"like a fish in a bowl misses the open sea”
Isra did not choose a mask from the table where the others sat, empty-eyed and calling. For hours she had poured magic over wood and rock, gemstone and fabric. Each mask on the table and each pool of satin was made by magic, her magic. Still none of the costumes on that table came from all the things twisting, alive and hungry inside her soul.
In the end it was Fable that designed her outfit by showing her his memories of what the inside of his egg looked like. So Isra had dawned pools of burlap across her body and tied mesh around her face like a blindfold. Once every scrap of fabric left covered her body she let her her magic tangle with the thoughts of the young dragon, until art poured over the rough fabric like pale, molten gold.
Her body, as she walks through the crowds seems alive with gold and pearl-shine and moon-glow. Fabric pools over her like slow, forest streams and each step she takes is another discovery of art. First there's amethyst ink shifting across the silk on her shoulder like dragon wings. Then there's only gold and silver, plain enough that she's nothing more than another gilded mortal in the press of bodies. And when she lingers in a shadow, she almost seems more like a dying, faded star than a unicorn.
Fable is almost nothing more than another sculpture of fabric draped across her back, for he's tangled in the nets of silk like a trapped sea-creature. His eyes are heavy with sleep and gluttony (she never knew a dragon could eat more than his weight in fish) and his wings ripple loosely across Isra's sides. This is not his world but their bond it still too young and fresh for her to be without him.
Not yet. She tells herself to drown out the guilt. Later when he's older I'll leave him to the sea.
Never. Fable answers back and his thoughts are tinged with colors of dark blue and white. They scroll like a story across Isra's eyelids as she blinks.
Both of them are so lost to each other that at first they hardly notice that another horse has bumped them at all. Isra is slow to lift her eyes, slower to dive beneath the shrouds of glitz on the stallion to see the horse below the mask. But when she does her eyes spark with joy and she forgets all about guilt and ticking clocks.
“Toro.” His name comes out like another whisper of satin against their flesh, another secret that only will last for a night.
@El Toro
