In the factory hills outside of the valley Halcyon, a young girl stands. Releasing her raincoat from her arms it falls to the ground, curling in the wind, and she stretches her feathered wings. Azad kneels, leaning back with his sister, holding her. He looks, at length, to the stranger. Hesitating at the very edge of action, between reality and possibility, she appears a fragile creature.
Beyond the city of sapphire and diamonds, snow wanders down from crystalline heights. Spires glimmer on high, over the ridges and distance, the peaks of Halcyon, rising from the earth.
Blood runs in the grass, as truth fallen open at her sneakered feet.
In this symphony, the choir rests. A tenor line is mourning. Interwoven with their voices is a lonely, unheard string, the note of birth and death and dreams.
An Artisan carries off the body of Sayd. Limp in its long arms, he sways as it clambers over the rocks. One comes toward Harmony and a closer one moves toward Day. She retreats a step and it lowers, whirring, acting as though it is lifting something from the ground. On his knees, Azad pulls his sister away. The bot moves as if to lift her, cradling empty space. Bringing her hand to her chest Harmony cups blood, desperate and slow. As the Artisans move down the slope, the autodusters sterilize the ground where they were, and in front of where Day is standing.
A swath of ice ripples and falls from her wings.
Azad looks back to Harmony.
In his hands he feels the fragility of her breathing body, the warmth of the fire inside of her. Embers glow in the ashes of his broken heart, and the skyline flares. He is silent. He has no word adequate for this. It is the comet falling, scattered to glitter in the snow in the darkening sky, far like a silver butterfly—made of a thousand liquid crystals. The New Year’s lightworks thunder, punctuating the silence of these hills.
Day steps forward, into the flowers.