Sulva is the Moon, Whose Dead Side Faces Us and Who Bears Life Upon her Dark Half
“Consider: Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.”
She says, the younger sister standing
Somewhere between Then and Now,
Adjacent to Never and Resting like a ship in port above Forever,
Or, to tell it true,
I do not know where and when they were,
But that there were two of them
There are always two of them, in different guises across varied time there are
Always Two.
One, she upon the right,
A Proud mare and a Good one,
Her heart beat in her chest like a sturdy marching drum, her eyes
Like bonfires blazed with burning Charity, her
Lips tasted of Honey, her
Body was the Sun and her hooves were cast in shining bronze
Light, blinding and searing light pours from her unendingly, and
Here, past the furthest shore and beyond the sphere of the world she
Lets down her mane
And her glory is free, her body a ripple of the solar wind upon Arbol.
What heart can hide from such a light? What eye can see it? What mind could
If it were possible to see her for long
Bear it? There are terrors of the flesh and of the spirit, born of miserable things
But there is another Terror, and that is the knowledge, like knives at one’s throat
Digging in
That Someone has seen too much and brought too much of you into the light
And that there is nothing coming but some
Awful
Embrace--
To say it in short what horror compares to Love without Expectation?
That is what it is like to see the Sun, walking in the god’s playing field
Between one universe and the next.
Yet her sister was different.
See the moon,
See it, if you can--
Her form is nothing and no one, it is
Less presence. No presence, but the weight of the lack of Something
How dark is the night which knows no torch, no candle, no
Stars by which prisoners in baleful cages chart their coming escape
And yet that night which passes eventually can not compare to the Night Exultant
What revelries can soil the streets of the cities, what passion could lovers have, what
Torments could wrack lonely minds in the feverish valley between midnight and morning
That could compare to this deepst Night, which shrouds the Moon
For she too has let her glory unfurl in the safety of the space between worlds.
Her hooves are silver, her eyes are dark pools beneath the coldest mountains, her
Steps are measured to plum upon the wild beats of distant paeans. Her lips are wine and
Hemlock, her body is the formless darkness which sits in wait at the base of the skull
Patient for that last gentle Departure. To see her is to see
That last rendezvous with death that all things have, the clearing at the end of the path where sits
Some Other Thing
Different from all that came before it,
And if one could bear to watch
(If one could bear not to watch)
Perhaps she would turn her eyes on you, and then
If so
You would know what it is like not to be seen, not to be
Found out so much as Known.
It is one thing to have the secrets you buried deep beneath your house come
Awful into the light
And it is another entirely to have those secrets kept where they are
And have someone recite them by rote, their voice
Mocking and then Becoming your own, their cadance your cadance their
Tongue your tongue their heart your heart their flesh your flesh.
To be Known darkly and deeply is the most frightening thing.
The Sun laughed, and said:
“What is there that is alien to me? And to what do I find myself estranged?
What could be so bound to me as you are, Moon Dearest Ours in Sisterhood
And be foreign?”
(They walk side by side these Two, the world entire, and beyond them
(I think, are other worlds and times, the
(Roiling)
“Sister Sun, do not pretend that your light has addled your thoughts,
Nor, as you love us, profess ignorance.”
“If I might--”
“You might not. Peace
Be still, and listen.”
So spake the Moon and the stars appeared about them
A field in truth a
Shining Plain of Arbol, so they call it somewhere and so I’m told
These Two know it as.such.
The Moon and Sun came to rest upon
A new world, another iteration of Being and Time
And rested in a garden there, which they found
Furnished with alabaster couches adorned with softest pillows
And other Earthly and Unearthly delights
And continued their long Argument.
Ponies came and went. Lovely ponies, their eyes bright with
Love, full of it like a cup poured by a cheerful drunkard runs over
And their talk would pause a moment
--I mean this less literally--
Until such ponies would pass, or leave, or find themselves too busy
To sit with the Sisters Two in their gardens.
Then the Argument would begin again,
Going ‘round and ‘round again.
“I am not as you are,” began the Moon again,
As the last of their friends parted with a peaceful sigh.
"Nor can I be--what alliance can Day have with Night? What
Bond can thrive between the Fire and the Shadows which Dance at the edge?
Can the commoner come into eat at the King’s feast?
No, I think that we are altogether different. More than that--
More I mean to say that we are a chasm which cannot be bridged.
We must be parted, at some point, we must be
And when that hour comes I fear there will be no chance of healing.”
“You are as I are,” the Sun sang softly into her cups as faceless servants brought wine.
A castle was being built now to wall the garden off. No ponies could
Breach it without consent. Only now could their glory be let loose, where their small friends
And fragile subjects might be safe, knowing the glow without losing their eyes to the light.
“You are flesh as I am flesh. You are blood as I am blood. You
Live as I live, and walk as I walk. You said to listen, and I have always listened.
If I might,
Do you not care for the little ones who sit at our feet? And do you not teach them to sing songs
Which echo in our stone halls, this castle living with their harmony, their voices bright bells?
Sister, Dearest Sister, you and I cannot be kept apart. Even if Time were to crack
And the foxes all faced the hounds at last
Even if, my love, my heart,
Even if all Being were split in two halves and we found ourselves truly on either side of the gulf
Even if that were to come to pass, I tell you that we would be united again.”
