Her lungs feel as breathless as his, thin things of membrane that are frailer than a dead winter-leaf coated in ice. Each breath feels like a struggle. Each hum of her heart is a battle-field and each of her organs quiver as his must. All the parts of her cry out (silent beneath that cage of bone and flesh) for something, something, something. And when she says,
“Toro,” it rings out like an echo, echo, echo and it tastes like a pleading word instead of a name. His name.
“I will not leave you then.” Isra swings her hips towards his, wondering if he can hear the breathlessness of her butterfly lungs or the hum of her heart as it trembles in her chest. She's ready to catch him if he stumbles and if she's too weak these new unicorn bones of hers do no know it. They only know empathy and her horn glitters in the moonlight when a cloud shifts and they seem suddenly to be in a place between the world and the wild.
Around them the trees whisper in the wind. Isra shivers, wondering if the 'thing' that left Lysander dead could possibly be close-by. She knows enough of monsters and mortals to be leery, to look up at the stars and think of death and maybe only a little of beauty. Perhaps too he knows of fear, knows why it leaks into her voice like bits of sludge through the cracks in her innocence.
“Can you tell me what hurts the most? Can you walk?” She's half afraid of the answers and she lets her nose drift upwards to bury in his mane. Isra acts as if she can smell the suffering on him, more than just the tang of his copper and iron blood.
It's almost easy now to act brave when she can no longer even trust the darkness and shadows to keep them safe anymore. Easier still to be so close to his horns and pretend that they are no more terrifying than the one spiraling out from her own skull.
ISRA OF THE CRACKED LIGHT;
I found the pieces and tried to fix it
