Isra, crying molten gold
"a cracked and torn soul reeks of the sweet incense it contains.”
"a cracked and torn soul reeks of the sweet incense it contains.”
T
here is a moment when the mare looks at her like a wolf, ears lashed back and teeth almost begging to come out like stars, that Isra wonders what almost-corpse she has stumbled upon. But then the dragon in her chest opens up their mouth too and the roar lashes like whips against her bones. At her hooves her chain-mail flickers to glass and then to barbed flowers. Isra is ready, ready, ready and the hair on her back feels alive with electricity. It's a blessing then that the other mare softens and sheds all her fury for sadness. This Isra understands better; she's too raw for war, too raw for thoughts and kindness instead of fury. All that magic in her blood is still too much like a wild thing inside her to trust.
She still doesn't know if she wants to remake this world or destroy it. Does it, with its bitter gods and twisted karma, even deserve to be saved?
The space between them seems heavier, bitter with iron and sorrow. Isra, unable to resist the siren song of melancholy closes the distance between them. Fable drops his wing and the wall turns to just a stone. Hopefully there are no need for walls between them now. She has never been fond of walls and chains and cages anyway and something in her ached to have a need for them.
“Then we shall find him.” Isra struggles to keep the bitterness out of her voice, she struggles to sound like wildflowers instead of storm winds, rain instead of hail. There is no love in her for the gods, only a cold sort of dispassionate rage. Gods have taken peace from her, created for her a body she could not love, buried her city underwater and killed some of her people.
Isra trusts in herself, in mortals and she's learning to trust in retribution and fury too. In dragons too. Fable adds, dropping his head to peer at the two mares and the heavy, shrinking space between them. The night queen touches her nose to the Fable's and says silently, only you. He positions himself on the other side of the silver mare to catch her if she stumbles.
Time is still ticking around them and the blots of blood on the mare are still blooming into shapes like wolves and snakes on the white silk. There are no more demands pouring from her teeth sharp as swords but there is a coldness in her eyes (a cold, cold fire) that begs stillness.
Isra lowers her head to pull at the links of chain at her hooves and they pull off like dirty pearls. She lifts them one by one and presses them like kisses into the bloody, open tracks that are revealed across the mare's face when the silk bandages turn to dandelion seeds and blow away on the wind. Each link of chain crusted with dirt turns to molten gold the moment Isra presses it against blood. It's strange that gold, like a slow moving river that pours from her teeth like tears. It looks like it should burn but it doesn't, it is as cool as a summer lake.
She makes art from the mare's brokenness, art to show her that the world is not made of stone and unforgiving things. Everything can change (and she can't help but remember that everything can die too). It serves the purpose of stopping the bleed by giving her gold instead of flesh to fill in the claw tracks across. Isra thinks she's even lovelier now, all silver and metal.
The mare looks like she could be a weapon of war now.
“Will you tell me what has happened while we walk?” Part of her didn't want to ask, didn't want to know. Isra needs no more fuel for the fire charring names into her bones like crosses above a grave. She only wants to understand how she can better help this mare become whole again with more than just gold.
But a part of her, that terrible part that's opening up after a long, long slumber, wants more. It wants fire enough to consume the world. It wants a name and a reason.
@Seraphina | "speaks" | notes: <3 and the novel continues
