[AW] come back in through the eyes;

[Isra]

Isra feels a moment of fear as she pauses long enough for it to seem as if she has forgotten the words of her story. It's long enough for her to see those tines upon his head, to wonder if perhaps they are a weapon and he a monster like the other horses of his place. Her inhale is short, as feathery as a butterfly wings and full of panic. There is no shelter here, no place that she has left to run. But a child, close enough to see the white that widens her gaze, is young enough to ignore the fear in her gaze. They bleat a complaint at her, demanding in an innocent voice that she continues. Isra has no choice but to comply and seeing all the glitter, paint and flowers covering their delicate skin has the words rattling wildly behind her lips again. Her eyes though, stare only the the grass, only at the children. She looks everywhere but at the man in the back of the gathering and the sharp tips of his horn. “For months the girl went to the sea. From his depths he gave her fish and seaweeds, enough to feed her family waiting for her. The sun was killing them, drying up their skin until they felt as if they too might turn to dust. Only the girl kept them alive, only her and the gifts of the sea kept them from dying beneath that sun that never faded. Every day she would thank him and linger waist-deep in his waves a littler longer. He told her stories and spoke in whispers of whitewater and waves and sand that sounded like music where her hooves sunk into in.” Isra pauses, enough to take a single breath, to show that she was alive and just a horse. For when she speaks she becomes a story, a tangle of words between pages of flesh, that once closed will be left to rot in some dark corner of a shelf. Still her eyes never raise and the grass blurs and shifts to an echo of the world created only the small bright places that have been left in her mind. The places all the darkness and pain could never consume. “The ocean began to love the girl and she began to love the sea. But that sun, that vicious cruel sun, could spare none of his people for the sea. And so he blazed brighter, hotter and the world started to burn. Places once protected by the waves were left bare to crack and dry and die. Even the girl's family did not survive. For one day when she came back from the ocean there were only flames to great her, flames and the smiling, angry sun.” A tear makes it way down her cheeks and the paint bleeds where it meets the salted water of her sorrow. “And so the girl ran back to the waves, begging the sea with her sadness and loss to do something, to rise up and swallow all the dry sands. But he told her he could not for he had no tides to pull his waves past the boundaries he had for years. And so she turned and cursed the sun that watched them with a smile on his fiery face. 'I will end you' she promised, and the sun sparked with laughter for this weak, shell of girl who though she could end him.” Another pause, another butterfly inhale of her lungs still raw with smoke and panic and endless running. Still her ocean eyes watch only the grass, only the way it sways like a tide under the force of her words. “Curses have always been powerful things, dangerous things. A curse made of love and sorrow is the most dangerous curse you could ever say.” Isra remembers curses, she remembers dying. “And so with the curse still on her lips and tasting of ash the girl turned back to the sea that she loved so. She plunged into the waves, whispering too all that sand and whitewater that it might take what it wanted of her. She offered the waves enough love and rage and power to create a tide. But the sea knew he could not end the sun alone, couldn't avenge his love so easily. And so he took her deep into his dark and covered her in pearls and barnacles. He made her a body of sand and made her glow like the sun upon his waves. He remade her and cast her out, throwing her high enough that the sky caught her. But she was different, made lovely and powerful by the ocean's dedication to her. She became the moon, and the darkness of her sorrow consumed the sun, pushed him down, down, down past the horizon. The world was allowed to heal in her coolness, the fires died out and moon-flowers started to grow, to open and turn their faces up to her. Her power was great enough to drag the sea out, pull him towards her. Never close enough to reach though, never close enough to press a kiss into his salt and brine again.” Another tear runs down her face and Isra thinks she is as cursed to fade away in sadness as the moon. “And that is how the moon and the tides came to be. Only they could stop the sun from burning the world. Eventually he returned, tamed by his defeat and made humble by the love that even he could no stop from being. But he never could end the moon and her night completely and every day she rises again to chase away the heat.” Finally Isra lifts her eyes, the paint faded with tears and that spark in her eyes made dull by the shadows of shifting sun. She looks only to the children, and she smiles (choosing still to ignore those deadly horns in the back of the group). It's a secret of a smile, one that has forgotten how to know joy, to split wide in laughter. “They still say that if you find a moon-flower and offer it to the moon that she might grant you a wish.” The children move quickly then, whispering to each other of what wishes they might wish, what great heroes they might become. Isra watches the man at the back as they depart, half hoping that he will go with the children and leave her to the hollowness that overtakes her at the end of every story. * * * * * in all the pieces I have become @Lysander