Private the warmest light is your body

Elchanan

I HAVE SEEN THE TRUTH AND IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE -

The reason he goes to Veneror, of course, is because it is the closest he can get to the moon.

There is no god more powerful or more important, though many would beg to differ. More important than that, Elchanan is still so new to Novus that he cannot possibly know this is a place of worship for anything other than the stars and the rain and the place land meets sky: he cannot see or smell the blood that has salted the earth here for eons, or the tears, or the animal sacrifices. He only sees a spire that could almost, almost touch the moon.

The night is black and deep. It smells like sin. Elchanan’s skin shimmers in and out of visibility as he passes through the opalescent cloaks and braids of various types of shadow; in some places they are so thick he turns black; in others the pale cream of his skin seems to turn to gold. The pale blue of his wings turns dark as the sea, and the knotted buns laid tight against his neck become nothing more than little blobs of white and shadow. The winter cold doesn't bother him, or at least doesn't seem to. Soaring through the thin air above the clouds, the chill that rushes into his lungs is not a nuisance but a wake-up call that sends a thrill through each nerve and blood vessel.

A thin layer of snow lines the mountain. When Elchanan lands, as lazily and graceful as a fish navigating a bend in a river, his hooves leave little crescent-moon prints that crunch-crunch-crunch and eat away at the permafrost. He is light, and bird-boned, but not enough to be immune to the disgrace of having to pick his way with high knees and dainty steps in a vainglorious attempt to avoid sinking: it is with some measure of disgust that he trots further and further up the slope, never straying from the hard-packed path of snow made by so many before him.

But snow has begun to come down again, and like rushing water it erases Elchanan's trail. He pins his ears back as the first bite of a snowflake settles in across his back, but there is nothing to be done; he can only duck his finely-built head closer to the protective warmth of his chest and continue on, even as his feathers subconsciously shake against the bite of frost and ice starts to crawl up his nimble legs.

For all its magic, the moon still cannot melt.

@~~Florentine~~ <3