' Hardly has the universe stretched its wings to span '
The figures on the shore barely lift their heads when the splash sounds. They are the definition of lazy arrogance, like lions sprawling beneath the cool of the moon who could be drawing the shapes of antelopes between the specks of starlight. Everything about them suggests folly and their feathers whisper across the sand in lazy patterns until angel wings arch above their shadows.
But they are not lazy. They are not slumbering lions.
Each of them have counted the exact number of steps the interloper has taken through the water. They have already named him male and listened to the silken coo of his cloths as he removed them. And they knew the water was black against his belly, black as night, black enough to make him seem like a shadow if the stallion happened to drown. Veer and Najjad are hunting even while they look up at the stars like two lost boys in an endless desert.
Veer is the one to answer the stallion (for Najjad doesn't bother to lift his head from his feathers) and he replies with laughter. Each tip of his feathers shine like golden arrows when he shakes the rest of the water from them. “Haven't you heard,” Each of his words drips not with threat but with youthful, wealthy arrogance. He talks like the King of the black waters, and his smile is silver-white when he rises up to watch the stallion in the water. “that this water is a gift from Tempus himself?”
His steps are noisy as he walks through the sand. He seems almost eager, almost young when he joins the stallion in the water. And when he's close enough he whispers, “They say that it might even be the wellspring of immortality.” Beneath the water his joints lock and at the shoreline Najjad lifts his head and his jaws clack just once. The sound could be a warning or an agreement.
Soon. They say silently together in that space where their souls tangle together like snakes. Maybe tonight.
