"plus ultra!"

Like any girl, I pulled myself into shreds to test the rumor that something with blood like mine could be halved and still whole. And what did I learn? I buried myself all over the garden, but the pieces only sprouted into new riddles: squid leg, spaghetti squash, a jerking thumb. Their names still sounded like mine; everyone in the same dress, chewing dirt to avoid each others’ eyes. I lay down next to the one beneath the porch, hiding among the oyster shells. Don’t cry, I said, but she cried anyway. Her tears fell straight into my eyes. What a lesson—to watch them float back and forth between us until we knew each one’s shape. Until we knew, finally, what to do with them.

the immortal all-powerful princesses who control the fucking sky during the several hundred years their citizens are making war propaganda about each other