Excerpts from a lost legend:
...and then she stretched her arms towards the light, and her skin appeared transparent. The dress that embraced her body was white as the first snow, but when she turned, we saw a row of silver butterflies along her back — from her neck to...
The story has not been preserved in its entirety.
...he could not look away. Not because he saw something forbidden but because he sensed these butterflies could take flight at any moment, carrying away the veil that separated the visible world from the true world...
Legends claim that the bearers of Silwilwi knew how to vanish in bright light. Not by hiding in shadows, like their sisters, the Morwilwi, but by dissolving into the light itself, becoming so brilliant that eyes refused to see them.
...I found one of these butterflies by chance. It lay on my table, white upon white, almost invisible. I realised it was there only when a sunbeam touched its wings, and it gleamed silver. It was a sign. She would come again. But would I notice her this time, or would she once more pass through my life imperceptibly, leaving only the sensation of light...
There is also a tale about sisters born under different stars. One always reached for the night sky, the other — for the sun. They were separated by both time and space but united by one secret — the butterflies that held the fabric of their lives.
