Aorta

the stories of the cheshire cat, and the way it would fade away to only a grin - the second before it disappears together, the gleam of teeth thread-thin and twisting in emptiness. epic poems and forgotten stories; homer's wine-dark sea. the burn of homemade cordial, gulped with white-knuckled fingers. deep rich-red velvet, one shade darker than blood. thin silver inlays in graceful swirling lines.

In mid-autumn the Labyrinth's god-tree reaches its prime, laden with ambrosial fruit yet beyond the reach of any bird, beast, or dragon. As the moon ripens to harvest fullness, so too does the fruit of the god-tree. On this night only, its crown leans heavily upon the rim of the red moon's brow, seeking a goddess's touch.

Quickly and quietly, the Moon Goddess and her guiding light relieve the god-tree of its fruit so it may again raise its verdant crown, and that beneath it we on Sornieth might enjoy another year hidden from the Shade's hunger.

But what of the Moon Goddess?

***

As the night sinks deeper into itself, the sprite's long ears tremble with the distant echoes of a many-chambered and much-cursed heart; a hide of cold, blinking stars that splits, erupts, and collapses inward; the cycle of cosmic death and cosmic rebirth...

It's close.

Their paws fumble the sacred pestle (“close” is always too close) as they mash the god-tree's noxious seeds into flour and its flesh into jam for their charge's ritual meal. It will grant ascendancy to her mind, body, and soul, so she might do battle with the Shade in its own weird and slant dimension.

As she has done for the millennia since her First Ascendance, the goddess shares a toast with her guide-sprite and those who still honor her name...before the next moon rises in her ready claws, its crescent honed by her fiery and dutiful blood.

On the coldest winter nights, when autumn has long gone to ground to await the new year, remember Aorta the Loftheart, Master of the Moonscale Sickle, which sings brightest when the moon is but a lean, whisper-sharp rib beneath the night's hide of cold stars.