[AW] come back in through the eyes;

[Isra]

He moves and shifts like old, ancient oak branches on a young storm-wind. He feels like too much to hold in just a gaze again. She looks at his antlers, the way the sun glints off them like amber. Another glance can only hold the bold, thick curve of his neck that's twice as large as that fragile, sculpted crest of hers. He is made like a stag and she is made like a bird, a swallow to dip and soar and never really land. When he touches her she instantly regrets it, that offering of her nose to his. He feels hotter than a horse should and her skin crawls where his fire touches the cool moon-glow of her skin. Isra thought that perhaps this skin was ready to feel, to know the way it bends under a touch. But oh how wrong she was. Isra is always wrong and this skin and her soul feel like acid in the places where they touch and tangle. Already she is leaning back again, away from the way his lips shape the word freedom. What does a man know of freedom, of sacrifice, of love? Had she known he was a god made mortal she would have told him that he knows even less than he thinks. “I would take any freedom at all.” Even death. She doesn't say it but it's there in the sorrow stain that eats away the blue of her eyes. Let this skin of hers fade away, wither and die and leave only that soul behind. It's her soul that carries the stories, not the flesh. When he touches her brow she shivers. She's glad he turns away, gone to seek something else, another story-teller perhaps. But her skin still crawls with something she has no name for as she watches the tines of his antlers disappear into the throng of horses. After she remembers that he never told her what he wished for and it feels like a blessing. * * * * * put down your lies @Lysander