“What did you talk about in the astral world?”

I said instead.

Sliptide swayed, puffing clouds out her nose.

“It’s often difficult to relate astral experiences,”

she began,

“in physical terms--like you supposed.

But the witch

was experimenting

in astral projections

to find somebody lost,

more lost than a demon--

which could only mean heaven,

one of the distant realms where goblins rule,

or this mindscape

where one has no self-reflection

like a dream

you never wake from

but sometimes have control over--”

“Sorry,” I interrupted, “I don’t think that’s

making much sense.

I guess

I was just making small talk,

I guess

it’s only logical I don’t know this demon witch

like I know so many others

I guess

witches don’t take after heavenly beings, do they,

I guess

I’m a devil of secrets

and sabotage--”

And she asked,

“Is this about that place

you said I could eat,

and not about a witch

in the astral realm?”

“Yes,” I said,

cuz dragons can smell lies,

that’s the other reason she came through my portal

in the first place:

she had no suspicions of being swindled,

or being taken advantage of

without receiving advantage back.

Those are

mostly mortal things--

swindling,

advantages,

not smelling lies.

“Yes,” I said, “I think I might feel guilty

cuz I taught them magic

and hoped to set some things in balance

but instead

they destroyed each other--

or they would have,

if I hadn’t asked you to destroy them first.”

Like I was right to.

“Well,” Sliptide said, lifting her head to shroud the sky,

“mortals all die anyway. Even you, witch, though at least you live

long enough

to entertain me for a while.

It’s probably better

that they fed my belly

than feeding the flies and mold

or whatever that realm holds.”

“Yes.” I nodded. “So

I guess

I wondered if you’d ever met a witch

like me

who taught people magic

who maybe shouldn’t have had it.”

The dragon laughed,

spewing acid over the clearing,

landing some splatters

on my copper walking stick, hissing.

I wiped them off

with my coat.

“Perhaps,”

Sliptide said,

“the witch I met

was searching for someone lost

by their own hands.

Perhaps

you assume too much

in saying

anyone with magic

should’ve had it.”

“Perhaps,” I replied.

And resisted the itch

to light another match

and signal the stars

to come fight me.

Chapter Text

If you poke a sleeping dragon

they don’t wake.

Why do I know?

Cuz Sliptide poked her lover

fifty times

in her sleep

the first night

I was there.

So I left the den,

realizing otherwise

I might accidentally

wake up

under Sliptide’s cutting tail.

Then every night

after that

I slept out in the clearing,

under some rocks

or in a pile of moss;

I didn’t know

anyone could twitch that much

in their sleep

but one night

curled in a hollow log

with runes on it

to keep the cold and

worse things out,

I started wondering

if I twitched that much in my sleep too

so I started mapping out the ingredients

I’d have to gather

to make a seeing eye

to watch myself while asleep

and what

I’d need to gather

so when I woke up

and touched it

I could replay what the seeing eye saw,

but I wasn’t familiar enough with

Realm of Green Dragons

to know if they had

anything in the termite moss family

for the memory

but I doubted it

so to figure out what to use in its place

I’d need to light a fire

and summon

some textbooks,

Ingredients of the Known Realms

Volumes Three to Six,

Sorted Under the Void Demon Alphabet

unless “Realm of Green Dragons” got sorted

as “Green Dragons, Realm of” instead,

then I’d need volumes one through two,

but I’d better wait until morning

for the reading light

unless I wanted to shapeshift my eyes

to demon eyes

to better see in the night

but if I did that

I might be able to shapeshift my mind

so half of it could sleep

while the other half observed

if I twitched in my dreams

but somewhere in these thoughts

I got lost

and fell

…sleep--

I knew a witch

who performed a spell

while falling asleep

and the results,

as you know,

were disastrous--

and you know they were

disastrous

cuz otherwise

why would I know this story?

When I was a student

in my thirtieth year or so,

one of the dragonlings,

as the story goes,

put their claws into a pot of

vines

and spoke the words

to breathe a fireball at the plant

since they were jealous

their elven half didn’t let them breathe fire

and their dragon half didn’t let them grow plants,

but they should’ve been in bed hours ago,

so

microsleep

got the better of them.

A syllable slipped

into a mumble

and the fireball

became a kangaroo

with flaming kicks.

