The air is heavy with smoke and rain.

He walks by a bonfire and children run screaming, painted in festive colours. A girl, burnished like white gold, has a face painted black and eyes that look gouged until she turns them upon him laughing, joyously, and he realises the paint is only done well. She nearly dances beneath his legs, but something in his expression dissuades her. She jitters away, still laughing, and he moves past the fire. Staring through the flames, he can see the city of Denocte stretch out on the other side—there are mystics and prophets, the distant smell of the sea, and there is a guttural music playing. Everything is gemstones and stone; everything is bright beneath the darkness; a night like silk embraces her city. The music weaves through, nearly magical, except for the fact it sings in him of unholiness. Vercingtorix does not know the words for it, but in another land it might have been described as folkish; there is a banjo, a trio of mandolins, and a number of hide-covered drums. 

His people do not have music. They do not celebrate. 

The haziness in the air reminds him of dreaming and the moonstones beneath his hooves, reflecting the fire as if they are fire, suggest nothing is as real as he thinks. There is no light, besides the bonfires and street lanterns. There is no light from the sky above Caligo’s Court; children play with sparklers and adults share hard, spiced cider. He smells apples, and cinnamon, and spices he has never known before in his life. There are games around Denocte; he hears of mazes; he hears of fortune tellers and a death celebration and everything seems wrong to him. Denocte is a city with a queen, and it is the first time in his life he has ever heard of something so atrocious, so backwards. Don’t they know, he wonders, as as he watches a woman with six legs dance. Don’t they know, that she must have the wild in her veins, and she cannot be trusted? How can they let her rule? He sees the men as they pass him, painted for the festivities or adorned as soldiers are. But there is a weakness to all of them; they have been emasculated, transformed into the effeminate. When they smile, he cannot smile back. 

Don’t they know? 

Vercingtorix takes to the darkness like it is his. Perhaps he has lingered so long in Dencote because it is where Locust’s ship docks. Perhaps it is because he has heard Boudika’s name and hopes to catch a glimpse of her, painted gold as if for war. And what would I do? The question hangs on him like unrequited love. And take that as you will. Perhaps it is because no other god in Novus would have him. 

Through the bonfire’s brilliant blaze of smoke and ascending embers, something catches his attention. 

It is a dancer. 

She is a dancer.

He watches with leonine curiosity. Vercingtorix does not need to see her dance, to know she is a dancer. She is light-footed, deer-like, and the strangeness is enough to intrigue him. He does not find her beautiful—how could he, when he so reverently loves the smell of sweat and the strength of warriors?—but Vercingtorix cannot deny that she is captivating. His limp is barely noticeable as he leaves his position against the wall, as an observer, and enters the throng of the celebratory crowd. She is alone, but he comes ghost-like around the bonfire so as to press them nearly chest-to-chest, face-to-face, if it were not for the fact he is so much taller, so much larger, and so much less elegant. 

“Is this your home, dancer?” he does not know why he asks it, besides there is an emptiness within him that needs something to fill it, and all too often that something comes upon him like a desperate, vindictive hunger. 

Coming face to face with her, he realises he confronts something else entirely; 

Are you leaving because of the girl? his mother had asked.

No. But here he is. In her city. 

And he is full of a rage like hate; a sorrow like ire. The passion pools in his eyes; in his chest; and he looks at this stranger with an indescribable expression, if only it were an expression, and not a facade. 

"Do you teach others to dance?" He asks, and he knows now, his expression is soft again. Soft around the eyes, the mouth. An almost smile. But not a real smile. The words come out flirtatious. 

He can only smell smoke

and think of war. 

Of dying.

Do you know bonfires are for funeral pyres? 

Mesnyi

She’ll cause you never no trouble
And she’ll tell you no lies

here is a voice that whispers to me when I am alone.

It calls me outcast, beautiful, traitor.

It is the voice of my friends, my parents, their parents. My guardians.

I often wonder if it is always wrong or always wrong. Seldom are we one or the other; gray is the heather of my coat, the silver in my hair that sings in the moonlight. I sing in the moonlight. The land of night invites me to do it and so I do. I would do it anyway.

