Aurelie Dankworth
Knight
- Local time
- Today 12:57 PM
- Messages
- 49
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They name the meteor Olive, after the branch no one believes it carries.
It's visible now at dusk: a steady ember stitched among bruised clouds, so bright you can see it before the first stars come out. Everyone says it looks closer every night. Maybe that's true. Perhaps it just feels that way.
In the village of Alder's Hollow, they mark the days on a chalkboard nailed to the old post office wall. Every dawn, a child is chosen to erase the number and write the new one beneath it — 100, 99, 98. They say the end is gentler when you make children part of the counting. It teaches them there's no monster in the dark, just a clock no one can reset.
It's the color of river clay, warm in her palms. No note. No footprints in the frost. No sound except the wind combing through brittle hedges.
She takes it inside, tucks it in a basket by the hearth. Stares at it while her tea goes cold. She tells herself it's a prank. A kindness. A curse. She doesn't know which answer feels safest.
Three days later, the egg cracks. A tiny beak pecks out, ragged and furious. The creature that crawls into the firelight is not a bird. Not exactly.
It's feathered, yes — downy tufts of indigo and pale gold — but its tail coils like a lizard's, and its eyes are too bright, green-gold like old glass. When it sees Mirella, it doesn't cry for food. It only blinks. Once. Twice.
And then it hums.
A note so soft and pure that Mirella's chest aches in a place she thought long sealed.
They bring old stories, too.
"Like the Phoenix," says old Ruth, squinting at the nestling perched on Mirella's shoulder. "Or maybe a Basilisk chick. Mind its eyes, dear."
"It's a sign," insists Brother Jael, clutching his tattered book of psalms. "A promise. A warning. A gift. The end and the beginning."
Mirella nods politely, feeds her hatchling tiny scraps of fish. She calls it Ash.
By Day 67, Ash is bigger than a cat. His feathers shift in color when he dreams. He curls around her shoulders at night, hums into her collarbone until her heartbeat matches his.
Sometimes, when no one's near, Mirella whispers secrets into his down—things she's never told the Hollow's gossiping ears. That she's glad she has no children to teach counting. That her husband, gone four winters now, would've watched Olive without fear. That she wants to believe she's more than the sum of her waiting.
People start leaving offerings in front of Mirella's door: candles, sweets, pressed flowers from brittle gardens. She tries to refuse them. They insist. They say Ash is the answer, the shield. He'll carry prayers skyward, or breathe flame against stone, or sing Olive back to sleep.
Mirella hates them for it. Loves them for it. She knows hope when she sees it — the same brittle thing that kept her husband's last cough a secret until it wasn't.
Sometimes when he sings, people stop arguing about bunkers and buckets and whether the government lied. They just stand in the square, listening. Letting the last cold wind comb through their hair like a mother's hand.
Ash is hungry all the time. He eats fish, bread, scraps of salted meat. Mirella's pantry is a ghost of itself.
Some say she should set him loose — that something so wild shouldn't stay caged by human walls. But Ash never tries to leave. When Mirella opens the door wide, he stays. When she cracks a window, he curls on the sill but never flies.
She begins to wonder if he can.
Mirella packs a bag. She doesn't know where she'll go — only that she won't stay. She's halfway down the garden path when Ash blocks her way, feathers bristling, song rising sharp as thunder.
He doesn't want to run. She understands, then. He never did.
Mirella sits on her porch with Ash beside her. He's too large for her lap now, but he rests his head in it anyway, huge eyes closed, humming. People gather in the street. They don't ask questions anymore. They just listen.
Sometimes children climb onto Ash's back, nestle into his feathers. He lets them. He hums to them too.
Mirella runs a hand along his scales, down to where feathers meet skin that glows faintly from within — a little ember to match the dying star above.
"Will you fly?" she asks him, voice hoarse. "Or will you stay?"
Ash opens his eyes. In their depths, she sees dawns not yet broken. Seeds not yet planted. She thinks of the old stories Ruth told — the Phoenix, the serpent swallowing its tail, the egg that births the world again and again.
Ash hums. And hums.
And hums.
The final number on the chalkboard is so white it seems to swallow the wood beneath it. Children stand in the square, chalk dust on their fingers. Their parents hold them. Some hold each other. Some hold nothing at all.
Ash stretches his wings for the first time. They are massive, veined with light, patterned like the night sky before Olive swallowed the stars.
Mirella stands beside him, hand buried in his feathers. She feels his heartbeat under her palm — steady, thunderous, old as something yet to be born.
When the ground trembles, when the air splits with a sound like every bell tolling at once, Ash lifts his head.
He sings.
And as the meteor falls — burning, beautiful, cruel — Ash leaps skyward. His wings tear the air. His voice braids itself around the people below.
They watch him rise — a single feathered promise — until the sky swallows him and the falling stone in the same breath.
Some say the impact never comes — that the Hollow shudders once, then goes still. That when the dust clears, Olive is gone and Ash is gone too, and the children find tiny clay-colored eggs hidden in the hedgerows.
Some say the end came as promised — fire and stone, silence and ash — but that the Hollow blooms anew beneath the ruin. That somewhere, deep in the scorched earth, an ember hums still, waiting for someone to listen.
Mirella's house stands empty, but her door stays open. Inside, if you're quiet, you might hear it: a soft song curling in the hearth, warm enough to light a life on.