The animal

knocked over the dragonling’s

pots of vines

and they spread over the floor

into the boards--

then the kangaroo

knocked out the dragonling

and the vines spread over them too

and the ’roo escaped out the door

through the school’s high-arched dorms,

leaving flaming footprints

(which didn’t burn anything,

since the school was built by

demons who did that),

but the thumping

woke

the sleeping occupants

and we gathered

to stare at the vines

crawling from someone’s room

until half the hall’s

floorboards collapsed.

Then we witches killed the vines

no problem

but the dragonling had to be shipped home

to rest silent in the loam

and the hallway had a hole in it for years after that

and no one caught the kangaroo

so it might’ve gotten out

and bred with the locals.

So

in that tree hollow

in the Realm of Green Dragons

I didn’t do a spell while falling asleep.

But when I woke

I scared myself

with how close I’d come--

but my next thought was,

how do you get to an astral plane

without casting a spell

while on the verge of losing consciousness?

Does the spell not take hold

until you finish speaking it?

And does the spell

contain the parameters

for your return?

Can you cast magic

in the astral plane?

So I summoned my books

ignoring all six indexes

of ingredients

for the only tome I owned

about psychic projections

and read

it twice

until Sliptide quit twitching in her sleep

and came crawling out of her den

muttering about breakfast

and I said

I was going to

visit her lover

and I think she misheard me

because she said, 

“No, fish for breakfast”

and took off in a flutter

and came back

with saltwater

streaming from her talons

and a beaked fish

twice my size

in her mouth

and she dropped it

in the dirt

and asked

if I liked

warkorel

and I said I’d never tried it

but maybe

I’d try

to enter the astral plane

and she said

going there would break my mind

but I said

maybe

I didn’t mind.

Mind

You don’t need

an astral plane,

Sliptide said,

eating her fish.

You need

to recover

from whatever

you did and saw

on that stone mesa.

And I said,

I spent seventy years

learning what took most demons and dragons

half that time to master

so I could graduate as a witch,

and not once

did I take a class

about how to teach

someone else magic

but the first thing I did

after leaving

was teach a child

who learned twice as fast

as a speed demon,

then

years later

I taught someone else

to kill her

because I couldn’t.

Then

I taught someone else

to end a war

started by her kid.

Then

I helped lead another group

to end that war.

Then

I asked you.

Sliptide laughed,

handed me some raw meat

to cook

on the little fire I was building

out of pine needles

and sticks,

and she said

don’t worry about me

starting a war

that you have to train somebody

to end.

But I shook my head--

I’m not worried about you

making war

or turning into a tyrant--

my hands stuck

meat cubes

on a stick

and stuck

meat cubes

into the fire--

I’m worried about me.

Bind

So what, she asked,

want me to put you in your place?

Sort of, yes, I replied.

I want you to tell me

how to lose myself

for ten thousand years.

Kind

Eat up, she said.

You’ll need your strength, she said.

If you’re bent on entering the astral plane,

I can try to help, she said.

But remember when I said, she said,

we do things there

incomprehensible to a mortal’s mind?

It’ll bend you, she said,

break you,

you might not come back,

so I don’t think you should go,

but who am I

to tell mortals--

even mortal witches--

what they should

and shouldn’t do

within their finite lives?

I could eat you

to stop you from going

but I don’t want to eat you.

My stomach’s full on fish, she said.

And you doing this could entertain me, she said,

fill up a day or two.

But even if you do make it, your skin here won’t last ten thousand years.

You’ll die

long before then.

Thank you for the advice, I said, you’re so kind.

If my mind

breaks

and I don’t come back

you can chuck me in the ocean

or wherever you got that fish.

A lake, she said. Salty lake. You’d float on it. 

You’d float on any water, really. I think I’ll

soak you in acid instead

and add your bones

to my art gallery.

Wind

I got in

with a spell

Sliptide told me.

I got in

shielding myself with a summoning circle around my knees

with runes for

sanity,

speed,

and

resolve.

I got in,

muttering under my breath,

“Clarak, slar,

helva garden

rill tiv lo wisphel

li o caral o

tara car

y

(open, minds,

come to me

sever my awareness

from this body

until the sun falls

show me

the ethereal worlds)”

Qind

I got out

with sunset

stretching over the cerulean trees

and had

no clue

what happened in between,

but my head hurt

and I vaguely recalled

a voice

in my mind

asking me

why I couldn’t move.

