flaming jewels

Night Ice (vi): loa

I cross myself before I die
The leaping man, he asks me, "why?"
"well your rhythm is off" I reply
"No you must dance the dance that you imply!"
"Your actions will follow you full circle round,
the higher the leap, I said, the harder the ground!"
--Indigo Girls, "center stage"

love is the law
--the suburbs

I stagger, carrying her. She is not heavy--she is as light as a bird's pinion--but the strength in me is oozing away quickly.

Behind me I hear the ice cracking. Perhaps the soldiers are coming after us, accusing us with their icy eyes of disturbing their dreams. I must move.
Slip.
Rise.
Slip.
Rise.
Slip.

And so it goes.

I dream of being warm. It is what keeps me on my feet, I think.

The hunter is moving ahead of us. He has probably healed already, by now. I can make a rough estimate of how much he is healed from my sister, who is awake now, with arms and legs whole. She murmurs against my jacket, incoherent words.
"love is..." she says, but her voice is lost in the wind.

Love is?

I hear clanking beside me, ahead of me. Laughter, cold and hard. "...march," moans my sister. MARCH! comes the command. There are soldiers flanking us, icy cold soldiers with the eyes of a crow.

"Oh, look, we have an honor guard," I say, and the wind whips my words away. The laughter grows. I curl my sister to me, for she shivers uncontrollably. The hunter is probably cold, too, intensifying the cold she feels, for she is bound to him. He will find someplace warm and wait for us. I know it. Warm...warm.

The laughter changes. The orders, given to soldiers, cease. The marching ceases. Ahead of me I hear children, laughing, banishing the laughter of the crow. The scraaaape of blade against ice is loud amidst the cold trees. We have come to another lake. I carry my sister out to the ice and dump her there. The children, their mouths shocked and their eyes on fire, scatter. My sister moans. She reflects the snow, the ice, back at me. The brightness surrounds her.
"love..."

Ah heaven I need to be warm. She whispers at me, a secret I cannot divine. I lean close to her, kiss her. It is very cold; she is very cold. Love. Love is. I pick her up again. She has absorbed the ice, now it is time for fire. The warming shed looms, like a cave.

{there is a cave in my heart
a fire burns there
come in! come in and warm your hands!}

I take her inside. She moans her thanks. She seems to be giving me a warning.

"love is..."

I must ask. "What is love, then?"

"love," she whispers, "is the law. the kiss, the kiss. love is the law." And he comes, like a raven, from the inner sanctuary of the warmth, and is upon me.

I drop my sister at the impact, and he knocks me backwards, back into the snow. I am destined, it seems, for the cold. I look up, and barely deflect an ice knife with my upraised arm. He means to kill me, I suppose. Well, I mean to kill him just as dead. My teeth bare in a parody of a grin. I pull a knife from its wrist sheath.

From behind the hunter, light spills from the warming shed, pooling on the hunter and casting me in shadow. But between blows, I see my sister stand up and hold onto the doorway with both hands. And I know she is going to sing. My grin broadens in anticipation. It will be a coup. Not even the angel of death can stand upright before a song from my snowy sister.

"love is the law
love is the law" she sings and time stops for the hunter. He ceases all motion and looks like someone has shown him his past. And my sister sings.

"love is the law
love is
rose red and snow white
gilded gold and liquid bright"

{i adore her! je t'adore, my sister...i worship thee.}

I feel my smile growing and growing until it is like to split my face. For I understand, now. Love is the law. And of course, since my sister and I are in love, we make the laws. I make the law. I intend to exercise my law, now.

I leap upon him.

He is warm--he is light, he is burning. I feel a great deal of anger for all the warmth he is holding inside himself. I feel a very strong desire to take it away from him. Love, after all, is the law. I slam my mouth down on his, and my knife finds his eye at the same time.

As a kiss, I can't say it was bad. This kiss, a consummation of hunter and hunted, was like lightning. But as a lightquencher, I can never have enough light, never enough warmth. I can take it all and it will never fill the great void that is inside me. He is full of light, and it spills into me. The blood from his eye rains warm onto my face and hands, and he jerks like a pinned butterfly as I kiss him. Love is the law, and I have exercised judgment on the man who has bound my sister. A great light emanates from him, and I hear a cry behind me. The bond is broken, and my sister has one less chain on her (o if only i could break the legion that still hold her!). Then the light is all absorbed into myself, and there is nothing else to do but leave him for the crows to pick at. And his blood spills, rose red on the white of the snow.

His coat has faded to brown, the brown of a soldier that has been on ice for days. I am dizzy, but it passes. I spit on him as I walk past. He did not even have enough light to pool at the bottom of me. The angel of death, now...but I shall never get close to him again.

I reach out and touch my sister, and when she touches my hand, blood smears onto her and lightning arcs to her. She raises her hand to her mouth, and delicately licks his blood from her her fingers. The lightning aftermath goes into her, and she smiles.

"love is the law."
"ah, yes," I agree. "love is the law."

And the light spills, beckons, from the shed. Together, we walk inside.

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jewel@gleeful.com
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