Her Gunpowder Horoscope was the first chemical explosive used as a method of divination, and the only one known until mid-Eris.
Due to its burning properties and the amount of heat and gas that it generates, a Gunpowder Horoscope has its own unique way of diagramming the heavens: we can view the Sidereal Zodiac in the simple reaction of saltpeter and charcoal, the tropical signs located in the decomposition of black powder and the Ecliptic Constellations scattered through the shrapnel of the outermost ballistic zone.
In order for a Gunpowder Horoscope to be read and exploded effectively, an amalgam of celestial mechanics must be reduced to their smallest possible particles and mixed with one another as intimately possible. The combustion of fixed stars and wandering stars does not take place as a single reaction, however, and the byproducts are not always easily predicted.
Yes, it was a fog season, neutral territory, a canvas of reciprocal rain and decayed air at the same time.
Gray for safe keeping, I didn't mind if they blamed it on the names they gave us.
That was all we could ask for a while, a fireworks of ordinary explanations.
We collected comet moths to keep the hours and months apart, measured each eclipse with insect wings until the separation straightened out.
Iron rations, private veins, who slept where and when? All our little arcs of habit. Consequences of a water cure, that was called having a body again.
Or else call it a directionless war, a natural war, that way there’s less distractions, less long term plans. And then before long, a primacy of ammunition I never claimed to comprehend.
They said, fix those dead already. That’s how they kept it simple. There were holes in our windows from wishing more on words then shrapnel.
I remembered where we were, a cellar home with rotational parts, a town that was a heap of stones or a shapeless column of wood.
I remembered they told us every halo was a shortness of breath, a form of hungered loneliness. There were many kinds of discrimination, and most of them were contagious.
Sleeplessly, I taught myself the slab avalanche, the last initials, how to translate a detonation. I cut into scare crows like there might have been charcoal hiding inside.
That was your approach to forcing boulders open, folding bodies from view. I started to understand when sulfur and saltpeter were only kept for saving face, and I was beginning to believe you.
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