She remembers the way the woman spoke to her in her beautiful poetic nonsense. There was something in the way she was shrouded in mystery, playful, and wanting to be close to the fire. The way her gold chains hung down and clinked together with every muscle movement. There was the smell of wood smoke and spices for that short moment, but Morrighan still smells it faintly in the air. She remembers her cheeks getting warm when she realizes she stared at the woman a little too long. Then the closeness of their bodies in that small amount of time. It's confused her ever since and she still does not know what to make of it.

"Someday I'll enlighten you. If you promise to come see me dance," she had said with a smile. Morrighan hasn't forgotten this even with the change of seasons. That is why she finds herself wandering down the market streets to where the dancers perform. At first, she hesitates and feels stupid. Never before did she care about the dancing because it seemed silly and pointless. She'd rather burn things down for entertainment than watching other equines move around.

But - she is nothing if not loyal.

Part of her feels nervous since it's been so long that her and Al'Zahra had first met. It was a brief meeting and, so far, she hasn't seen the mare around Denocte since. Perhaps she learned the ways of stealth from the wolves. Still, she very well could be here tonight up there with the dancers. But, did the other woman care that much? Or did she just say what she did because she could?

Bram falls into step with the mare. He has felt a bit protective of Morr since the altercation at Raum's memorial. She hasn't said much to him since leaving there, but he can tell she appreciates him being there just through their bond (at least, for now). She will never admit this to him and it makes him smile. He can tell she's nervous too, but he knows better than to point this out. The timber wolf is not in the mood to have his fur singed today.

When the Warden finally makes her way through the crowd and to the dancers, her eyes scan through them. They are all lined up and adorned in fancy clothing and accessories. One stands out from the rest and she holds her breath. The long gold chains are recognizable- it's her.

She isn't sure if Al'Zahra's seen her yet, but she takes a spot to watch. It's awkward, but she's content fulfilling her promise. Hopefully the other woman will fulfill her end of it. How funny it'll look to see the elusive wolf sitting right next to Morrighan after all the fuss. He is partially in shadow, but his bright yellow eyes surely won't be missed.

"Speaking."

The Illuminated

“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”

Tonight, the eve of the harvest, is for being wild. It has been since the dawn of time. And so, because her soul knows how to be as wild as the reeds by the sea, Al'Zahra gives herself over to the savage night with abandon.

There is moonlight pooling liquid silver in her chains until she looks as blessed as anything else in the court of stars. All the firelight burnishes her skin until she's nothing more than a ember pulled free from a flame and given something close to a heart. Around her the other girls are dancing and around them the soldiers are watching with hungry, protective eyes as if there is danger on the outskirts of all of them. She smiles, oh she smiles, and it's like a wolf smiling at sheep as she twists around them and calls herself wind.

Music carries her body onward through the crowd and for a moment, only a moment, she loses herself in the ringing of a bell and the touch of someones lips upon her shoulder. She tells herself she's like jasmine smoke, lovely and soft and dangerous to breathe. And part of her, that savage ancient part, wants them all to choke on it. She's about to press back against those lips against her skin. Between her smile her teeth ache to answer back with violence and gold. Her heart snarls in her chest like a caged thing and the wild, brutal music drives it onward.

There is a flash of yellow at the edge of the crowd, back where the soldiers are watching the sheep dance. Something in her trembles like a nymph begging for the chase, eager to feel the forest  sweep her away into hiding. When she turns and dances closer it's still there in her eyes, that hunger and wanting. In the echo of the silver moonlight catching on her skin it looks a little like ferociousness.

The crowd clings to her even as she pulls away, like they all know dancing feels more like freedom when she's twisting between their shadows.  Even the firelight doesn't want to let her go for it still pools molten and golden across the last summer shine of her skin. When her teeth flash between her smile the firelight turns them into a pale echo of gold like stars warring against the dawn. “Was your hunt successful then?” She turns her eyes to those golden wolf eyes in the darkness something in her voice seems to suggest that she hopes the answer is no.

Because when she curls her neck like a nymph dawning her flower crown every inch of her body seems to sing in the wild, savage night. It's singing, have you come to hunt me too?

The Illuminated

“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”

This is a dance she has known since the dawn of time. Every molecule of her body is shifting like soot, light and smoke. Her body feels as if it's nothing more than a tangle of possibilities yearning and aching for the crest of their story. She shivers with the feeling of it-- the sweat, the flame, the spark and the golden glow of hungry eyes at the edge of a crowd. And already each inch of her is wanting for a touch and her hooves are humming with a hundred steps no one knows but her.

She steps closer because she must. There is talk of gods and she's aching and so she must.

“I'm sure Caligo has her reasons.” There is laughter in her voice. Below that there is something close enough to rage and close enough to longing that the two are impossible to unwind. It all comes out like smoke anyway. “Does he have a name?” When she asks something in her unfurls and blooms as brightly as any moon-flower. There is in her look again something wanting, something trembling, something as wild as the leaves burning at the bottom of the fires. Something burning.

Behind her the dance is growing more wild. Mares have their heads tossed back like lions and stallions are dancing between them like tides between the moon and the center of the earth. She can feel the call of it pressing against her skin like a touch. She can feel it urging her to dissolve in the core of it, to become the smoke twisting it all together. When she listens it's closely and when she obeys it starts with a touch to Morrighan's cheek. The touch is soft as a feather and caught between almost-not-there and almost-a-kiss.