“You have not brought an answer forward,” the Moon said, years later,
And you have not answered my complaint. I did not expect you to, but
I supposed you should hear so. My complaint, again,
Put simply, again:
We are utterly different. Oil and water. I, the oil, and you the waters of life
I am the end and you are the beginning, and all your happiness in me finds its shallow grave.”
The castle grew taller, and around it sprouted up a town, bustling with life.
A principality was here which struggled valiantly with a world that had been accustomed to
Unkind deeds, and by gentle firmness was it softened and its edges blunted.
The Argument, which never dies, paused. Things there were to do, and foes to slay,
Friends to cherish, and lovers to submit to in joy together
But it could not die. Such things do not die.
It would be like saying that sadness was over.
Old advisors died, old heroes faded, and again there came a conversation over a dinner table.
“What is so different? I have answered you as I know your question. Logically,
You are of the same sort of thing as I am. We wear the same shape.
Our aspects are different, yes, but you do mean something so small as that.
Our natures as they are physically you cannot mean, for that would be foolishness,
And the night’s foolishness is a different kind of foolishness, more madness than anything else.”
"And what, pray tell, would you know of night?”
“Enough, I think, to last me today,” the Sun answered at length.
"And a bit of tomorrow. I know what it is like to sink into a soft bed at the close of day. I know
The passion of the night, the mystery of it (from afar) and the contradiction of it. I know
How dark it can get, how a thing can seem to be but not as the shadows change. I know
The hollow feeling of famine after midnight, and the fear which stabs the heart and dashes it I know.”
“No, you know the surface,” the Moon said with a sneer.
You do not know much, sister Mine. Not much! And not enough, not enough
By half. What would I know of the sun after all?
I know my shadow lengthening at noon and my stomach empty by mid day. I know
The frustration of heat and the indignity of sweat, I know
The alienation of one’s labor and the hardening of one’s callouses under arrogant fire.”
“Perhaps, sister, the problem is you do not know the Sun,” said the Sun, and meant it in more way that one.
Perhaps you do not see that we are alike because you see trifles and imagine horrors.
Has it occurred to you that there is more to the day than a shadow of your experience?”
War came, and with it all the woes that flesh is sadly heir to--
Famine, plague, and victory, Death’s fellow travelers
Circles around the principality like vultures.
But the tide turns.
Peace brings time, and time brings the space for talking, and these things breed Argument.
“And has it occurred to you that the same might be said of you? That my experience
Is not as full as yours? That there is more to the Night than revels and song?
You think that your light will shine forever, and maybe it will--
You think your love will last forever, and maybe it will--
But I won’t hold my breath. I won’t wait to see. You’ll snap or I’ll snap.
Sisterhood, our love and our yoke, is not some immutable thing.
You know that nothing lasts. We too will die.”
The Sun sighed long and loud.
“What is your motivation? Why do you continue this? Do you want me to leave you be?”
“No, I want the opposite.”
“Then why persist?”
“Because I must. Because if we do not know where the edge is, how will we be safe anywhere?”
The days were longer. The days were fuller, and not happier.
The Principality had grown. The ponies did not come often into the garden, and the Moon rarely left.
Sullen, she saw no one. She had all the time in the world for Argument
But the Sun was exhausted from growing duties.
Talk was turned down in favor of bed.
Again, again
Again
Like so--
“Sister, would you talk? Would you parley with us upon the green?
We can talk of anything
Anything at all, even if it is not our old discussion, anything! I wish to hear you speak.”
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t, I’m--”
Busy, and so
The Moon stalks the high walls around her garden and considers the nature of time.
The Sun slinks into her bed until tomorrow.
The Sun assumes the world is always a cycle. She assumes all things move from one to another,
She assumes that what works for me will work for you. She assumes that
The numbers add up and that the sentence scans. She assumes.
The Moon says
“Time, you
Insatiable beast. You highwaymare of Being, you
Shred all things and break their bones in the end. You catch us all.
You catch even Us, my sister and I. Time always catches up.
We came here to rest awhile before we continued in Arbol
And bit by bit our stay extended. Tomorrow, we said, tomorrow we shall leave.
We can go any time we want to,” she said and shivered in dark on the edge of winter
That is what we said. We can go anywhere
But I’ll tell you this, sister, and I’ll fill you in, Time:
I hoped for this. I hoped that one day I would be right. I hoped because
I will know one way or another by the end of it all which of us was right.
Is love elastic? Does it bend under the weight of necessity, or does it snap?
If I lose upon the field, or if I win, what then? What then?
What then?”
She continues at length.
“Here are my truths, Night which I made. Hear them and write them upon your hearts
Nothing comes from nothing, and from barren ground no seeds sprout into plants.
Love is read by its fruits. Patient, kind, aye--but its the fruit we see, it’s the
The outside that we need. We’ll
Try again, if you find me. If you come after me, if you give chase
For I’ll lead you astray a thousand years
A chase after a wild goose and you’ll trip out among the stars and land on
Cold and lonely Sulva, you know the place
The moon above this world, the place that’s dead on one side and alive on the other.
Time, you bitch, learn this: long ago we had our own trials and mine was
Sulva, to live among the living there.
My burden was to watch them die. My burden was to
Lead them.
My sister’s? I know not.
But mine taught me this: that love is in the fruits
And that if there is any endurance to a thing it must be tested.
So I’ll test my sister quickly, when night is in its darkest core
And we’ll know it all one way or another, won’t we?”
