HOW DOES A MYTH COME TO BE?

Birds are singing overhead, and nothing is as it should be —

Iscariot opens her eyes and the sky has turned from the bluest, darkest night to a clear outpouring of white sunlight, not a shred of cloud to be seen; it sends a spear of pain through her eyes and into the back of her skull. The dirt under her cheek — well, it’s not even dirt anymore, it’s bright white sand burning a heat signature into her skin. Wind roars past and ruffles her thick hair. The ocean is howling a few yards away, showering her in a foam of salt. (At least she thinks it’s the ocean, can only assume it’s the ocean, considering she’s never seen it before.) 

All of this could be ignored — explained, even — if not for the birds.

There have never been anything but crows at home. And so, of course, this cannot be home.

Fear spikes through her like lightning and Iscariot surges to her feet, hooves slipping in the sand, her balance compromised for the second that she goes scrabbling for a grasp — she feels her heart pounding in her mouth with the ferocity of something scared and sick, and oh she does not want to think about her marking but even the word sick makes it unavoidable, and she can’t she can’t she can’t not look— 

She turns her head over her shoulder, and the marking is stagnant, just as it was yesterday. The feeling of relief that hits her is so strong it nearly knocks her off her feet.

Her whole head buzzes like a swarm of something, a song black and deep and dark in the back of her mind. The island (it is an island, isn’t it?) is thrumming much in the same way, like a heartbeat, a current parallel to the one that pulses through her brain. The air is horribly humid, presses in on her throat tight as a hand. The threat of rain is still prominent; Iscariot feels it deep in her bones and in the way there is a storm collecting on the very edges of the horizon.

The beach is empty, but footprints still reign dark in the sand. Iscariot shakes her head, loosing a shower of grains, dry leaves and partially crushed shells; the skull wrapped into her braids is too stubborn to budge, and so are the tiny turquoise beads in leather. The smell of home (something heavy, smoke and tobacco, something sort of green too) breaks into the air around them, loosened by her movement, and Iscariot’s shaky breath is somewhat soothed by it.

Birds are singing in the trees, and nothing is right —

He isn’t a fan of the island, not in the least. It is too perfect, too vibrant, too much of everything, and he often feels overwhelmed and vaguely like crawling out of his skin every time he steps foot on the picturesque beaches. Yet, he still keeps coming back, pulled back by forces he can’t quite name and doesn’t understand, making the trip across the obsidian bridge and stepping down upon the powdery sand.

Usually, he finds himself alone, the other residents of Novus having delved deeper into the island to uncover its mysteries. Today, however, his eyes are caught by a figure on the beach, and his breath abruptly catches in his chest.

He thinks of his father’s letter, the little bag of coins he and Hex had found on the tavern stoop. You boys have an older sister, Hex had read out loud, her name is Iscariot. At the time, he had been jealous of her name, of how it tasted like power and like wanting in his mouth, of how the syllables had come so easily to his twin’s lips. She is cloaked in shadows, marked with the earth, and her horns reach to the sky. She is wild, like her mother, and you will know her when you see her; I have made it so. The boys had argued for days about whether or not their sister resembled them, resembled their unknown father, and in the end neither had been able to reach a conclusion that pleased both of them.

In the end, he had almost forgotten he had a sibling besides Hex, that he had a family at all.

He recognizes her, some primal part of her, and perhaps their shared blood is singing in their veins, because he can’t help but move closer until they’re nearly touching, only a foot or two between them. “Iscariot, yes?” He names her, and his voice burrs a little against the word when he realizes how close in shade their eyes are, both of them amber and glowing beneath the sun, at the twinge of childish jealousy that still rises in his chest when he remembers how silken Hex had made her name sound.

He is, somehow, not entirely surprised that they have met here, on this strange island.

He still doesn’t trust it.

“My name is Valefor. And, I believe,” His mouth turns up in a shy smile, the very tips of sharp teeth poking out from behind his lips, and his tail sweeps across the sand behind him. “I believe that we might share the same absentee father, if the letter he sent me was any indication.” He wonders, briefly, if she had received the same sort of letter, and even more briefly what sort of magic his father had included that made recognizing her so easy.

