[P] the dead cry out in the moon-glow;

[Isra]

She barely hears him approach. All she can hear is the catch of her horn on bone, that whisper soft and slick sound when bone drags across bone with no flesh or fur to muffle the echo. Over that is the soft gentle ring of her chain, the clink of rust and steel and iron. And under everything is the gentle drip, drip, drip of her sorrow that makes rivers down the stark, sharpness of her face. It's not until his shadow reaches out, long and thick, thick black in the moonlight, that she looks up to see the looming red stallion. Even his gentle calm edges and eyes void of that raging fury fill her with a sort of dread. Only the bones around her and the graves at her back keep her from fleeing the mountains again. What has she to fear, surrounded by dead things and ash? Raymond can do nothing more to her, he has no wings or actual fire to singe her skin from bone. So she lifts her head and leaves her knees bowed against the ground. That sharp tip of her horn juts out towards him, a sword, a knife, a weapon wielded by a heart that has no stomach for violence-- dangerous only for the look of it. “Are you a devil still?” Her words are nothing more than a whisper of sound between the soft, fragile skin of her lips. Perhaps the night has stolen his rage as it has her fearfulness. Moonlight makes different things of them. Isra feels as if she could be in a story, a sorrowful heart that's just brave enough to look at the monster and grin instead of cower. The story makes her smile as she thinks of it, a wild heartbreak of a look that shimmers like sea-foam at night inside her gaze. “You can help.” Her eyes blaze against his, a warning without sting when they come from her broken, weak voice. “But do not add to the dead. Not tonight.” Isra forgets him as soon as she warns him and bows her head before the devil to go back to moving dirt back over the goat skull. But when she finishes the one grave it somehow feels more like a cleansing of the moonlight. Her skin feels warmer for the heat of a devil by her side. Perhaps she's learning once more that solitude is as hollow a friend as the bones and ash are. * * * * * a million mistakes and lies @Raymond