He is black and the gold in his coat sings in the firelight. He is very large and most certainly a warrior. I wonder if he black is painted on.

”Is this your home, dancer?” 

She wonders what sort of people go around asking questions like that without so much as a nod of the head, a greeting, or some manner of introduction. She does not worry about it. He is very close to her.

”Anywhere can be my home, stranger.”

His face softens and she wonders if the harshness of it had been the light and the stark midnight that fell across him. She does not know the answer.

”Do you teach others to dance?”

She wonders how Eik is doing. He did not stand out among her pupils, no, but Isra still rules this land and she wonders if he is still at her side, when all the other kings left their thrones.

”Sometimes, for the right price.” She winks at him but it is not flirtatious. It could be, but its promises are calculated and openly so. Currency comes in many forms. ”Perhaps if you tell me about a world you have seen that is not here…then I may teach you a dance from a place that is not here.”

Anywhere can be my home, stranger. 

The novelty of it.

 This is where he ought to let the amusement of it—bitter though it may be—shine through him as if genuine. This is where he ought to smile.

So he smiles, and it is real, and pleasant, and gold. 

“Charming,” he says. And it is. A charming idea. One that has never possessed him, one that he never thought possible. What is a life without discipline? Without belonging? Without identity—

Is he not learning? Is that not now his life?

She mentions a price and the smile fades into something simultaneously sharper and more worn. A blade, blunted by combat. He does not believe her wink to be anything aside a business deal in that moment, but Vercingtorix does not mind. “What makes you think I am from a world that is not here?” he says it in a way that is full of darkness; perforated with incense and closed bedroom doors, the sound of ruffled silk sheets. But he is first and foremost a gentleman and he withdraws just enough to assess her properly; she is exotic; petite; elegant. His people do not believe in whimsy; but she is nothing except whimsy. 

“If I were to tell you of a world that is not this world, I would tell you of a place with black cliffs terrorised by monster horses.” He is not a storyteller; Vercingtorix cannot help but sound as if he is recounting hard facts, unemotional and clipped. “It is a place ruled by the sea and Old Gods; and horses come from the ocean to reap the living; and the living fight them with gold and silver and copper, because metals are too heavy for the monster’s Souls, and it binds them to one shape instead of many.” He winks then and it is the same calculating gesture, as if to say, is that enough. “Does that world satisfy you, dancer?” 

Vercingtorix steps almost to the side of her, so their shoulders are level. He turns his head to keep her in his sights and asks, “And are you from many worlds?” 

It is a dream. He is certain of it; it is too fanciful a conversation to be real. They are discussing worlds as if they exist! The fire flickers beyond her shoulder, and for a moment, he almost believes the possibility. There is something about her briefly, transiently, he finds familiar… but familiar in the way the wild is familiar to all wild things, familiar in the way that dreams are always recognisable as such. "My name is Torix, by the way. I apologise for not introducing myself sooner." 

Mesnyi

swing, swayed to our breathing:
they’re made of the moon

is smile is real but it feels like a snakebite.

”Charming.”

”What makes you think I am from a world that is not here?”

”I don’t assume such things,” but if I did…perhaps it would be your poor manners.

He is not a storyteller. She could’ve guessed it, certainly, but looks can be deceiving and so she gave him the benefit of the doubt. Clearly there was no need. He makes a terrifying world sound like a textbook. 

”I suppose, though I think I have heard it from my brothers before. None of them quite cared for it.” She follows him with her gaze as he steps next to her. She doesn’t like it.

”And are you from many worlds?”

”No,” she says. ”Just one that is not this one. It took quite a bit of effort to get here.”

Ah, his name. Finally. Mesnyi smiles. ”My name is Mesnyi.” She pauses. ”There is a very simple dance that I learned during my few days in a very strange place where no children were born and no one died. Every sunrise its people would rise from their beds and watch the sun travel across the sky until sunset, when they would sleep or pretend to. I was never quite convinced that they slept. During eclipses they had one very complicated dance that I do not believe we mortals can commit to memory…but during blue moons they stayed awake all night, and for a few minutes they would dance in this way.”

