'God sobbed for his lonely bird and dashed himself upon the diamond sharp threads of his web to have caused such sorrow'
“And there was one spider among the many who called himself 'God' and spun webs made not of silver and dew-drops but gold. He wove many a great thing into his golden universe web. Sometimes he would weave so fast that the sharp edges of his universe would prick his belly and he would bleed.” Tenderly she brushes her lips over his eyes, upwards to were the tines of his own antlers hang empty but for a single white feather that smells of salt.
What worlds, she thinks, might that feather hold in a different universe than this one?
Isra takes a deep breath and it stings with the septic smell of the healing paste. She licks the last of the burning flavor from her lips and continues, watching still that slow throb of his lungs and heart beneath his skin. ”When he bleed the drops of him would look like rubies on his web and where he bleed there also was not empty universes as the other webs held. His gold web was filled not with universes made of dew-drop seas void of life but black mountains that teemed with flowers and trees that dripped red sap and looked like shadows on the blood-ruby's edges.”
Above them the sun curves onward and the shadows seem longer when she blinks and rises from the drowning seas of her stories. Carefully she looks at the wound beneath the leaves and breathes away the flies that have landed since the start of her story. But the story soon calls to her more than the dried blood that still clings to her like ash.
And so she continues once more, curling her head against his shoulder as if she too is settling in to dream away the last autumn heat of the day. Her horn lingers like a kiss against his cheek and she wonders if the vibrations of her voice might whisper to him like webs whisper against the bellies of the spiders that weave them.
That slow, almost thready beat of his heart soothes away her worry while the whispering syllables of her voice soothe away the sweat and fear that coated his skin. “There was on one of those bleeding, weeping trees a bird. He was the very first of his kind, the first living thing to live in a universe that lived on a web that hung between the antlers of the elk large enough to be everything.” Isra breathes and idly draws out the pattern of a web on his shoulder where she rests. Her lips paint out spirals across him, arcane symbols of a language that only story-tellers know.
“He was so lonely, that bird, floating between the trees and the mountain pyres and the ruby-red sky that echoed only his bird-song back to him over and over again until he learned to hate it. All his songs were sad and he prayed over and over again even though he had no idea what instinct is was that made him whisper prayer in the chorus of his songs.”
The shadows lengthen more and Isra and Lysander make reflections across the dirt and stone that seem to stretch out from their bellies like trees. How quickly the hours pass by her when she weaves her webs that could be made of ink and glittering flakes of green-ocean scales.
“And one day the 'God' spider moved back towards that ruby that held life on his golden web. He heard the bird-song echo and his heart broke.” She replaces her horn against his cheek with her lips and she brushes away the crusted sleep from the corners of his eyes.
“Wake up.” The words seem not like an end but a promise when she sheds her story-teller soul and becomes once more nothing but a unicorn who seems to be of the deepest parts of the sea.