“Well your spellcasting’s strong enough it brought you back,”

a voice said.

I blinked at the air.

Sliptide’s voice rumbled

across the clearing again,

“You lay there thrashing for half the morning

then fell completely still. Barely breathing.

I was going to boil your body

after it got dark

but it seems

you’re back.”

My fingers and toes tingled, and my lungs ached

like they’d met their ex Air again.

“I guess I am back,” I rasped,

and sat up, scooting across the shielding runes in the dirt

toward a rock

to sit against.

Then I vomited.

“I remember almost nothing.” I wiped my mouth

and rubbed my palm in the ferns.

Sliptide chortled, “And you can speak! My, my,

you’re back and your mind’s not broken.”

“I think someone spoke to me,” I said. “But I’m not sure.”

Sliptide waddled toward her den

in the hillside,

tail swishing. “Was this enough

to convince you

to keep astral projection

as a one-time venture,

or are you going

to keep trying?”

“I think,” I said,

“I’m going out to gather some things

then I’m trying again.”

“Well,” she said,

“I’m going to bed.

If you lose your head

I’m still soaking your bones

in acid

and if you do make it

and try to stay for a thousand years

I might feel like eating you

right before your neglected body dies.”

Chapter Text

Acid breath

has no practical purpose

for a hunting creature.

Hunting

supplies food for eating

and acid

corrodes

what you’d eat.

Fire breath, too,

might scorch your meal

just as easily

as cook it.

Therefore,

logically,

dragons hunt

with talons, teeth, tails

and they have breath-weapons

to defend themselves--

do you remember that lecture?

You scoffed at Dr. Mizto

and yelled

over the cackle-demons’ laughter,

“What’s a giant, scaly, winged thing got to defend itself against?

And why don’t I get fire breath

to defend my

tiny, squishy, slow body?”

Dr. Mizto answered that

they didn’t know much about squishy humans

but they did know

nights

hunted dragons--

and we both thought he said

knights

because yes,

we spoke English

in the school in Australia

since no spells

work in English--

we thought Dr. Mizto said

knights hunted dragons

like some European

medieval fantasy

and that sounded silly to us

but anyway

we’d already killed a knight

by then,

or,

a big military guy

in a helicopter

(more or less the modern equivalent),

and stolen his life force,

so we thought we were basically

stronger than a dragon,

but sometime after that

we learned about real nights

that hunt dragons--

did you ever meet a night,

Clarissa?

How did that go for you?

Did it steal your knowledge of me,

of English,

or were those already gone

by your own design?

You know, I haven’t spoken human tongues

with anyone

in ages,

that’s part of why I’m writing,

writing down things

both of us should remember

in our native language

just in case I forget

both.

Yesterday, or the day before,

I had to remind myself

we definitely spoke English in school

not any demon

or dragon tongue,

but I’m still not actually sure

if we definitely spoke English.

My only evidence now is that

no spells work in English

so I think everyone spoke it

regularly,

but what if I’m wrong?

What if we spoke something different?

And if I don’t remember that for sure,

what if I remember you all wrong too?

Clarissa, you have not met a night,

as far as I know--

but I met a night

or maybe it’s spelled different,

I don’t remember,

like

Nyte

or Nite

or Niht

or Nighte

Mnight

Nighbt

Nightt

but I met one.

I touched it.

And I think it sucked half my brain away.

And I needed

to write down

what it felt like

before finding the spell in my books

to restore my memory--

yes, I did remember how to light a match

to summon my books--

so I wrote

while teetering in a daze

and I won’t send you the hopes

that soared in that haze,

but basically

I wrote to ask how you’ve been

because I forget you didn’t exist,

I forgot you weren’t around

I thought

you might come tapping with your cane

around one of these blue-ish trees

and laugh at how silly I’d been

to touch a night,

then you’d help me

get my memories back

and help make up a spell

to remember if we spoke

English or not

in school

since there’s not a page in the books for that

cuz memory spells are hard like that,

you have to remember what got stolen

or what did the stealing and when

to bring it back

and I only possibly recall

this tongue that time might have taken--

but no

it wasn’t you

who helped me

recover from the night,

I have the proof here in the dirt

of my own book

flipped to the page

of memory spells,

and another match stub

is eroding in my pocket

to witness I did it myself,

but it was sort of beautiful, I guess,

to not recollect

where I was

or what I was doing--

but now I remember

how the night

floated above me

all

shadows

consuming the horizon

with stars

and moon eyes

and a mouth that crooned

lullabies

and I touched it

I don’t know why

I got goop on my fingers

now it’s smeared on my coat

and I fell down this feeling

where I needed to write

things I forgot

on the edge of my mind

and I can’t show you what I wrote

in that haze

but I’m keeping it for proof

that at least I didn’t forget

your name.

