•

Dinaisth is lightless but for the luminescent ripple awakened by a wave breaking, the spark made by the shatter of metal or the storms igniting the crests of dunes; here nothing natural grows with eyes to see it. Eyes came from elsewhere.

Shielded from the winds above, invisible, Den Azar kneels on the wet fiberglass, bends over the feroplastic membrane, bites at the loose shale and tears off clumps of frozen fabric voraciously. The blizzard accumulates in mounds of ash around her ceramic legs and pools in the recesses of her closing golden eyes. He masticates, swallows, feels my burning gaze on her disheveled figure among the dirty snow and, unbothered, sinks into a satiated sleep.

The storm blows itself out, the glassy ocean reflects nothing back. A million sunflowers at the bottom of the Abyss stir.

Covered and nearly forgotten under debris, Den Azar kicks at the amber, it liquefies, a metallic arc lights up the night, hardens again. A sunflower notices and immediately loses interest. He swims through the lye, caustic, immaterial, wormlike toward the surface. Two iridescent florets of gold bloom.

"Hummingbirds"

A throbbing flutter nears and then leaves, and comes back, is joined by another; the air tickles. Far away, a gale exhales a raspy breath. Den Azar coughs the dust of sleep from her lungs, he emerges a short distance away from the nucleus of the avian excitement. A metallic flash cracks the night wide open, a hundred silhouettes are cast in gold, immobile, mid flight, before the unseeing returns.

He sits and reopens her eyes expecting nothing. The flock is a swarm now, a murmuration of needles violently twirling in the dark, alarmed by a thickening of the air. The Abyss recoils in apprehension as a million eyes turn to face, as if seeing through my hollowlessness, the distant implosion of night. The hummingbirds scatter, Den Azar's ears pop. It would be utterly silent if it wasn't for the sizzling of vitrified sand.

A cold flickering glow sways at the end of a short rod, illuminating the falling snow, a shallow crater at Den Azar's feet and the shrouded figure. He turns her back to shield her eyes against the dreadful light. Den Azar, caught in a shudder, begs for the snuffing of the offending brightness. He closes her eyes, and lets out a low palatal click revealing the stranger's shape in all its details. The lightning stick is clasped by a toothless mouth at the end of two slender feathered limbs bursting from a narrow chest.

"Andes"

Andes' eyes are hidden under a supple mineral hood, closed but seeing.

"Denazar"

The light vanishes, its soft hum goes quiet and, far away, the Abyss relaxes. A sudden gust disturbs the snow falling, rips brittle segments of shale off the ground and sends them flying against Andes and Den Azar. The air carries with it a fine glass dust, the birds have long since flown back to the shelter of their nests.

"Shaft"

Den Azar chuckles, slouches, can't it handle a bit of weather. Pleading, Andes raises its wing, her tongue clicks, revealing a scuffed oily fabric beneath the already disintegrating feathers. Andes winces.

"Shelter"

incoming: 2026