"seal all the windows, because I've gone to war"
Isra, as she stands shrouded in gold silk and silver webbing, feels (as she almost always does) uneasy in her own skin. Her bones feel like bars of metal and her skin nothing more than a lovely shadow to cover up a gilded cage. And not for the last time, Isra thins that she's a lie, a lie of a queen, a lie of a unicorn.
Tonight she still can feel the rage simmering low in her chest each time she lifts head to smile and her throat starts to ache.
A harp wails and a flute starts to whisper and Isra blinks and tries to forget how everything seems broken and strange now. She's watching the crowds from above and watching Fable cavort aimlessly above them all. Careful She warns with a smile, as the young dragon dives low enough that his tail might hang only a few inches above the heads of dancers.
I am always careful. Fable replies and Isra's laughter rings out over the crowds like a bell chime. He's never careful, young enough that he cannot see the similarities between himself and the stories that Isra always tells him (at night with the moon rises) about how dangerous it can be to be a dragon in this world.
Just as Fable rises back toward the ceiling Isra catches a glimpse of dark feathers and flashes of white then those feathers ruffle as the sides of-- Marisol. All her laughter dies in her throat, swallowed by the clatter of her heart in her chest.
Then she's rushing down the stairs, a ghost of gold and silver fabric. She could be a shooting star for how wild she seems rushing through the crowds with Fable swooping behind her like a comet's tail. Isra runs because the last time all her frantic running brought Marisol to her.
And when she finally reaches Marisol her lungs heave a little harder than they should and her smile seems paler than it should (shrouded in so much silk). “I hope you've come to see me.” Isra says honestly, because words she knows, are the only true thing she has left to give.
She ignores the way most of the crowd turns to watch the queen who has finally stopped running and the dragon who settles across her back.
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