In gradients

Green dragons are immortal.

Nights hunt dragons.

I’m not a dragon

or a dragonologist

but I do know

most dragons,

not just green ones,

are immortal,

so like an educated person

I wondered

what nights actually

get

from hunting dragons.

Maybe that’s why I touched it.

To find out.

Read

Gather

2 wolfhead mushrooms.

Gather

3 green pinecones.

Gather

a pinch of fern spores,

7 lichen-dusted pebbles,

and moss water to stir everything in.

Gather them into a sack

made of shed demon wings

and add

a twig

with enough sap

to carry a resin odor,

find an eyeball

big enough to insert a clean straw through

but keep the eye

separate,

set up a tripod

holding the sack

over a fire

and throw in

hollow

mollusk shells,

clams if you can,

1 gram per square meter of flame,

and utter a spell

so the flames blaze green

then stir

the ingredients

except the eye

in the sack

over the heat

until it thickens to a sauce

then

hang the eye a few centimeters

over the fumes

put the straw

through the pupil

then

put the other end in your mouth

then

lie down

shut your eyes

and see out of the third one,

look at your own body

lying down:

this is the spell

to let you peer through the skin of your skull

into your mind.

die

Sometime while searching for the fern spores

my textbook claimed existed in this realm,

a scream

slithered through the forest.

Of course I knew about the

night

and I knew about

Sliptide,

but Sliptide

had said multiple times

that she’d eat me (or dissolve my body)

so I had little hope

of surviving the crossfire

what with her spitting

acid breath--

I figured,

she’d probably defend herself just fine

against the night.

Or,

if she didn’t,

I had a memory spell.

She’d be fine.

Chapter Text

In retrospect,

the destruction of a planet

lasts an instant.

In the moment,

the destruction

occurs

as a slow

peeling apart

of mountain

from valley,

as an unending

barrage

of raining

boulders,

a wave

of heat and fire

from the meteorite

impact

steadily

creeping

clos

er

as a tsunami

and in that approach

your brain has time

to think silly things like,

“Sue Nami.

Who is Nami,

and why is she

being sued?

Maybe I’ll sue her

for throwing this meteoroid

at me,

there’s no evidence

to say she didn’t do it,

if any existed,

it’s all burning

before my eyes.”

In retrospect,

you can zoom in

on the hairsbreadth

gap

that existed

at one point

between your lips

and the inferno

and analyze

how many doodles

you could fit between

the shape of your body

and the waver of the heat,

and think about

if the heat-waver technically

makes up the edge of the inferno

or if the first edge of yellow glow does

or if the brightest wall of light does,

but in the moment

that the approaching tsunami

landed

you probably just flinched

and didn’t think about anything,

not even the fact

that you weren’t thinking about anything

but now you are thinking

that

nobody stood on the planet

that’d be silly

cuz the planet

was part of me

so just don’t think too hard

about the metaphor

or it won’t make sense

just think about

tsuingnami

then flinch

and it’ll all be over

for you to over-

analyze.

Chapter Text

Sliptide

forgot who I was

and tried

to claw me

and melt me,

so I put the plans on hold

to watch myself

enter the astral realm

through the eye

of a straw.

I threw a memory spell at her

but it didn’t work

even though I knew the night had taken it

not that long ago

so by all accounts

I did the spell right

but I guess

the night

knew a thing or two

about dragons

using magic

to take

their meal-minds back

and had ways to block

even properly aimed spells

so I guess

a little mortal witch like me

got lucky

in getting mine back,

or it just slipped out

like a gnat

without it noticing.

