Heaven's Tremors

Between the steel wings of my airship, I hang in the air, sleekly caught in the void-layers of suffocation blue that stain these hypoxic altitudes. There is no horizon here, only a steady bleaching of the sky as it steals like a spirit to a distant point the color of raw bone, as if the flesh of the heavens were being slowly dissolved, exposing the grim structure that lies beneath. Frozen, granular clouds scuttle past in the sky below, gritty and broken, the discarded skeletons of forgotten dragons ground into a sand that dusts the sky. Above, the dying, bloodstained eye of the distant sun stares on, a starved pupil, hot and angry as it scores lines across the body of the cold sky like a sore burning through the skin of a corpulent midsection. When I look at the sea, it is dead, metallic and alien. There is no moon here to give it life, to stir it into waves– only the dull hum of the ether, of flight and thrust, the roar of the engine of an iron dragon. Wings push through air, gaining a sort of traction as the fires of flight flare and scorch the sky. Heaven’s tremors are a subtle vibration that scrapes up through the controls, shivering into the soft leather that separates my fingers from the dragon, allows me a sort of workman’s comfort as I guide her controls. This is where heroes are born, the old prophet’s words come back to me like the crackle of arcane paper. Do not falter. You are the all.

I swallow.

You are the all.


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