[AW] the darkness of the dawn;

[Isra]

Isra has not braved the sea since the day she tried drown herself with all the weight of her chains. Even the salt and brine couldn't replace her sorrow and those black, vicious memories that clung to every cell inside her body. The last time she came to the sea her blood felt like oil and she thought she might kill every creature in the deep with the poison that leaked out from the open wounds that covered her in more numbers that there were stars in the sky above her.  In her solitude it's not surprising that she again comes to the sea at night as the tide washes away from the shoreline. She wonders if even the waters avoid her, choosing the moon instead of the marked girl who is as forgotten by the world of Novus as a single daisy in a field of wild roses.  Even the sand, soft with sea-water, wipes away her hoof prints as she continues down the shore. Isra could be a ghost, all sharp edges and scales that look like nothing more than a reflection of the waves on the soft moonlight that paints everything in silver dust and glow. Her bay skin looks black and her horn is almost invisible but for the glint of star-light on the tip of ir.  Perhaps she's a ghost after all, a shadow seen only in glimpses and forgotten in less than a blink or a turn of the eye to something brighter and more lovely than a hollow specter.  So Isra carries on, unaccounted by the lovers sneaking away under the moonlight and the devils hiding in the crevices of the rock-faces at her left. Any sound she makes is devoured by the waves crashing against the rocks revealed only at low-tide. Part of her hopes that when the tide comes crashing in it might take her away with it and deny that oil of her torment no longer.  It's hours yet until the tide turns so she continues on, this ghost of a girl that even rattles like a dead-thing chained in a grave so that it might not rise and rise again. The cool autumn night feels like a blessing, a respite for the parts of her skin that still remember what it feels like to burn by dragon-hate. Just before the tide retreats as far at the moon will take it Isra turns and walks into the waves. A sigh for the sting of the icy salt-water breaks the silence of her lips. Seaweed tangles about her legs and it feels like a hundred little caresses of things  that do not want to forgot the ghost girl of the sea.  And just as the moon starts to sink and the night is as dark as it will ever be on this start of a new day she smiles. It feels like a private thing. The way her teeth flash like a comet, white and silver against all the blackness of her form (and her broken soul).  Ahead the moon sinks even lower. As the sky starts to lighten and the silver begins to turn gold her smile fades. It was a gesture as fleeting as a comet too. Only her solitude and the sea go on and soon the waves crest just below her belly.  Sill Isra does not leave the rising tide.  * * * * * so show me why you're strong