"Speaking."

HOW DOES A MYTH COME TO BE?

Her jaw tightens, and finally Iscariot forces herself to smile back, small though it is. “You might be right,” she says, and her voice is rough from disuse but not unsweet. Finally the shine of her eyes is interest and not panic. She reaches out to close the distance between them and brush her muzzle against his forehead; it’s been long enough since she was last around a family member that she can hardly hold back the desire to be close to him. “Forgive me that I do not know your name.”

He cannot help the way that he shies away from her surprise and her panic, the way his ears pin back against his skull and he tries to curl into himself, make himself much smaller than his towering height could ever allow. Even his tail tucks beneath him, almost brushing against his stomach, and he might have looked pitiful if not for the fact that the bulk of his body only made him look faintly ridiculous.

He longs for the cobblestone streets of Caeleste, sometimes, that he could be back to when he and Hex had run amongst the alleys together, back before the growth spurt that had sent him towering above his peers. They had been hungry, after the tavern owner had left them to their own devices, and they had never quite known where they would be sleeping at night, but he had still been small enough to hide away from the stares and the anger.

There is no hiding, now, not when he had shot up like a weed to tower above most people, not when he had almost eaten Alderaan out of house and home when Winnifred would bring him over to visit and it had never been enough, not when he’d been growing so fast and so much that his body basically demanded fuel at all times.

He breathes out when her lips touch his forehead, lowering his head so that it might be easier for her to reach him, and his own muzzle presses into the curve of her neck. How long has it been, since he has been shown the kindness of a family member, since he has felt like he belongs somewhere or to something other than himself and the terrible curse he carries?

“I’m glad to meet you,” He will tell her about Hex later, he decides, will tell her about how their brother has disowned them all, about how Hex had grown bitter and cruel in their homeland. “Have you -- have you ever met our father? All I know of him is in the letter he sent me… I had hoped you might be able to tell me about him.”

HOW DOES A MYTH COME TO BE?

How long has it been? Since she’d thought of him, since she’d heard or remembered anyone besides her mother? And  longer still since she’s felt anything like love. Iscariot’s breath rattles against her teeth, and her eyes drift closed. Valefor’s muzzle is blisteringly warm where it meets her neck. And yet for all Iscariot’s griping she can’t find a single thing to complain about. Not the warmth of his skin, the cool-salty breeze of the ocean, not even the thing nestled against Iscariot’s heart that still pangs for the family that hasn’t reappeared.




It had always rubbed her the wrong way. It had always made her teeth itch, sanded her mouth to the painful pink gums. And now this. Now her brother, asking for him—the one thing she has left, ready to run. How can she be kind?

She is so much smaller than him, and he feels the urge to protect her from the harsh world around them despite the fact that she is the older sibling, the one who would traditionally do the protecting. How cruel the world could be to the parentless child; was she an orphan, as well, or had her mother at least wanted her, loved her enough to stay? The question is at the tip of his tongue, but he can’t bare to ask it, can’t face the bitter jealousy that has always lingered just out of sight when he had seen the other foals with their parents -- not when he has just found her again, not when family is just within his grasp.

“I had hoped…” It was foolish to hope, though, wasn’t it? What had he hoped for -- that Iscariot might have met their father, that perhaps she could tell him that Mathias had abandoned them through some defect of his own, and not because they were somehow lacking? He doesn’t know how true his hope is -- at this point in time, can’t believe in it. All of the evidence of his life points towards the fact that he is the burden, the mistake, the unwanted child who was abandoned the moment he was born.

Instead, he pushes a hoof into the sand beneath them, the action a little too muted to be called a stomp, but still childish nonetheless. “That’s fine,” He decides, despite the way his heartbeat flutters in his throat, despite the fact he’s spent his life dreaming of the day he might meet his father or his mother and learn why they hadn’t wanted him. 

“We don’t need him anyway.”

Mathias had never needed them, after all.