alone we float away
*
A rumble echoes far out, a promise of the torrent of rain and electricity soon to lash against their skin like a million tiny whip-cords. Calliope already anticipates the way her nerves will feel alive with the pain of it. It's a reminder of the universes she's traveled too, the gods she has challenged, the monsters she's destroyed.
For a moment she can forget that there is a gray stallion beside her. If for only a moment, she can forgetting she's trapped in such a civilized place by her endless searching.
His words echo against her skin, closer than that salvation of a storm in the distance, and she is brought back to the now. “It's the things that rise up between the storms that matter.” She doesn't look back towards him now, doesn't look at anything but the looming darkness. “All the things no storm could dare to wipe clean.” Something in her tone thickens and coagulates like blood upon a battle ground.
It whispers that there has never been a storm able to lay low the justice of Calliope.
Finally she looks back at him. There is only darkness for him to see, only that strange silver, hunter's stare to meet his gaze. She is disappointed by the fleetingness of his smile. Part of her thought that he might be like Raymond. That he might be one of the few men that could withstand the way all the edges of her promise blood and vengeance instead of gentle, soothing caresses.
He reminds her a little of Asterion.
Perhaps that is why she looks away to release him from the weight of her gaze. Still she doesn't close that gap between them. The stories of Calliope are too heavy to pair with touches, the sorrow and rage of them too great to share skin to skin.
“There's a world hiding in the dark places between the stars. It is forgotten and half swallowed by a magic that even the gods who claimed the land could not stand to wield.” Ahead that storm rolls in and the thunder is almost close enough now to rattle the dirt at their feet. “They were wicked those gods, greedy and cruel. Land burned by the apathy of them. Mortals could barely contain the echoes of elements that lingered in their bones.” Calliope blinks and it's as slow and steady as her heartbeat. “A child burned down an entire forest and there was no price to pay. The gods wanted no justice for the trees and the animals she turned to ash.” Her voice laments for those innocent creatures and the graveyard of decay that still holds all their bones.
The black clouds gather and the first streak of lighting flashes between the clouds as she continues on with her story. “But there was a queen who carried the feral magic in her bones. She recognized no gods and wore no crown upon her brow. Her kingdom had no walls and no law but justice and righteousness. The only thing she bore were scars, lighting and a lion that lay ever waiting in her bones. She saw the fire and heard the screams of dying forest creatures and ran towards the blaze to save what she could.”
Calliope pauses only for the lightest of breaths to beat back that sorrow of her tale. Her eye's never shift, never waiver from the storm that is already sending the others to shelter. “That queen was the only one to hold the child accountable for her recklessness. And so below the judging stares of the gods and a single dragon she sliced a mark across the child's shoulder and told her to learn or die. Youth wouldn't save her again.” Another bolt of lightning hisses though the sky. The light of it turns her eyes to comets as she closes the distance between them.
His shoulder is hot under her lips and the sand on it brings with it a memory.
“They called that queen of the godless magic Calliope and she was more wild and reckless than the magic in her bones.” Suddenly her story isn't just a story anymore. It's a storm of words, full of more potential danger that the winds that begin to cool and sharpen into blades.
Calliope could have smiled at him then and whisked him further down into the abyss of her. But she is a unicorn and she only tightens her lips into a blank sort of expression and taps her horn gently against his neck. She won't ask for a story or his name.
The way her horn lingers against his mane is demand enough. There are payments that must be made.
A unicorn never tells a story just to hear the sound of her own voice.
@
