he sun limping its way across the sky, leaning heavily on the western horizon and staining the clouds in its blood. I have peeled myself away from the river and traced a path down Amare instead. The creek babbles in my ears as I walk along. Low hanging tree branches sweep across my spine as they reach their leaves toward the water longingly, hoping for a single touch. The sound of the water is as pleasant a white noise as I could hope for, drowning out the hunger of the lioness in my bones.
I walk for several long minutes before stopping. Fylax rests in the hollow of a tree, against the bank of the creek. I watch them curl up into a marble white mound, looking startling out of place in the spring green growth—like a lingering pile of snow. The gryphon’s feathers fall flat to their neck, long tail curling to cover their beak. I cannot rest. There are too many gaping spaces inside of me for sleep. I am too busy thinking of the mountains, and the moon, and the stars, and how they will all judge me one way or another. I am too busy thinking of the sea, and of the ways I would like to be something new.
I have spent so long as an other-thing, I am not sure if there is a way back through; a way back to something that is not caged and pacing and feral. I lean my shoulder against a tree and lift my head to the sky. My hair falls back like a curtain, revealing sapphire blue eyes darkened in the slowly vanishing light. I have blades and armors and starving magic and I have always tried so hard to be anything other than what those things have made me. I have failed, every time. I know now who I was meant to be. There is no escaping the way the gods carved me, what they breathed into me when they gave me life.
all that blood was never once beautiful. it was just red.
LYSANDROS
they'll wait to tear your wounds open...
Lysandros had spent the better half of his time in this strange place stumbling around without a clue as to where to go. Spat from the portals of a dying world and into one that made no sense to him. It was at least less dizzying than his previous home, there were no winding paths that trapped him inside until someone came to free him. His large frame moved through the underbrush of the flora with some difficulty. If it wasn't a branch scraping along his side, it was his sight obscured by a copse of leaves and losing his footing. The slate soldier had yet to find anyone willing to really converse with him beyond the portals where he was found. Most didn't pay him any mind or gave him a wide berth. The bronc found himself following a creek somewhere out in these unfamiliar wilds as night was beginning to creep across the sky.
As he moved beside the creek bed he spotted a strange white object that was a stark contrast to the grays and vivid greens that lined this brook. Beside the water on the opposite banks stood another equine. They were a colour, unlike his slate gray and vibrant orange hues. Lysandros was said to have been born from the violently churning magma deep beneath the mountains of his homeland. Instead, this stranger was adorned with trinkets of red, gold, and blue. A feather was placed carefully in their hair. They were brown striped, and ivory with bound hair and red paint. That was the colour that stood out the most to Lysandros as he approached from the opposite side of the creek.
Then it was their blue eyes that he met with his own molten orange ones. His eyes drifted to the strange marble creature and let his gaze linger on it. Would it be safer to camp for the night with a stranger than to try and tough it out alone? The slate soldier didn't know much about the dangers of this new world yet, perhaps it wouldn't be the worst idea ever. "Traveller, can you tell me what this place is? I've just been spat out of the portals from someplace else." He called out to them, knowing that vulnerability in a strange place could get you killed. Lysandros wasn't worried though, he'd brought down larger creatures than this stranger in his time. "Mind if I join you for a bit?" He called across the creek again. If they denied him company, he'd simply move on down the creek until he found civilization.
y ears twist toward the sound of approaching steps in the new spring grass. I do not startle when he speaks, but lower my head and turn in his direction. He is umbral, a shadow in the growing dark, with embers for eyes and strange marks upon his hip. I realize that we are both shadow creatures, but in different ways. I am made for the darkness of a jungle, meant to camouflage among the trunks of trees and dancing, swaying light through leaves above. He is magma, volcanic, made for dark cavernous spaces of the underworld.
“This is Novus,” I tell him, trying not to remember the boat that had delivered me here many years ago. Trying not to remember the way I had come into a broken country and watched it learn to heal. Helped it even, for a time. Trying not to remember the way it had helped me heal. I have fallen so hard, since then, from heights unreachable. “This is a neutral land, though further north you’ll find beds and meals,” and an entire party, I think but do not say.
I for one would prefer to sleep here beneath the stars than among the festival goers or in Dawn Court itself, where no doubt countless others were spending their time. I had spent scarce little time at the festival, but there simply had been too many bodies and I am no longer a woman of the court. She is gone, has been for some time now. “You can stay,” I say, attempting to appear like I will not kill him in his sleep. I won’t, of course, but you can never really be too sure. By this time, Fylax has been disturbed from their slumber and the gryphon lifts their head to peer at the stranger, like a statue come to life.
all that blood was never once beautiful. it was just red.
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