Very, very slowly, Mesnyi arched her head backwards, until her face pointed to the sky. She opened her mouth and held it that way. ”They thought they could drink the darkness…that it made them immortal to do so. Any night but the blue moon’s night would kill them with its shadows.” Her voice was strained with the arcing of her throat. She closed her mouth and shut her eyes, rising in a rear. Then, with the suddenness of death, she snapped open her lids and slammed her hooves on the ground. Mesnyi relaxed her form and looked to Torix. ”It isn’t my favorite, but you’re not inclined to dancing. And - yes, I asked them - it is a dance.”

I suppose, though I think I have heard it from my brothers before. None of them quite cared for it. 

Vercingtorix cannot say why her question has filled him with something like unease, but less refined. It is a grainy, dark emotion; belonging to predators, or soldier’s as they pillage. 

She says many things but gives little away. He would like to ask more of her world, he thinks; but simultaneously he does not care. Their interaction begins to feel like a mistake as his own words begin to resonate within him. it is a place ruled by the sea and the Old Gods; and horses come from the ocean to reap the living. 

My name is Mesnyi. Perhaps it is that admission that reminds her he is here, now; in this moment; and not across the sea in a land of cliffs and monsters. Mesnyi shares a strange story, then; it sounds fanciful to Torix, perhaps even a lie. But there is a gravity to the woman, an alien strangeness, that makes him want to believe it. “What a strange place,” Torix comments, nearly idly. But there is a brightness to his eyes that suggests deep intrigue. He watches her toss her head backward, arching her neck at an angle that is both vulnerable and pristine. 

The dance she shows him is brutal; it reminds him a bit of death, of striking down a foe with sharp hooves. But her calm expectation ensures there is no argument from him; Torix understands, after all, that he has disturbed her. To the best of his ability, he mimics her previous pose: he throws back his head, bares his jugular to the world, and with eyes closed rises into a rear. He feels the painful kink in his hip that is all too common; he ignores it. And balances for a moment like that, stepping this way or that to keep from falling. Until, he feels as if it time. 

Torix slams his hooves back onto the ground, eyes snapping open. He gives a deep exhalation. “Like that, Mesyni?” he asks. 

It is not often that he is curious. But this woman intrigues him. He clears his throat; the abrasiveness he had expressed moments ago seems much more tempered, especially when he asks, boyishly curious, “Do your people go to many worlds?” 

He wonders if there are monsters everywhere. 

@Mesyni 

Mesnyi

as the weeping willow

e offers as little as she does, if not less. Torix; a closed book. The stallion has poor balance, for a warrior, she thinks; is war not a violent dance of its own? Should the dancer and the soldier not have the same suppleness, the same strength, only executed differently? She flinches as he slams his hooves to the ground; he still threatens her with his somethingness. 

”Yes, just like that.”Mesnyi says, softly, placidly, though her surface was briefly disturbed and all traces of fear must now retreat back to their burrows. 

”Do your people go to many worlds?” he asks.

She smiles, real and true. ”Oh, yes. We have seen countless worlds, some of us more than others. I have seen but a few compared to an elder sister of mine….” The lavender mare trails off, thinking of she who would leave her family to be free. The Benevolent were often the same in that piece of origin. 

She sighs, wistful. ”I was born in a sylvan glade, a haven for…broken children and their mothers. They would not abandon their foals and so they lived there. My mother and father were born there, both wrongly made and cast out. I was born perfect.” There is no other way to say it, she thinks. Mesnyi was not merely normal, she was perfect when held against most creatures. It was said as truth, not vain bluster. ”I did not belong, and when the Benevolent came they treated me like one of their own. I loved my parents, but I had to leave them. I am happier for it. But that is all I know of that world, Torix. Forest canopy and sunshine is all it will ever be to me. If I returned to it, I doubt I would even know.” A sadness trickles out of her and she casts her gaze upon the firelight, hoping against hope that it will burn away her sorrows.