She didn't expect to be back to the island, but something drew her to it. The last time she had set foot here, she and many others were hunting for the relic. Now it was nowhere to be found and Lucinda still hasn't heard of its whereabouts.
Coming back, she almost forgot how strange the magic worked here and how little to no rules there were. Although she likes control, some chaos is fun too and there can be more possibilities.
So when she sees the thick fog in the distance from the sea, she has to check it out for herself. There is nothing visible through it, but she knows it must be the island from its general location. Plus, when she starts to swim through it, she can feel the familiar formation of the lava bridge. As she pulls herself up and her fins transform back to legs and wings, she can't help but look up in awe.
It's all more than just fog. Stepping through the clouds feels like entering an entirely different world. It's as if the night sky has fallen and settled here as stardust floats through the air. There are galaxy clusters and bright comets. She can almost feel the heat of them even from this distance. Although there are no walls around her, each footstep echoes in an ominous way.
She wishes she could harness it all for herself. To take it all in and use the power in some way, even just to create her own illusions. Or maybe she will just reach out and touch one of the stars to see what happens.
This is greater than any relic by far. Maybe she will keep one of the stars for herself.
“The forest rose like a dream
from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter
and the sun fell heavy and thick
to warm the blood of a world"
For a girl with blood that sings of freedom, and chaos, and all the bits of the world stretching on without end, there is a surprising amount of all three to be found in the bright spaces around the stars. Each step on the hollow not-earth, and between the glittering fog clouds of galaxies, and through the blackness so thick she could drown in it, Amaunet feels like a thing awakened. There is holiness here, remnants of a time before the gods and before all the mortal sins.
And of course there is chaos here. It's in the great collisions between the stars, and the planets, and the black-holes collapsing inward. Her own form glows with each explosion of light, and cosmic matter, and stars replicating like sick cells of each other. All she has in this hour of neither here nor there is her bloody warpaint and her golden accents. Each reflects in her light like blood and wealth, war and victory.
Soon she is another divine star moving through the blackness. She's soft gold against the thick dark and the bright silver. Like a virgin sun she moves, curious and almost shy, about the world around her. But deeper than that, in her blood and marrow, she moves not like a sun but like the cosmic snake twisting between the real and the dream sea.
Amaunet is not devouring her own tail. Instead she's swallowing a bit of darkness twisted with filaments of comet fire.
The black mares pulls out of the darkness, almost too suddenly to be a thing of flesh and bone instead of stardust. She smiles for the chaos of it, for that thrill in her heart as it starts to race in a way that has nothing at all to do with fear. Her hooves carry her closer, each step a distant purr of thunder echoing on the hollow not-earth.
“Hello.” She sighs the greeting with stardust and those filament of comet fire shining between her lips. At her side her feathers whisper another greeting, wing to wing in the language all birds of prey are born knowing.
Within moments, Lucinda finds that she is not alone. What walks through the fog is no ordinary equine. She is winged, but she is glowing like an ethereal being. Almost as if she belongs here and is the keeper of this realm. She moves with such fluidity, that it catches Lu for a moment. What are those gods the Court-followers talk about? Has she come face to face with one of them?
At first, her lips curve in a smirk, but as the woman gets closer and breathes a "hello", Lu finds herself growing hungrier. She can't explain it, but it's as captivating as the floating galaxies around them. While she wants to harness the power and energy around her, she finds herself more than ever wanting to sink her teeth into this woman's neck. Would her blood bleed liquid gold like the light that shines off her?
And then there is anger inside her. The mare's wings look bright and new too. It must be nice to still be able to fly and feel the wind through her feathers.
Lu clenches her jaw with distaste. "Have I come to meet my fate?" she asks, although it's more in a mocking, bitter tone than anything else. It's highly unlikely this woman is anything like a god and this is all an act. Whatever she is, Lu wants so badly to destroy it and take it down into the sea with her.
“The forest rose like a dream
from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter
and the sun fell heavy and thick
to warm the blood of a world"
Beneath her skin and golden glow the magic of her blood starts to purr. She can feel it like a living thing made of fire and like a snake it's reaching towards the black-mare with her hard jaw and her feral looking wings. It reaches through Amaunet's skin, like heat rising from a flame, and brushes slick and heavy at the world between them.
Rise. Her magic whispers. Become.
Amaunet cannot hear the words her magic is saying, only the rumbling purr and the way it itches down her spine like a caress. It is enough to make her wings whisper another predatory warning to the mare before they settle against her sides with stardust and moonlight caught between the feathers. “No.” She laughs around a smile and steps closer as only bold things are oft to do. Every inch of her is as welcoming as it is warning.
The mare's bitterness is obvious in the line of her jaw, and the curl of his lips that screams a warning Amaunet chooses to ignore. Adrenaline born from years of fighting rushes in a torrent through her blood and every inch of sinew bellows yes.
A ring moon settles towards the glass floor and the black line of the horizon flashes bright for a moment. She doesn't turn to look, doesn't turn away from the mare her magic is racing for. A hunger she knows too well is looking back at her as she steps closer, and closer. Each of her steps is another kiss of magic, another note of yes, yes, yes, and another whisper of her feathers to leather and talon.
“Was it fate you were looking for?” Her voice is an echo of a star shooting across their shadows, a bit of brightness to the bitterness. And it's a promise when her necklace sways against her neck as she reaches out a nose towards the mare.
I am the daydream, bring you faith and conviction
I am the nightmare you've been crawling through
Her anger is only rising higher like the flames of a bonfire as the woman steps closer. With every step, Lucinda can feel something inside her itching to be free, or to kill, maybe both. She can hear the sea crashing against rocks surrounding them, but she cannot see the waves outside of this galaxy-fog.