A promise.
A warning.
A gift.
The end. And the beginning.
It's visible now at dusk: a steady ember stitched among bruised clouds, so bright you can see it before the first stars come out. Everyone says it looks closer every night. Maybe that's true. Perhaps it just feels that way.
In the village of Alder's Hollow, they mark the days on a chalkboard nailed to the old post office wall. Every dawn, a child is chosen to erase the number and write the new one beneath it — 100, 99, 98. They say the end is gentler when you make children part of the counting. It teaches them there's no monster in the dark, just a clock no one can reset.
It's the color of river clay, warm in her palms. No note. No footprints in the frost. No sound except the wind combing through brittle hedges.
She takes it inside, tucks it in a basket by the hearth. Stares at it while her tea goes cold. She tells herself it's a prank. A kindness. A curse. She doesn't know which answer feels safest.
Three days later, the egg cracks. A tiny beak pecks out, ragged and furious. The creature that crawls into the firelight is not a bird. Not exactly.
It's feathered, yes — downy tufts of indigo and pale gold — but its tail coils like a lizard's, and its eyes are too bright, green-gold like old glass. When it sees Mirella, it doesn't cry for food. It only blinks. Once. Twice.
And then it hums.
A note so soft and pure that Mirella's chest aches in a place she thought long sealed.
They bring old stories, too.
"Like the Phoenix," says old Ruth, squinting at the nestling perched on Mirella's shoulder. "Or maybe a Basilisk chick. Mind its eyes, dear."
"It's a sign," insists Brother Jael, clutching his tattered book of psalms. "A promise. A warning. A gift. The end and the beginning."
Mirella nods politely, feeds her hatchling tiny scraps of fish. She calls it Ash.
By Day 67, Ash is bigger than a cat. His feathers shift in color when he dreams. He curls around her shoulders at night, hums into her collarbone until her heartbeat matches his.
Sometimes, when no one's near, Mirella whispers secrets into his down—things she's never told the Hollow's gossiping ears. That she's glad she has no children to teach counting. That her husband, gone four winters now, would've watched Olive without fear. That she wants to believe she's more than the sum of her waiting.
People start leaving offerings in front of Mirella's door: candles, sweets, pressed flowers from brittle gardens. She tries to refuse them. They insist. They say Ash is the answer, the shield. He'll carry prayers skyward, or breathe flame against stone, or sing Olive back to sleep.
Mirella hates them for it. Loves them for it. She knows hope when she sees it — the same brittle thing that kept her husband's last cough a secret until it wasn't.
Sometimes when he sings, people stop arguing about bunkers and buckets and whether the government lied. They just stand in the square, listening. Letting the last cold wind comb through their hair like a mother's hand.
Ash is hungry all the time. He eats fish, bread, scraps of salted meat. Mirella's pantry is a ghost of itself.
Some say she should set him loose — that something so wild shouldn't stay caged by human walls. But Ash never tries to leave. When Mirella opens the door wide, he stays. When she cracks a window, he curls on the sill but never flies.
She begins to wonder if he can.
Mirella packs a bag. She doesn't know where she'll go — only that she won't stay. She's halfway down the garden path when Ash blocks her way, feathers bristling, song rising sharp as thunder.
He doesn't want to run. She understands, then. He never did.
Mirella sits on her porch with Ash beside her. He's too large for her lap now, but he rests his head in it anyway, huge eyes closed, humming. People gather in the street. They don't ask questions anymore. They just listen.
Sometimes children climb onto Ash's back, nestle into his feathers. He lets them. He hums to them too.
Mirella runs a hand along his scales, down to where feathers meet skin that glows faintly from within — a little ember to match the dying star above.
"Will you fly?" she asks him, voice hoarse. "Or will you stay?"
Ash opens his eyes. In their depths, she sees dawns not yet broken. Seeds not yet planted. She thinks of the old stories Ruth told — the Phoenix, the serpent swallowing its tail, the egg that births the world again and again.
Ash hums. And hums.
And hums.
The final number on the chalkboard is so white it seems to swallow the wood beneath it. Children stand in the square, chalk dust on their fingers. Their parents hold them. Some hold each other. Some hold nothing at all.
Ash stretches his wings for the first time. They are massive, veined with light, patterned like the night sky before Olive swallowed the stars.
Mirella stands beside him, hand buried in his feathers. She feels his heartbeat under her palm — steady, thunderous, old as something yet to be born.
When the ground trembles, when the air splits with a sound like every bell tolling at once, Ash lifts his head.
He sings.
And as the meteor falls — burning, beautiful, cruel — Ash leaps skyward. His wings tear the air. His voice braids itself around the people below.
They watch him rise — a single feathered promise — until the sky swallows him and the falling stone in the same breath.
Some say the impact never comes — that the Hollow shudders once, then goes still. That when the dust clears, Olive is gone and Ash is gone too, and the children find tiny clay-colored eggs hidden in the hedgerows.
Some say the end came as promised — fire and stone, silence and ash — but that the Hollow blooms anew beneath the ruin. That somewhere, deep in the scorched earth, an ember hums still, waiting for someone to listen.
Mirella's house stands empty, but her door stays open. Inside, if you're quiet, you might hear it: a soft song curling in the hearth, warm enough to light a life on.
A promise.
A warning.
A gift.
The end. And the beginning.
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