"today the sun rose from the west and I doubt we will see it set."
There is already a tangle of words spooling out like thread between all the stitches holding together all her broken pieces. Some of the words brush kisses along the concave curve of her ribs, tender as feathers tipped in downy white. Others twine around her veins like smoke dancing around a pillar of words. But one word, Marisol, sparks and smolders like coal and kindling in the hollow bottom of her heart.
Isra knows, that years from now when all her scales have turned brittle and dull, she will smile and tell the world of a pegasus who held all the courage of an entire world in her chest. There is bravery she knows in every bone of Marisol's body, bravery and coldness, fire and broken bits. It's why Isra's heart wrenches in her body when she looks down to their tangled shadows swaying in the fire-lit orbs above their heads. It's why she begs this night to go on and on and on.
Fable, feeling the story and the sorrow, brushes his wings across Isra's ribs like a cool blanket. There is moment between one touch of his wings and the next that he vibrates with words and stories. Between them he says, I will be here and you will not be alone. And Isra almost wants to reply (as she thinks of Eik and Asterion and Marisol, there are more types of love than there stars in the night sky. But that would break the dragon's young heart and so she only curls her neck and brushes her nose to his in a kiss.
There is something of heart-break and sorrow and whimsy when she looks back at Marisol. Isra thinks that the Commander's eyes are brighter than the moon tonight. More words brush and flutter at her bones, tales of constellations and war and blood that was sweeter and more fermented than wine. Each word from her lips is duller than a bell and they feel to her as brittle and sharp as the bits of her heart.
Each word feels like salt in a wound.
“But tonight you are here.” She says so quietly that is almost sounds like, tonight you are mine. Every inch of her skin quivers as it remembers love and pain and suffering and it all combines into trembles and recklessness. “Will you dance with me?” Isra blinks and looks away, already preparing her heart for all the moments that will come when the sun starts to crest above the horizon.
Somewhere in the crush of the crowd a pale mare starts to sing of bittersweet things and a harp cries in the heavy pause between the lines of her poetry.
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