Iridescent Wonderland
Above shines a full moon amidst a starless night’s sky. Snow tumbles in torrents—its cascade seeming to coalesce from darkness. Much of it accumulates in wind currents, the bands stretching out like streamers that streak around me.
Some alights upon my upturned cheeks, my lashes fluttering to fling the clinging flurries free. My lips are crimson, my tutu and ice skates too. I love how their color contrasts my lake’s surrounding snow-mounded dreamscape.
Somewhere, yonder the night, my knight watches from some place beyond sight. Heat builds in my cheeks, my heart stumbling into motion as my breath comes and goes. His presence always makes me feel this way. It’s how I know that he’s there.
His arrival even threads music into the wind. I always giggle when I hear it begin. It feels like he’s humming and drawing nearer my ear. When I imagine that his approach might carry a kiss, I shy away and set myself into motion, my glass-bladed skates marking my passage.
He always sets my heart to dancing, and so I want to dance for him—the two of us in harmony, my heart and I. Movement sets the wind against me. I pretend that it’s his breath, and so I give chase. And where he thought his kiss denied, he can’t know that my flight was a lie. Rather than growing distance, I’m hurrying home.
Snowy strands of wind pass alongside me. I stretch my fingertips out into them like I’m touching the surface of a river. I close my eyes and drift, the music carrying me along. I sway and weave. The carving sound of my skates undercuts the melody. Shapes emerge from the ice, my canvas, where wide arcs curl into lollipops.
Soon, I glance at my path, and my eyes widen in horror. I abruptly jump. I perform the splits midair. Only after I land do I realize how reckless the leap was; the thought of falling not even occurring to me. But when I curve back around to my carved shapes and see the line I had left unconnected, the incomplete heart staring back at me... I worry I might be involved in a different sort of falling.
Is this what love is?
I keep moving. I’m getting winded, my many breaths forming mini clouds. I watch the ponderous puffs go, imagining that they carry my thoughts like little love letters. I leap into a spin at the thought of sending them. And spin again at the thought of him reading them.
As the music builds, I fold my arcs into a continuous spin. When I open like a flower, my revolution slows. Then, I nestle nearer the ice and speed up again. But it’s the last step that holds all the magic.
As I stretch tall and thin, I accelerate. I spin so fast that the world should blur into nonsense, and yet, that’s not what happens. The airstreams whirl about me, my spin giving chase, and for one magical moment, I catch up.
Everything stills.
I become the star that it all orbits. The strands of snow hang in the air like ribbons. The moon’s light passes through their crystals, the light refracting into a myriad of colors and glimmering as if glitter filled the air. All of it superimposes on the sky’s empty canvas, the snow soaking up moonlight only to give it back in glow. For a moment, my universe becomes an iridescent wonderland.
The moment passes, and the song slows. But it’s too soon, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it last longer? Panic fills me. I haven’t told him yet. He still doesn’t know.
I burst back into motion. I streak around my lake, my gaze searching the sky for a star to shoot and grant my wish. But the sky is empty. There are no stars. None... but me.
With a sudden idea, I orient on the far bank. I hyperventilate, hyping myself into a frenzy before sprinting. The music dwindles to a whisper, and I’d not live to hear its silence.
The slope sped closer. I would hit it at a glance. I’d blast off. Go hurling through the sky. Shooting and becoming the very thing capable of granting my wish.
The bank! It was here!
I wish...
My impact vaulted me into a tumble, the sky and lake cycling past one after the other.
“I wish...”
As I shot out across night’s void, I shouted, “... to come alive in your gaze forever!”
Constraints:
Word Count: 749/750
Genre: Snow Globe of Innocence
Trope: Magical Girl
