orchidveil.net

“Because now that it’s finally morning, the shadows are beginning to fade, the shadows that have been covering my mind and my soul. Now that they’re gone, I can almost start to see the way, and it’s different from the one they’d convinced me was all I could have.”
(Vixen Phillips/Trapdoor)

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 }

A few hours later, though the rains had long fallen brutal and hard, the butterfly gently roused herself from sleep, shook out her wings, and carefully fluttered to her feet. The world all around seemed of a sudden to sparkle, and yet she felt dry beyond its veils of mist. Glancing upwards, as the light caught her eye, she came now face to face with the tear-stained star, who had lain above her all this time, protecting her delicate wings. Not knowing much of stars, for all the nights she had surrendered to dreaming, she would have thought him only a beautiful gem, except that he was still crying. So, clearing her throat with the most graceful of coughs, she fluttered cautiously closer and asked of him shyly, “What are you, and where did you come from? Are you the first flower of spring?”

For, though still cold, the world did indeed appear cast in a different aura this morning, and the butterfly was already growing very hungry. But her heart felt a twinge of unexpected sympathy as the star shook his head before answering, “No, little butterfly, I am not a flower, though I wish I were now, that I might have some gift worth giving. I am only a star, and I am all alone, and it is still winter, though I wished it not to be.” And he hung his head in shame as her eyes lit up, and her wings sparkled joyously while their flutter speed increased.

“A star!” she breathed, with no little excitement. “I know a song for stars, and it has been so long since I have had reason to sing.” Without even waiting for an invitation, she began then to recite the nightingale’s sonnet, and her voice was so lovely that soon the star felt his own heart warming.

At the end of the verse, however, she broke off of a sudden, and tentatively took up her place beside him on the rosebush’s leaf. “Star,” she whispered softly, “what are you doing here?”

And the star trembled to feel her heart beating so close, though he yet hid his face from her ashamedly. Unable to bear the thought of his failure being revealed so soon upon their first meeting, he said rather, as casually as possible, “For many days and nights have the rains fallen heavily, even while little rainbows were asleep.” And he smiled, despite himself, to see her blush at his use of this term of endearment. But, as she waited, he continued his story:

“It rained so hard that the sky opened up, and I, being closest to the velvet’s edge, fell right on through, and fell, and fell, till I found myself here.”

“Oh, how awful!” exclaimed the butterfly, who was really a very caring little thing. “Have you no way of returning home at all?”

“No.” With a fond smile, the star again shook his head. Glancing at her sideways, he added hastily, “You must feel no pity for me, you understand. Such things happen quite often to many of my kin.”

On hearing that word — ‘kin’ — the butterfly fell still and silent for quite a while, so that even her wings ceased completely their fluttering. Then, she murmured softly, “Kin… brothers and sisters? Others like you? Tell me what it is like to have these kin.” And she edged a little closer, and the star felt heady with the scents of lilies and violets flowing and arising from her porcelain skin.

Taking a deep breath, both to calm his heart as well as borrow a moment in which to think where to begin, he too edged a little closer, until the butterfly could feel her own body twinkling.

The Butterfly Vow by lilimist   Page 9 of 16   writing

go to page:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  …Next Page