"She carefully unfolded the stirring that she had so tightly packed away."
Outside, Fable curls himself up on an overhang. His tail sways in the summer wind like the flag of a pirate ship. Hunger still sends sharp pains through the walls of his belly; he's yet to eat triple his weight in fish tonight (and the sea still calls to him like a siren song). But he remembers from Isra's nightmare how dangerous these dark alleys can be and so he remains watching the single pathway to this building. In his face his eyes shine sharp and almost vicious and he imagines himself to be a wolf instead of a young dragon.
Inside the building Isra has already forgotten (for tonight) how dangerous the darkness of her kingdom can be.
Her steps echo against the empty walls and her hooves leave delicate half-moon in the thick dust coating the wood floor. Books are piled on a half rotted desk and Isra drags her nose gently across the bindings, already half gone in the musty smell of lonely words that haven't been read for years.
Part of her has already slipped away from Noctiilucent and all the fear and uncertainty that must run like acid in their veins.
Only the other mare's words draw her back to the reality and when she lifts her head from the desk there is a coating of dust on her lips like sugar. She sneezes and that makes her laugh a little before she turns back towards Noctiilucent and recalls that tonight there is more in her world than stories and books.
“Another time,” The words are gentle and Isra battles to keep any hint of dismissal from them. Tonight she doesn't want to burn with violence and rage, tonight she wants to remember how to be gentle and emphatic again. “Tonight is for you.” She says and her voice washes out into the dark shadows of this place as she returns close enough to Notctiilucent that their shoulders brush when she cocks a hoof and settles in to listen.
All story-tellers can listen as well as they can imagine other words from the hollowness of silence.
“I used to not face them at all. I used to run from the terrifying parts of life and from the strangeness I felt at no longer being who I once was.” At her back her tail flicks uneasily and puffs of dust rise up like clouds around them. “I was like this building, dusty and almost dead. Every window of me where light could have pooled in was crusted black with soot.” Isra brushes her nose across a golden shoulder and tugs sweetly at the mane rippling down the mare's sides. “But then I decided that I would try being brave and that each day I would change something small, both in myself and in the world around me. I decided that if I did not like who I was or how the world was I would remake it.”
When Noctiilucent brings up the older king Isra can't help the stutter in her lungs when she recalls how a forest burned and how her skin still aches when she looks at the bonfires. Tonight, she has to remind herself, is not for rage, and so she blinks back her bitterness and smiles as gently as a distant star might shine though a black sky.
“I would be honored to be your friend and hear your story, Noctiilucent.” She whispers, because tonight is for old dusty words and brittle pages.
Tonight is for remaking the world.
@Noctiilucent