So then

I fled

before Sliptide

ate me

but then figured

she

might try to eat her lover

and therefore wake her

before I met her in the astral plane

and thereby prove me wrong

when I’d said I’d meet her lover there

so I went back and lured Sliptide away from her den

with half the ingredients I’d gathered

plus a match

to make them smell

delectable

then I banked on the fact

she wouldn’t know how to return home

from the middle of the woods

until I got her memory back,

then I went

planning how

to take down

the night.

life force

the difference

between a mortal

and an immortal

is,

life force spells

work on mortals

so they can theoretically

live forever

by taking

from other mortals,

and nights

are mortals

with no magic,

just a hunger

for dragons,

though no one knows

where young nights are born

or where old ones go to die,

but

there’s summoning rings

that supposedly work

to steal the life of a night--

the books hold no information

about what they eat

(though I know that now)

or how to lure them

just

warnings that if your summoning ring catches them,

 you might implode

before drinking all their life

 and more warnings

that if you find a night

 you’re better off

fleeing

 before it destroys you

and more warnings

 that a powerful night

might

 just ignore the summoning magic

completely

 and how

you’re probably better off

 recruiting fire breathing dragons

to burn it to a crisp

 but no dragon

in their right mind

 wants to approach a night

so I didn’t

 make just one

summoning ring

 I made

twenty

seven

to feed

the trees

and

I made the runes

out of sticks and pebbles

planted in mud,

waiting on a word

to burn

to life

and

I waited for it

to come back for Sliptide’s lover,

if it hadn’t already done that,

then I got bored

of waiting

so I went out

to gather ingredients again

to enter the astral plane

and find the hungry night inside

--since surely

a mind eater

had a presence there--

to steal

its meals

out from under it.

hunting

ingredients

I’d already gathered

took

half as long

the second time

though I did have to find

another fish

with eyeballs big enough

to insert a straw into.

in the astral

I did it

(she did it)

but it took

(it took her)

two straws in my mouth

two eyes

over two fires

to give myself

the perspective

of where my mind needed to move

but I did it

(she did it)

I walked into

an astral plane

and the funniest thing was

I no longer needed

toes to balance

(so random, so funny)

or fingers to feel

or ears to hear

but I could hear

and feel

and stand

on something

like rock

and I don’t think

words can explain it

but Clarissa,

it was like

I moved

the way a river flows hypnotic

I talked

the way you wake from a dream

where you were five people at once

but awake

you can’t figure out how you held

five thoughts together

it’s like

knowing the choreography to a dance

that requires two wings

but trying to do the dance without them

it’s like how

kicking a violet hipping

sounds odd

but kicking a hipping violet

sounds less odd

it’s like,

in the astral plane,

the first hipping makes sense

and the other one doesn’t,

it’s like

a lack of wings

is how you move

it’s like

hard to imagine not having

five

separate

thoughts

in your head

it’s like

the hypnotic ate the river

and you reached out

and flew.

came to

Slip

fire

no

tide

was

her

name

one end, one fury

how I came

walking with my wings,

the villain

had no clue it was me

doom the night,

set the minders free,

walk on stone

with ankles that bleed

shape the world

the vision you please

peel the rock

make the sky, build the sea

squeeze this ground

juice the clouds, sugar trees

you are our

master creator here

you are the

psychic queen--

enter night

to ravage

imagined scene

blatant

blanket

demolishing

need

weakling walking witch

(nights eat minds

perhaps an astral battle

was a bad idea

I don’t know how

nights’ minds work

maybe they roam the

physical world

and the astral world

at the same time

what a crime

but you know I survived this

well enough to write this

but then, you don’t know enough

to know how)

you came here for a fight

I didn’t

come here for a fight, night,

no, I came

to take back Sliptide

and I came

to meet her lover’s mind

and you are

uglying up the sky

that I liked

from my first flight

in this green dragon night

so I’m here to trash your hide

welking witch come here

(when a night commands you to come

in the astral plane

you go

but you also

know

you can wake up whenever,

just spit out the straws--

if you could think yourself back to your body

to move your lips

to do that,

you could wake up--

but the night

couldn’t eat me,

I slipped out of

its grasp

like water drops

sliding from the oiled hands

of a rain giant,

it couldn’t eat me,

but of course

I couldn’t speak spells there

since I couldn’t really speak at all

so how did I defeat the night

in the astral plane?)

I fed it

the memory

of the first time

I got food poisoning.

