fallaces sunt rerum species [r]

she wakes up at all and she is not alone. between these things, sophia is not sure which is the bigger surprise.

it doesn't register to sophia yet that she is a prisoner on a picnic with her jailer. those are complex thoughts for another time. for now, she devours the contents of the wax paper with barely any regard for the burnt smell of grass or the woman who held the key to her way out. she cleans the bones as throughly as she might have done to the woman a few nights back.

the last bone hits the ground, a little too white to have been devoured mere moments ago. it is then that humiliation creeps back, a cold sheen of sweat on the back of her neck.

it's their curse, her mother had said. it's their curse that they can never truly live apart from other living things. see how freely the antelope runs, but not across barren earth.

do you think that the humans are right? are they wise?

her mother had told her that she takes after her father, and sophia knew that it was her way of calling her daughter soft. her mother didn't ask the questions. her mother had not been soft. she knew the truth, and the truth is this: the living do not exist through luck or providence. life justifies itself, regardless of any tale.

there are several ways that the tale can end, but none of them are for her. sophia stopped listening a long time ago. there is no wisdom in being alone. she simply is. '

but that's not what people want. that's not the song that the hunter hums to himself as he sharpens his blade. what people want is to fill the crevices with their symbols and metaphors and everything in between. somewhere out in the world, there is a foolish man who tells himself that they are the axis that hold the world aloft.

time trudges on when none of these things exist. sophia isn't sure if that is the problem or the solution anymore.

she can't imagine the girl-child's motivations for keeping her alive anymore, but doubtless they lie beyond the realm of claws and teeth. she waits with unblinking eyes. 

LAIKA OF GAGNAM STYLE

she's been living under shades of grey all her life, but that didn't mean that things weren't simple. staying alive was simple. feeding was simple. killing was simple.

when a woman lives to be sixty, every complication seems to have melted down into a pot of collective memory. humans seemed to be the only ones who wanted black and white to coexist seperately.

sophia is neither of those things. she is a shade of grey that only she can understand.

she doesn't know what a sentence is. it doesn't occur to her to ask. when she thinks of empire, she thinks of black-gold coats and the white light reflected off of their steel swords. the empire wants justice. justice is blood and serrated flesh. never for a moment does it occur to sophia that justice can be a beautiful word instead of a half-healed scab.

sophia condenses the situation for her captor. never let it be said that she wasn't very cooperative.

"i am going to die."

that's about all that she really got out of the speech. the worst part of all of this is, she's been given the time to regret. that's why she's being set here to have a last meal. that's why they're standing on all this ceremony. they want to give her a proper execution and pretend that having her head loped off and watching her starve in a cell aren't the same thing.

she's being given a story. an ending. sophia isn't sure how to feel about that. confusion, yes. fear, no. regrets-- maybe. maybe it's only a regret if she wants to have done something differently. the truth is, she doesn't know. maybe there was a limit to what she could have done all along.

sophia picks up the cold water and holds it in her hands to stave off the heat. it's a good distraction from the stronger chill in her bones.

LAIKA OF GAGNAM STYLE

she's not sure what deserving had to do with anything. sophia had been feeding on human entrails since she had been an infant. by any human measure, she's 'deserved' death a thousand times over. she knows these things and she chooses life every time the path branches out. justice has long since lost any weight it may have had.

"whatever falls on my head."

but justice has nothing to do with her desire to be alive. justice has nothing to do with her unwiilingness to be chained to another wall.

she wonders quietly, why the girl feels the need to lie. sophia can see the uniform shimmering in the sun. she's been crossing swords with her for the past day or so. it doesn't matter. the verdict is the same.

if she can't have life then sophia will steal death from the ferryman's own hand. she can't think of anything more repugnant than becoming a pet. maybe her burning flesh would be a strong contender, but she won't have to experience that for long.

she stands and turns around to face the flames. sophia has to remind herself that it would be a better ending that her mother had got.

it's been years since she had seen the fey-seer. sophia wonders if she is alone. surely she is. the world is kind to no one, especially not to a handful of wanderers lost to the winds. were they able to choose the flame, or were they forced to endure iron?

sorry, mama. she's waited for this choice. every neck that she had broken, every monster that she had felled.

she reaches for the flames.

LAIKA OF GAGNAM STYLE

she stops. the weight in her feet is steady. firmly planted into the ground. neither forward or backwards, but a state of in-between.

my time

something about those words prick at sophia's skin like hidden brambles in the snow. of course the prisoners never get to choose their own fate or time of day. that's what she is. a prisoner to this girl-child.

she would rather die whole than to be taken apart. sophia makes the mistake of thinking that she's making a real choice at all when all that she can see are variations of what she does not want.

she catches the pouch with one hand, but she wrinkles her nose at the smell of who came so close to being her murderer.

"never tried." sophia replies almost absentmindedly. it would be easy to shake herself free of the girl's grip, but then she would have to confront what comes after.

LAIKA OF GAGNAM STYLE