➴ technicolor
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her heaven is only half alive
i fell asleep in his, but he could not breathe in mine
— Study the stars. It was a welcome break to no longer be surrounded by the massive trunks of towering trees, their leaves choking the canopies of the finally-clear night sky. Jendayi could not deny herself the beauty of the northern stars, knowing all too well how often the aurora and the galaxies shining above displayed their true beauty during nights such as these. Quick was she to abandon all her efforts in hunting and building her den, deciding tonight, so long as the weather permitted, she would sleep under the stars. She headed north, fighting away the bitter cold (and thankful that the still weather included a lack of wind, too), and soon approaching a thin in the trees. She did not break the line of them, however—it was odd, but it seemed the further she moved north, the more stumped the trees grew. The soft snow-covered ground quickly grew hard with ice, and the roots and small poking grasses of the trunks quickly disappeared, as if the large trees were sinking. Eventually, the trees grew more sparse and became shorter in their odd ways, freeing the sky of the canopy’s hold and displaying the wide range of twinkling stars abovehead. The moon was but a sliver against the dark corner of the sky, and did not steal the light away from the magnificent sights above. Jendayi was distracted so much by the stars she failed to notice the spectacle right before her, touchable, if she’d only avert her gaze downward. The massive expanse of chatoyant space gave way to beautiful nebula, splatterings of soft greens and blues speckled in the sky like a masterful watercolor, the unyielding blackness its canvas, but even that was pretty. Some stars were bigger than others, and few seemed to twinke—like flickering small lights in the far-off distance. The aurora was distant and weak, the night far too young to bare its fruit in its entirety quite yet, but the stars were just enough for Jendayi to enjoy. Eventually, her path stopped, and between the branches of half-sunken trees did she settled to a sit, her head curved upward, her eyes content to glance across the night sky in its entirety Here, the world was open enough for her to see everything; the borders of mountaintops and the endless horizons in the background giving way to the spectacle in between. A blissful sigh exhaled from the maiden’s lips, and for the first time since her arrival in the north, she finally felt in a blissful peace and quiet. The trees were all but forgotten. |
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I have yet to see a spectacle more beautiful than the norðrljós. “The norðrljós,” Jendayi responds, her croon a quiet and soft noise, as if not to disturb the stars above them, “is that what you call them?” She turns her gaze, and golden eyes soon fall upon the alabaster and splotched form of a woman somewhat taller than she. She spies also the two ravens at her sides—a curious sight, Jendayi had never thought the other species to ally themselves with wolves (she thinks bitterly to her homelands, where other species were not treated with the same respect, but quickly pushed aside the thought). She turns her eyes northward once more, content to continue looking toward the sky and revel in its spectacle so long as the woman beside her was unaggressive. This night was far too beautiful to disrupt it with blood and anger, and Jendayi thought that perhaps Naudir knew that, too. She said nothing else, but instead continued to revel in the skyline. It is only when her eyes trace the outer edge of the sky does she finally see the tops of trees much shorter than they should be. Jendayi’s tunneling attention finally falters, and now she begins to notice the mysteriousness in this forest along. The ground had long turned to ice, and underneath it she could see the remnants of green and deep brown where the bottom half of the trees were, petrified underneath the earth, allowing Jendayi to see the forest as if she were a bird flying among its canopy. Some of the trees were toppled and ruined, a beautiful painting preserved underneath the ever-frozen black ice. How odd and beautiful, she thinks, and quickly presses her nose to the ground. She wonders how thick the ice is, how long it has been here to keep this forest green despite the harsh winters. Above the sheets the branches had long lost their leaves and had grown barren as they usually did, but underneath it looked as if it were still in the thick of summer, when the snow mostly melts and the land blossoms with emerald and gold. “This forest is strange, too,” Jendayi comments mildly, the flower tucked behind her ear shifting with the curl of her head. Her gaze seeks the woman once more, having not heard her move on or her scent dissipate. She would not turn away a companion who knew more about this place than she (especially on such a good night, which had put Jendayi in a particularly better mood than she usually was). How odd it was to think that now she stood underneath an endless expanse of shining stars, among a frozen forest left half alive. |