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“No singing now, no whispering — nothing but an echoing, high-pitched, hollow scream, which issues from nowhere and everywhere. And then, as if in answer, the island takes on a life filled with screams. I sink to my knees, in this moment almost willing the whirlwind to break me, but I am not the glass which it seeks.”
(lilimist/eNiGMa)

A romantic creation myth about a butterfly who wakes up from her cocoon too late and a star who falls to earth to save her.

{ first written & released by Vixen Phillips in 2004 }

And she lifted up her sad eyes to meet his gaze, and the star sighed heavily, knowing he could tell her no lie beyond the hour of their first meeting.

After the longest pause, in which two hearts may have all but ceased their beating, at last he sighed again, and spoke. “Do you remember, before our meeting, and your sleeping, the wish you made on that coldest of nights?”

Sorrowfully, the butterfly gazed down at her feet. “Yes,” she said. “I wished… I wished in that heart-broken moment I would die.”

“And break my heart you would have done, had some twist of fate allowed your wish to be.” The star’s voice trembled with the power of such truth that resonated outwards from within him. “It is true, butterfly beloved, that stars do not fall to earth in the rains. A silly lie to tell, and one I regretted the moment it fell from my lips, and now must I regret it again.

“And yet, if you must have the whole truth of my kin’s nature, then here it is: we fall to earth to grant and gift any wish made which is absolute and selfless. But too, the spider has told you the truth — for it was not your wish I chose to grant, but rather my own, for I would not see you die, and all beauty and hope fade forever from this world. Also, I made a promise to your brethren, and the moment I caught sight of your lovely face and glittering wings, and heard your voice which could only have come of an angel’s sacrificial gifting, I foolishly thought I could do you some good, and fallen to earth perhaps I might shine for you, and re-awaken the world, as only the sun could. Therein have I revealed my impurity, and perhaps it is impurity, which I know to be the spider’s choice of words and not my beloved’s own.”

And the butterfly’s jade eyes faded silver with tears as she gazed upon him and made slow sense of the words he spoke, though the star had not yet finished.

“But my worst impurity is still to be revealed, for in the hour I fell, I met with the maid of winter, a force more terrible and powerful than a mere baby star, as she so rightly called me, in heaven had ever felt or reckoned with. I could not shine for you as anything more than a bauble, a frivolous token of fancy, all the while we and all the earth were held frozen in her taloned embrace. So I tried to teach you songs, and sharing, and love, and history, all the while concealing my greatest failing.

“But, though I hid this failure from you, it was not such a heavy weight on my heart as perhaps it should have been — for the greatest truth of all protected and comforted me — and that truth is that I love you, now and eternally.

“Do not hate me, butterfly,” he concluded now, with a sob of his own, daring to brush a tear from her cheek. “Not for my sake, but rather that my own wish would be to cease, were your heart to become tainted of such purity, all for the cause of a worthless creature like me.”

At these final words, the butterfly let out a soft cry, and fell into his arms, covering the star with kisses bittersweet. “You fool, you perfect fool!” she sobbed. “You did all that for me. Such a sacrifice to cherish, and all the while I never knew, I never once knew I had given my heart not to a baby star but an angel birthing.

“Oh, star!” She trembled now as she gazed in love and grief upon him. “I will not allow such a sacrifice to make an end of us both in this cold world — I have wings to fly, because of you, and songs for the journey that together we may sing.”

And she held him close one more time as she revealed to him her decision. “Angel star, my eternal beloved, I myself will fly you back to heaven.”

✿ ✿ ✿

The Butterfly Vow by lilimist   Page 13 of 16   writing

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