Almost. Almost. Almost.

She doesn't say she's glad Morrighan came. She doesn't say anything but, “I can't tell you.”. The look in her eyes is wicked and rimmed in firelight. Each of her chains sounds like a star trembling against the darkness; they sound like falling. “But I could show you.” That sounds like falling too, like Al'Zahra has already tossed her head back to roar like a lion.

The dancers start to touch the edge of their shadows. The dance has grown wild as weeds. To her it seems the only way the night court knows how to do anything, as if it's rabid enough to bite the sky and claim all that blackness like a dying wolf. “And after that I could show you how dancing doesn't tire you out.” She steps closer once more, close enough to trace the space above Morrighan's neck. It's another almost touch, one that promises she knows how to leech every secret from the flames and from the flesh. There is a promise in everything she does.

When she pulls away the crowd seems to rush into the space between them. It's the way the tide rushes the cliffs or the way the leaves rush towards the ground before winter. It's hungry. “I can show you how it makes you feel alive.” And when she presses into the crowd everything from the devilish curl of her lips to the chains singing against her hips seems to chant one song over and over again.

Follow me. Follow me. Follow me..

The Illuminated

“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”

At first there is only the crowd pressing in against her like flies and carrion birds. Each time she steps there is another hip, another shoulder, another set of lips pressing into the curl of neck. For a moment there is only the dance, the hunger, the music rolling over them in waves of magic, the weakness of mortal will and want. All her edges beg to dissolve into it, to be the air in their lungs and the magic in their hearts.

Below that her heart, oh her wicked ancient heart, begs her to consume each and every drop of this profane dance.

Someone presses too close, she cannot feel fire beneath their skin like a pulse, and so she answers them with tooth, and hoof, and chanting chain. It feels like scratching an itch, like she's the wolf in a den of rabbits bedding down for winter. Everything in her sings until her blood is racing, racing, racing through her veins in a song louder than the drums ringing in her bones. She starts to hum.

She's still humming by the time Morrighan finds her in the crowd. It feels like there are hornets in her chest, thousands of them, rubbing their wings together and begging for water. If she smiles, if there is any look on her face but one of hunger and recklessness, it nothing more than a flash of teeth (part welcome and part claiming). Her steps slow and turn. The chains across her rib-cage settle their wild song and pick up a new tune. It sounds like the smolder of fire, like kindling drying out in a spring copse. It sounds like--

It sounds like all the fury and wrath she can see waiting just below Morrighan's skin.

And oh she wants to let it loose, she wants to watch the entire world go up in flames. She turns to smile  into Morrighan's hip and she drags her teeth along the curl of it. If there is a number of lines she must draw across the Warden she will discover it. With her nose she traces the pathway of Morrighan's spine, of her neck. She follows the hungry snake waiting underneath her form. “The trick is to almost let it carry you away, just enough that your lungs feel full of smoke and her heart feels like a lion beneath your skin.” Al'Zahra says the words right into her ear, knowing that if she doesn't move away that her chains will sing their song over and over again in that too-small space between their skin.

She laughs and it has nothing at all to do with humor. It has everything to do with fire, and dancing, and getting lost in the fury of both. “You go until you feel like you might die in the grasp of the music. And then,” Her eyes are flashing golden suns in her eyes when she pulls away. There are a hundred promises in that look of hers, a hundred secrets are arcane as the gods before the gods. It's feral, and starving and furious all at once. She inhales. She trembles.

She closes the distance in something that looks like the most graceful sort of desperation. It's a lovely gesture, horrifying but beautiful. “Then you start to slow.” The words form themselves into another sort of dance.

Or maybe they just sound like a prayer that the world will burn, burn, burn.  

The Illuminated

“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”

The fire at Morrighan's hooves is nothing more than a ember to all the flames churning between the chambers of her heart. Every inch of her is aching to be made into smoke, and flame, and molten gold. Her hooves start to dance to the song of it, of how it feels to melt down into everything that promises a phoenix. Later she will call this dance a revelation, the way her body curls, and burns, and aches in the places where Morrighan and her touch.

Later, when she closes her eyes to dream, her bones will slumber in the memories of this religion between wild, wolfish hearts.

But for now there is only the coil of her singed hair spiraling up between them and the way it makes her inhale sharply. For now there is only the way that she feels as alive as she had in the beginning of time, the way her whole body wants to unmake and make. Her inhales are all sighs, and holy writ, and song when she presses them into all the furious war that is Morrighan. She wonders if the warden wants to unmake the world too.

She wonders if it's the burning or the ash that feels like freedom between their lips.

Al'Zahra is about to start singing to Morrighan when the mare pulls away and runs. All the words of fire, and smoke, and becoming die on her lips. They do not wither. She tucks them away, in the holes in her heart between the flames and the mortality.

She'll sing them to the sun when the morning starts to brush at the windows of her room. She'll dream of them as notes her hooves know how to sing. Later she'll wish Morrighan knew how to burn, how to really burn until there is nothing left but wind.

There is so much she will do later.

Tonight, there is only dancing to be found in the wake of Morrighan. Tonight there is only the hedonistic fury of the festival. So she throws herself into the pit of dancers and sings. She sings until her throat feels full of smoke, and her bones feel like magma beneath her skin with the heat of all the touches her flesh longs to know.

And she does not stop until she begins to dissolve into nothing but smoke and want.