More moons and stars fall and float around the pair, but she can't seem to focus on anything else but this woman. It's like she has tunnel vision. Her green eyes glow with a fury she has not felt in some time. Nostrils flare, as if they're searching for the scent of blood for that perfect vein to sink her teeth into and drag her down into the sea below.
The winged mare asks if fate is who she was looking for, and Lu doesn't know. Her mind is clouded by the hunger and anger and-
A nose reaches out and, for a moment, she feels the warmth of the woman's breath on her skin. Immediately, Lu steps away from her touch, but not too far back. Her teeth are bared like a wolf, but they are much sharper, much more like a monster. The glow flickers brighter now in her eyes, almost so bright her pupils are barely visible.
"You'd be a fool to touch me, girl," she growls a warning and drags her hoof across the stone beneath them. Then her dragon companion, Abraxia, appears out of the fog, scattering fake stars in a billion directions. She is in a similar stance to Lucinda, but opens her jaws wide to reveal the green fire about to be released from her throat.
Wait, Lu tells the beast, her eyes not leaving the woman. She wanted to move first.
Everything in her is telling her to kill, but she is giving one last chance for the stranger to leave.
“The forest rose like a dream
from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter
and the sun fell heavy and thick
to warm the blood of a world"
Something else stars to rise between the yes, hunger, and the steady echo of her magic against her chest like a newborn organ. It flutters against her bones like a trapped bird of prey. Her own wings shiver at her sides, an echo of the fluttering thing just starting to wake up. She wonders if it'll be another star to hang in this black space between them, or if it'll be a young sun just learning how to burn and devour up all the oxygen in this world.
When the mare bares her teeth like a wolf and spits her wrath, Amaunet only smiles in the way secrets smile. The glow flushes brighter against her skin, like a blush of sunlight against the blackness of the mare and the dragon that lands furiously at her side. If they are the night black-as-pitch, she is the morning red, red, red-as-blood. She laughs as the mare and dragon snarl as one with their mouths open to spit and froth against the dying of the darkness.
Every inch of her form shivers with light, and adrenaline, and instinct. Between her rib-cage her heart sets to aching when her wings thrash against the air to lift her hooves off the glass and stone. A challenge blooms in her eyes even as laughter bubbles in her throat like rain. A star blazes a line of fire between them and even though it stings her eyes to watch it go she does not close them, not even when they start to water against the ache.
“Careful.” She whispers in the silence between the light and the darkness. “Monsters have a way of being hunted.” Years of training, and suffering, and wildness rise in her like blood in a wound. And this time when her wings stir up stardust and moon-ash they seem to promise speed enough to cross this endless expanse of night instead of violence.
I am the daydream, bring you faith and conviction
I am the nightmare you've been crawling through
The longer Lucinda keeps her eyes on this woman, the more her anger boils over. Especially the way she says "careful" and "monsters have a way of being hunted". What did she know about monsters? If hunting was what she had in mind, she would find out soon enough who the true predator here is.
But then there is something that sparks in her mind among the cloudiness of rage. She blinks and looks around at the fake galaxy floating around them. She watches the way the woman raises her wings and she's not sure if she's about to take flight or attack. Really, she's not so sure what's come over her so suddenly. It's vastly different from the hunger she feels within the sea. It's as if she had fallen for a spell and, maybe, this had all been a trap.
Normally she would not back out of a fight, but now that she has managed to free herself from the magical hold, she sees that it's pointless. Next to her, Abraxia is still glaring at the woman and ready to breathe her fiery wrath. Lu looks at her and pets the dragon's head with the tip of her wing. It instantly calms her companion down.
"The only one being hunted will be you if I ever see you in the sea or flying above," she threatens, her tone much calmer than it's been this entire time. Maybe it'll come as a surprise to the woman if this tension had been the plan all along. "Better yet, you'd be smart to never cross me again, witch. I don't appreciate being hexed."
She gives the woman one last glance with glowing green eyes before swooping back down into the sea. Abraxia follows, but takes to the skies. When the dragon's wing cuts through a floating comet, it leaves a cloud of shimmering stardust. When the fragments land, it appears to be nothing more than ash.
“The forest rose like a dream
from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter
and the sun fell heavy and thick
to warm the blood of a world"
There has always been a difference between rage, and want, and chaos. She knows it well. As well as she knows the ways across the dune and the tunnel below the canyons. But looking at the mare, with her hunting hound of a dragon, she wonders if the knowing is curse or blessing. How easy it would be to snarl, and snap her wings, and spit fury instead of cleverness.
Amaunet laughs at the warning as all children of war and chaos do. Davke have been hunted and chased for years. And yet here she is, laughing at the girl and her hound like a fox who knows a million dens waiting in the dark forest. Hexes are for the weapons, not the hunters and not the foxes. Even the stars around her, the constellations and the caught moons, seem pale beneath the unashamed glory of her laugh.
How lonely to be so angry, so monstrous that dragons settle like pets beneath the horrible truth.
She wants to tell the mare that she'll burn out before the stars with all the things living black as oil where a bloody heart should be. She wants to tell her that heavy things belong in the sea and not in the sky.
She wants to stay a million things are the mare turns with her hound to leave.
But nothing comes out, not when the stars fall from her wings and land in snowy piles of ash on the glass floor. She only watches her go, that strange and knowing smile on her face, and lands upon the glass and stones. And she starts to run, wings spread wide as the horizon, just to hear the sound.
It sounds like music, and war, and a pride of lions running around the darkness.
