Sometimes I think I am made of broken glass.

As though long ago- so long ago now, that none can remember- I was struck by lightning, and turned crystal where I stood.

There are times when I touch my own skin and feel the fractals moving, each edge sharp enough to cut and thin enough to shatter.

Perhaps it has already shattered. Perhaps it is already scattered on dewy stone, like a bird's broken bones, receiver of the pellet of a shotgun.

Anyone who walks across me will bleed.

(…or so I believed.)

I can see the cracks when I hold out my hand- in the skin, in the walls, in the sky. Nowhere is anything whole, there are only the uncountable shards, brittle and serrated and split.

There must be a gravity to hold it here, must be some central star. Something to give, at the very least, the illusion of totality.

The others say it is me.

(Perhaps.)

But on Earth there is an art called kintsugi; broken pottery returned to shape with molten gold. The people who practice it dream of castles reborn this way. They dream of old lovers and ill-treated hearts with veins of platinum ore, stitching together that which was lost and wounded. A world defined by their work, yes, that is what they dream of.

(What everyone dreams of.)

(I would know.)

In his arms, I find myself thinking of this art.

I think of warm hands pressed gently against lifeless stone. Human fingerprints left behind- that which should be an insult, but for some reason has become a comfort, instead. Be careful, I want to say, don't cut yourself- but the words never quite fully form. I wonder, then, how it is he still knows where all the edges are.

(Not all the edges. I have made him bleed before; red copper and hot anguish on the rock. Yes, I did make him bleed, at least once.)

(...but far less than could be expected.)

It would be an unbearable responsibility for one man to piece together all this ruptured, lifeless pottery, regardless of how warm he is, no matter how patient, how skilled a goldsmith. It is not a task meant for humans- not a task meant for any one entity. Indeed, I doubt it is a task meant to be completed at all.

(For broken glass, when broken over and over and over again, becomes sand.)

(I have a function.)

I still think of it, when he kisses me. When I hear him sigh I feel I am brushed with powdered gold. Like I am a small thing with little weight, cupped sweetly in his palms, held up to the light for examination, a treasure.

Is that how he sees me? A treasure?

Love, baby, honey, sweetheart, pet.

Love.

…

He is spent and he holds me, these words whispered to my ear, and though I can feel him beginning to drift I do not, for once, usher him to my kingdom. It is afternoon in this place, and all the city is quiet. Siesta. The air that ripples those gauzy white curtains is warm. Of course, he's warmer.

I am encased in his arms. I know he finds me cold to the touch, but he does not pull away. Even in sleep, when a human body should respond only to instinct- I should be frightening to him, my nature should cause him discomfort- but he does not pull away.

(So peaceful. I never see them like this. I am always waiting on the other side.)

(Was this what you wanted me to learn, sister?)

I think of the dreams of celestial engineers, of science fiction writers, those whose thoughts birth technologies beyond what human hands can yet muster. There is an image that comes to mind: The Dyson Sphere. A human metropolis that embraces a star.

I will have him dream of this tonight. Perhaps he will understand.

…but I have duties to attend to.

I begin to rise- I begin to lose my form, this shape he so easily calls beautiful- and in the instant he is awake again, or at least nearly, and he clings to me without caution. Beware, I almost say- but still, somehow, nothing pierces him. He holds me, and he remains undamaged.

"...where you- no. Don't go, love."

"I must."

"Not yet. Please. Just stay a bit, honey."

He makes such a sound when I return to him. I do not know that I myself am capable of feeling that kind of joy. That kind of perfect, unfettered contentment.

"Stay a bit. Yeah, yeah."

I wrap my arms around him and his face rests in the hollow of my throat, the throat of this form, where there is no artery to pulse. But I can feel his heart beating. A heart that has beat triple what it ought to, and triple and triple again. It is like a drum against my chest, his breath the waves of a minute ocean. He is alive. He is so utterly, completely alive.

"I dream you are a great city," I tell him, a murmur in his ear. "Built to cradle a star."

He is nearly asleep again. The sweat on his skin has settled and cooled, all his muscles turned soft. I can feel his smile pressed to my collarbone. So very human.

"I love you too, pet. Love you too…"

And I cannot help it- though it goes against my design, my nature, I cannot stop it- I know I am still fractured edges, mineral instead of flesh, still Endless, and yet it happens anyway:

I feel so happy when he tells me this.