[AW] the stars failed to guide me home;

[Isra]

Isra feels like a ghost as she wanders, a miasma made of storms and dusk and stardust. A season has flown by her in this solitude. Only the wild things keep her company now and know that she is even still a horse that lives. Even she isn't sure sometimes, if this body of hers is made of flesh and bone instead of sea-foam and mist. What do the others see when they look upon her? Do they see only a strange mare, dreaded with thistles and leaves with fear aglow in those ocean eyes? Can they even see anything more than a shadow, fleeting and thin and waiting only for the salvation of death? Long have her legs forgotten what direction she travels in, what demons she flees from still. All she remembers is the sting of her flesh where it was singed and the hiss of fire as it cooed an eulogy to her. Fear is all she remembers, enough of it to walk cautiously up the mountain side.  The last mountain burned around her, swallowing up not only her hope but all the wildlife that kept her company as she healed from her past. Isra remember that as well as she remembers the lash and the blood that flowed like wine, thick and deep enough to swallow up her screams. On she goes, quiet and cautious as if all the shadows loom wide and gaping only existing to devour her whole. Only her soft nickers to the deer and mountain goats breaks up the monotony of her hoof-steps. Here and there bird-song breaks the melody of four-legged beasts. She tilts her head at the birds, smiling as she imagines what stories live in the freedom of their wings. It's a flickering smile as the world starts to tremble and break. All the trees creak and groan a death knell and Isra freezes like a lamb before a pack of wolves. She's quick to look upward to see if a dragon shadow looms over head. Her ears flicker, waiting for dragon song to devour bird-song, hate to devour hope and beauty. It never comes and the mountain stills in no more than few breaths. It's enough to make her freeze, one leg lifted like a deer who has not yet decided to flee or stay and graze just a little longer. Only the chain on her raised leg makes any sound at all.  Her fear trills out in chain-song, as fine and delicate as the trembling of her bones. Beneath her ribs that fragile heart of her races like whitewater but the sound of that is muted by the thickness of all that dust and rot on her bay coat. Isra closes her eyes and prays, even though she's not sure what gods might even be left to pity a broken girl who wanted once only to drown. Still she prays and prays and offers a million stories to any god left to listen to the delicate things that have yet to die in a world full of sinners and monsters.  * * * * * i've waited for the sun to rise @Random Events & anyone