Engulfed Star Conception


Written by Septia.


In the serene ever blackness manifest eyes of ancient souls, spirits gaze their pale glow on the lands below, guiding their descendants' journey. Their eyes are dim tonight; they watch, yet do not pry. This world is not theirs anymore, this world is not what their's was, anymore. Their prerogative is but to guide, to watch our world change. For it is ours to change. 
	I rest, far from the village. Once with others your Mahtwa tangles, woven into the threads that run through myth to legends. Beauty, to be sure, yet one loses oneself in it, your own Mahtwa subsided – the more ties you make, the less of yourself remain. Here, in the life of night, I feel the ground, I feel each leaf, I feel the gaze from my ancestors, I feel my Mahtwa unfurl, it's weaves undone and sprawling towards all and nothing. I am tied to nothing: I feel all. 
	My Mahtwa’s tethers tense, I feel another's presence. Many anothers. Our Mahtwa meet, hesitation in its embrace, tracing the threads of understanding as a parent's fingers grace the cheek of their young. It is not others of my kind. It is not humans. It is not a threat. Their stride a sophistication over roots and through hidden paths. Their path lead them to me. 
	I open my eye.
	Deer. Inquisitive, not curious. They know why they are here, I know too. For their Mahtwa guide mine, through their ranks, through parents and sprouts, until it reaches one, the one. 
	A venerated deer cleaves a path through her kin as she nears me. She is sick. Sick not in the body. Her sickness is of the body. 
	I understand why they have come. I feel as their rope of collective Mahtwa untangle from the venerated, a spore pod carried from its plant, stubborn as it clings to the bulb, yet is finally relinquished by the temptress of the winds. I was to be the wind. 
	I closed my eye in a bow, she returned the gesture, as she moved I heard the creak of experience whistle through her marrow. Our Mahtwa met. The herd backed away. The final filaments of her bond to the living whispered away. My Mahtwa was already unfurled, it accepted hers into its folds. I could feel my spine tingle with the cold of experience, chilled with wisdom, as my Mahtwa wound with hers. It was an honor to bind with her, but she was far too gone to share this appreciation. She laid before me, across my lap. The weight pressing into my thighs. Yet it was her Mahtwa which anchored me. In weaving out Mahtwa together, I lost the sprawling connection I had built, but hers was not like other creatures. She was not alive. She was but a husk for her Mahtwa. What I held in my spirit and my lap, was the birth of a star. That is why she was with me. The herd had seen her, stuck to this aging carapace. I let my fingers dance over her pelt, she was a still lake, only ripples swirling across the galaxy of spots in her coat. We need not ask. I feel her Mahtwa, it unfurls, its end frizzle as she delves deeper into mine, nuzzling into the folds of my lighter, but larger, living Mahtwa. Her body a cage of meat. With my eye shut, I free her. 
	It is an intimate embrace, but our Mahtwa are far more intimate, the act is by instinct. I cradle her calves, hugging her hips past the boundary of my mortal coil, a supple suction of lips enveloping pelt, swathing in a blanket of motherly velvet, my neck straddles her form, a knot in my throat that wades beneath my skin. Her legs rest limp at her sides, accepting the cradle of my arms hoisting her up, up... To see the blackness above, and the gaze of her ancestor's eyes above. Gently, she sinks, melding with my frame. Our Mahtwa are indistinguishable. Delicate gulps carry her sinking form into my embrace. Her eyes shut, and neither of us witness the moment her husk bids our world farewell. 
	I carry her burden; the anchor to this world from the teather of her Mahtwa. She has once more come to rest in my lap. It plies into my thighs as a leaden casket. She breathes in rhythm with mine heartbeat. My shroud tenses to a point where the zenith of her presence protrudes from my abdomen. Fingers following the valleys and fjords of felt and hide that dangle over the congestion I am made to heft. Back up, to where the tension between is think as a grain of rice spread across a topaz field. My digits carress her. Her Mahtwa is subsumed, hibernating within mine. Yet, the body must acquiesce. Despite its state, I would imagine it be never an easy task to bid farewell to the coil one has spent every waking moment within. I breathe. Winds blow. I exhale. Gales whisper. Her heart beats. The stars tremble. 


Her Mahtwa beats in mine. Bulging into the weaves, prodding the sky. 
	I lay my palm across my stomach, and pry. Digits sculpting folds, palms scooping and kneading down past the veil that separates us. As I mold her, streams of air bubbles through our folds, a gurgle that rattles through mine spine and vibrate through the tips of my hair. I tug tighter, closing the harness, folds of blubber expand and sag, testing the tensile limit of warp and weft in my clothing. Our bodies throb together, as the massage carries her, our bodies bound as one. As our bodies grind and churn her Mahtwa swells. Life siphoned through the husk, sucked clean by her desire to join the above, like the clam slurped out of its shell. My gut pounds tight, closing in, as it strives to return neutral. Broad gulps and swells of aerated flesh cascade in ripples, swirling our bodies. I turn up to face the emptiness, holding her as close as I can. My mouth hang open, arms spike with taut strain... Then goes limp with a mottled groan -Ccgghlooorphhd-. I stare. Her Mahtwa retracts, disappearing into the weaves of my own. In this forever, we are one. I witness more than light, more than the gazes from above. Their light is tangible. It approaches. It embraces. 
	Her Mahtwa bursts forth. Within one moment it has breached our shared boundary. My Mahtwa is left strummed in the music of the all-weave, as the venerated spirit lobs out through the peak of my Mahtwa; a seedpod propelled through a bulb of verdigris. It's force leaving my threads scattered, a frizzle of teathers reaching towards the sky, to the treetops, to the bark, to the critters ok the bark to the grass, to the roots, and to the core of all...


My splintered self retracts, slowly, it mends. I am able to see the back of my eyelid once more. Opening my eye, I see the void of creation. I witness the gazes guiding the world tuck inwards, for one moment, one eternity, to welcome a new star. As the last tendrils of my Mahtwa retracts, I feel a treble though it's core. A signal escaping the me that we shared. It leads my gaze through the carpet of night, in the weft of venerable velvet. I feel her, for the last time, for the first time. An eye, aimed at me. We inhale. The light flickers. We exhale. Into the collective Mahtwa of darkness. Before the hours of morn scold it into strips of shadow.