I was thirteen.

Spent a whole day

in the bathroom,

vomiting,

hoping not to vomit

at the same time

as the diarrhea

since I didn’t have

two toilets--

my bones shook,

weak;

minutes lasted long as hours

hands not even

able to stand

to crawl myself down the hall

to find some bread

to feed my trembling stomach--

this night

had never felt pain before

(apparently)

so it screeched

something awful,

screeched liked hypnotic waterfalls,

and I dropped into the yawning mouth

if it could be called a mouth

rather than a mind slurping orifice

weakling witch you frighten me

fight me

I’ll eat you

no lies

astral creatures spread no lies

so I didn’t lie back:

you have no teeth,

I told it.

I will not fight you

on your rules,

I told it.

And I fed it the memory

of breaking my forearm

in secondary school gym class

when I tripped on a football

then tried to catch myself on the grass;

the pain

pulsed under my skin

like someone

strung a hammer

to my heartbeat

and pounded my radius bone

from inside.

I gave it

the pain

of the other girls

giving me those sad makeup eyes

burning the skin of my face off

until I wanted to suffocate on my own tongue,

and the night

really couldn’t handle shame

it had too much pride for that

so it screamed wider

and I,

the Witch Kook,

water drop

in the night’s hands,

gnat

in its grasp,

went fishing

for memories

went listening

for Sliptide’s cry

went

seeking

slick minds,

and in my astral fingers

I found more than one dragon,

more than green dragons,

more than dragons inside this realm--

Clarissa,

I found you.

Chapter Text

I found you,

after a fashion.

I found the memory

of a dragon

who found you,

sixteen years through witch school,

less than half her way toward graduation

(if it took you as long as it took me).

If he ate you

right after you walked through the portal

he probably wouldn’t have remembered you,

so I wouldn’t have touched this memory of you either.

The strings of fate

never lie

(no lies)

and they told me

I’d torn us apart for all time

but they never said

the tearing feeling would end in the time it

took my boot

to break your chalk runes--

this memory

didn’t bring us together

it just made me hurt for you more

or less

since you did betray me,

but worse or less

the strings said

torn apart

and I guess they also made sure

to keep those wounds fresh.

REmemory

In the memory,

you sit on a silver egg.

It’s as round as you are tall,

and your fur-lined shoe

fits on one of its beige polka dots.

Your hair’s black

and straight

like I remember

and your hands look young

compared to mine now

and in the memory’s eye

you’re tiny

but laughing

and the memory-maker’s claw stretches forward

with some moss

and you take it

and eat it

and pretend to gag

but the giver knows you actually like it

and you slide off the egg

to approach the back of the cave

and bend down to drink

from a crystal pool of water.

By GOne

by golly

that’s the memory;

just you

with a mountain dragon

or maybe some other sort of dragon,

happy,

and by golly

I got jealous;

we joined the demons to survive

but I think

you escaped--

you tricked me one last time

to make your grand getaway

or I tricked myself

into thinking I won by staying alone

like I forgot

what we were really after--

were we trying to get home again

before wasting away of old age?

I honestly don’t remember

what we were after,

if we made a pact like that or not,

to train as witches

when no knight came to save us

just so we could escape,

or if our pact was worded more

about saving each other

and growing stronger than the demons--

Did we whisper these things to each other

in the dark?

Did we have a pact

at all?

My jealousy wants to think so,

wants to think

we had promises

and you broke them first out of selfishness,

that you made me forget them

with your jabs at my backside

So I’d close your portal and you could pin it on me.

My jealousy

wants it all

to be your fault

that I, Witch Kook, crazy for the demons and the power,

wound up on the cutting edge of the revenge, I guess,

while you, Clarissa, got to be happy in some mountain cave.

So my heart, my traitor heart,

reaching into the night’s maw

had to hold more than you

since it didn’t have the happiness you

knew

HArvest

The night

went searching for my body

to physically crush me

but inside its maw

I went too

and with closeness, the link between muscle and memory met

like magnets

so I popped the straws from my mouth,

sat up--

the plan was

to fish out Sliptide’s memories

with a spell

while the twenty-seven rings

drained the night 

and fed the trees

but you

you you you

clouded all plans,

I drew

my shaking walking stick in the shape

of the activation rune

for the summoning rings

and the night

overhead,

stars descending to crush me,

wailed

railed

against the magic.

