Artifex Literary Art Magazine - 2022 - Fruit Salad

Entwined T

he universe had once been nothing at all.

However, both classics and modern retellings of the way that everything began always start with a tale of two. Elio and Nova.

Known widely by different names — but most importantly, the two lovers: the Sun, and the Moon.

Whatever brought them here was unknown, but they had sprung into existence anyway.

They’d simply known each other like there had been a time before time. They had no knowledge of their purpose, yet still knew they were fated to be together and to create in this empty universe.

It is odd, being so powerful, having the world— worlds, at your fingertips. Anything you’d like to create, the strings of fate themselves bending and sheared at your will.

For a long time, it had been just the sun and the moon, and the birth of life following close behind.

Elio and Nova experimented for a long while.

Creating creatures they’d laugh at for hours on end, spinning mountains into strange shapes, cutting deep valleys into the earth, and bending sunlight to create funny shadows.

Humans may have been their best (and worst) creation.

With the gift of humankind came Pandora and the evils she bestowed upon the world.

With the gift of humankind came other gods, too.

Yet Elio and Nova still remained powerful. They minded their own business, preferring peace over interrupting both godly and mortal affairs.

“What are you doing?” Nova floats closer, aimlessly.

Gray clouds gather beneath her feet.

Elio’s palms glow gold against the night. He pins an array of stars to the sky with a mere press of his hand, as if it is nothing but his canvas.

“Hanging the stars for you, my love.”

Nova smiles. If she had an organ that mortals call the heart, it’d be beating against her ribcage in a sickly fond dance.

“Why?” “Why not?” Elio hums. “They’re beautiful. And all for you.”

Nova realizes that with every flare of warmth in her chest, the stars grow brighter.

“Thank you, Sweet Sun.” And Nova watches as Elio continues to spin the stars into place, sewing constellations into the fabric of the night sky, knowing that they are all for her and that this is the universe’s method of telling her that she is loved.

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Oh, how she is loved.

When Elio touches Nova, it burns.

It is a burn that ripples deep through her skin and touches bone. It sizzles as if stating that the sun and the moon could not be together, because how could they be?

One rises as the other falls. One shines, whilst the other reflects.

But still, they are there, holding one another, meteors crashing and nebula coiling all around them in each color of the rainbow.

It is beautiful. Humans could only imagine what it is like to feel the tears of the sun strike your hands as you clutch your forbidden lover.

“Do not cry,” Nova soothes the sun, thin streams of liquid gold running down her hands like rivers of molten lava.

They blister the skin of her palms. Wiping tears off of Elio’s chiseled cheeks is more important.

“The world moves around us, and yet we will never change.”

Nova has grown an affection for what mortals have named “dancing.” It is fascinating how there are different varieties, though she has taken kindly to slow dancing in particular.

She must inform Elio of each and every one of her discoveries.

The Sun humors her, as always.

“We should dance.” The air itself shifts to make way for the moon goddess.

“Alas, I do not know how.”

“I say let the tides guide you.” Nova’s hands navigate Elio’s larger ones to snake around her waist.

They stand there watching each other in starstruck awe for a long time.

“What am I to do without you, my moon?”

Elio’s eyes are swirling pools of liquid amber and flakes of gold, staring back into the constellations sparkling within Nova’s dark ones.

The brunette laughs. “You shine.”

“But you are the one who makes me shine. The one I burn for.”

“Luckily for you, you will never have to be alone. We will glide like this eternally.”

Elio frowns.

“Unfortunately, fate does not promise forever, my love.”

Nova’s soul yearns to get closer.

They cannot be, so she makes her own promise instead.

“It will for you and I.” Elio twirls her around. The void of space bends to his will. Nova’s sheer robes flow with the fluidity of shadows crawling across the face of the earth.

“You hold me to too high a standard.” Glee paints its way onto Nova’s expression in dustings of pink and