we're in midst of a fire now
*
Calliope, as they walk on stone through an old, charred battlefields is reminded of Velius. There she walked with Shrike, shoulder-to-shoulder through the mountainsides and rocky rivers. She remembers how they spoke in glances, their bellies brushing against one another to share that rumbling hunger that hollowed out them both.
There they spoke of the downfall of gods and monsters. Then in the Riftlands they spoke of dragons and monsters grown diseased with magic. They spoke of war with touches that held all the barely contained fury of a revolution.
Each broken home, each bloody and burned tapestry reminds her of what it's like to burn with righteousness and rage. Calliope is alive with rage and the flames coagulate like blood as gray warrior continues her story. Vengeance is a flavor on her tongue as she wipes away the dust and grime of the desert from the hard lines of her lips. It takes like death this place-- death and fire and suffering.
Those buried lion instincts rumble and roar and there is a promise of fury clawing deep inside the marrow of a unicorn.
“You are not the first to watch her kingdom burn.” Calliope presses her nose against the queen's shoulder, offering not comfort but understanding. Perhaps it's not all her in imagination that the spot where they touch sparks like lightning. Perhaps the spark she feels is her own passion igniting and razing all her calmness for justice.
Either way it feels like a promise, that touch between them. It could be a baptism when they stop near the broken fountain and Calliope distantly watches the way the water colors the limestone like a tear-stain.
The scales tip. The balance of her fury tips to one side and she sparks like a live-wire with hunger.
Calliope turns, looking back to were they walked, back to where the sand monsters hide in shadows. The desert calls to her, ringing out on the silence of this shared story of theirs. And when she smiles at the other warrior mare it's a fierce and dreadful flash of teeth that remember what it's like to be wickedly sharp. “I've hunted ghosts before and smoked them out from their graves..” Her horn flashes like her smile-- hungry, hungry, hungry.
“I could hunt your ghosts for you.” Calliope's eagerness is terrifying. For the first time she thinks Novus has needed her for a very, very long time. These horses need to learn what it's like to be wild, to hunt as unicorns and lions have always been able to.
“We could hunt.” Oh, how dark her smile is.
@
