KINGDOM COME . . . apollo

𝔦. Wraith / Is it a God inside you, girl?

I.
Wraith: Is it a God inside you, girl?

Let's begin: the sea does not forgive, and it is yet to forget.

We open with the sight of the drowning sun. Naomi Vanserra stands at the shore, one foot in the water and the other digging into the sand. The tides, bleached gold, lap at the coast, rustling softly alongside the wind. The air smells of salt and the sand caves in, aching to swallow her whole. Before her the entirety of the horizon spreads its arms, beckoning for her to walk right into the embrace of the dying star in the distance.

Aeaea is a strange place. Here, the fall of the sun drags out for longer than it does in the outside world— arrested in the midst of its undoing, it hangs in the air like a god on the crucifix, a death that keeps on dying. Gold spills across the land, ichor from a wound.

"You should look away," comes the voice of her best friend. "It's a miracle you're not blind even after all that staring into the sun."

Hylla wraps her arms around Naomi's torso, resting her chin on the girl's shoulder. The ocean breeze weaves into her hair, dusting the tangled dark waves with salt spray. She laughs as Naomi sighs, a cross of endearment and exasperation, and her brown eyes look gold in the afterlight.

"What, are you worried for me?" Naomi says, leaning into her embrace.

"Do you want me to be?"

Naomi can only laugh. Hylla, her dark hair a halo against the sun, untangles her arms from Naomi and steps to face her. She pulls out one of the flowers braided in her hair, tucking it behind her best friend's ear. The gold in the half light bends around her frame, silhouetting her in sharp relief as if shining just for her.

"Look away," she admonishes Naomi. "You'll go blind."

"I'd gladly have you be the last thing I see."

Hylla scoffs, "Shameless flirt."

"Only for you, darling," Naomi laughs again.

The waning rays of the sun kiss the side of her face, warm and sickly sweet in its comfort; the motion falls short as the sea throws her head back and swallows the dying star.

In that infinitesimal moment, they go under, and Naomi swears there's a speck of gold in the distance that disappears a fraction of time slower than the rest of the ichor staining the landscape does, a wound on the horizon in the shape of a god.

He is on one of the cliffs in the distance, leaning back on his arms even as the rock cuts into his skin and draws blood. The final remnants of sunlight linger around his figure, blurry residues of gold drawn to the god.

He turns to face her. His blonde hair curls around his face, turning silver as the night descends upon them. Golden eyes flash at her, long eyelashes brushing across sharp cheekbones as he tilts his head and offers her a smile.

Even from far away, she can hear him: I know you, don't I?

The air tears its way out of her lungs, a violent exit wound in its wake. There is a wrenching feeling that twists into existence in the pit of her stomach— the world plunges into darkness, closing in, in, in, until they are the only two beings in existence, the sun and a nominal planet in its orbit, the god and the ghost girl. The shoreline laps at her feet, rising, salt water in her chest and, oh, the blood, there is so much of it—

The woman is there again, standing before her. She is beautiful, haunting, in a way that inspires thought of the ichor-born— features sharp and soft in all the right places, the light from the god slanting across the delicate planes of her face.