I covered my ears,

crawled on sleep-stiff limbs

to the closest summoning ring

feeding the trees

on night life force

and picked out sticks

from the mud

to rewrite the runes

to feed me

a portion of the life instead,

and when the night

tried pulling away

I spoke a spell

to the retracting darkness:

slack kalah

rich el rien ruud

clorper cala slkickth

esthil thisel

coloc burl

burm

reapseeth blae

(weakling,

your life is mine)

and it was

so

Chapter Text

do you think there’s a league of mindless immortal dragons

advocating for their rights?

(answer: unknown)

Do you think it’s easier to return to the astral plane

while gutted on one twenty-seventh of a night’s life?

(answer: much easier, I didn’t even need the eyeball stew)

Do you think it’s hard to find specific dragons in the astral plane?

(answer: unknown, time’s hypnotic as river wings,

making the search

both long and short;

I passed through imaginary scenes

made by strangers

and made none of my own

like

that weakling witch

had to boast she wanted to meet a night

since

this stuffed witch

wanted to meet someone’s lover

to apologize

or somethin’--

not

attract

something hungry

for a stuffed

witch)

Do you think dragons accept apologies

for when you meant to get their lover’s memories back

but actually just ate the thing that ate them?

(answer: unknown,

when I did find Sliptide’s lover

she

didn’t want to speak to me,

said I smelled like foul things

--which I did--

but I tried to tell her

it was

because

I went after a thing

that ate her lover’s memory.

So could she get it out of me

or maybe get it out of the trees

vibrant on twenty-six twenty-sevenths

of the night’s life force,

whichever of us had it?

Cuz I regretted it madly,

except it had allowed me

to get here without collecting

all those fish eyes and pinecones and mushrooms again

and I might look as young as Clarissa again

but again

I think I regretted it,

mostly,

I think,

so if she could only take Sliptide’s memory back

and nothing else

I’d be fine with that)

Do you think dragons have excellent hearing in the astral plane?

(answer: no, nobody’s got hearing in the astral plane

but yes

Sliptide’s lover didn’t hear me

so I left,

check,

met her,

did what I said

time to go home

guess she didn’t want

my apology

but maybe

I was fine with that

?)

Do you think witches

can organize classes

for dragons to get their memories back?

(answer: probably.

If they had time

between trying to vomit the memory out

and hunting for spells and recipes that did that

and wondering if it was even worth it,

like, Sliptide had threatened to eat the witch

and had almost started to, once,

so it’s not like the witch owed her--

then one morning, groggy on dreams,

I remembered

when she said

I shouldn’t be worried

about her becoming a tyrant

and I said I wasn’t,

I was more worried about me)

So do you think

eating the night

made me a tyrant?

(answer: known,

but not admitted.

Because a part of me

then wondered

how long I could go

before someone would come

to tear me down)

And would Sliptide

be the one

to try to tear me down?

(answer: also unknown

since I just

suddenly no longer had the time

to try and restore her memories)

tear me down

I saw Sliptide again.

Touched her tail

like skin-to-skin contact

would tell me

what she’d think of me

if I somehow released memories

into her.

But she just spun

and snapped at my hand 

so I fled.

I guess

my life’s

short compared to hers,

the trees too,

so maybe

when the one of us

holding her memories

dies

she’ll get them back

just fine

well before

her lover wakes

from the astral realm.

If that’s even how

eaten memories work;

I don’t think

anyone’s ever studied that.

Sha la la la

If I shapeshifted to a tree,

I’d have to make sure

I kept my human brain in there--

fed well enough to maintain functionality--

so I’d have the presence of mind

to shapeshift back.

If I wanted to shapeshift back.

I could

shapeshift into a tree

and leave out my brain

and just

be a tree for the rest of my life.

The same

doesn’t work for small rodents--

obviously

you can’t fit a whole human brain

inside a mouse-body

along with all the necessary bones and muscles,

so instead

you have to retain

only the basics:

your mission,

and the spell to restore yourself.

Unless you didn’t.

You could retain

only the story

that you were a goddess

and the king of goddesses

cast you out cuz you weren’t pretty enough,

and now you had to find the spell

to get back.

I wonder

if she’d actually succeed

in making herself a goddess that way.