[Gallagher]

s l o w l y


drops fell

plip plip

beneath a moonless sky

plip

disappearing into dark waters

plip

undisturbed

plip

nothing

plip

no one

plip

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plip

plip


plip

A rustle of feathers.

plip

Light broke.


With naught but endless waters above and below, misery draped endlessly across both earth and heavens, the first moon of the ages rose. Its light, glimmering off of still waters, blinded the solitary queen. Wings spread, and fingers that were once feathers covered her face. The silence

silence of all

plip

all but her breaths

plip

and water

plip

The flesh beneath the thin sheet of her skin writhed, every inch burned with that cold light. She hid from it, hid behind long, delicate fingers as her chest heaved, as she fell

and she

screamed

as her knees hit not her black waters, but wood, the hard wood of a floor that caught her with a resounding thud and echoed the shriek that tore from her throat. And with the sound came a wave of magic, rising and bursting from under her kneeling form.

Then, in the mere breath it took for the Queen to appear — for her magic to break over the room, to throw aside anything and everything it met to crash against the walls — soft footfalls appeared on either side of her, unheard against her cries.

Two more figures shimmered into being, rippled and shining like reflections upon the water until they were as whole as their Queen. Figures identical in every way but for the hue of their eyes. They stood apart from one another, but brushed hand to hand and finger to finger in mirrored arabesque. Together, they folded, no sooner letting their feet touch the floor that they drew close to one another.

"Pitiful," one said as wails turned into ugly sobs.

"A tragedy," the other agreed.

Neither looked at the woman on the floor.