m o i r a
i long to be with you, and by the sea,
where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air
where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air
T
here are times, in the stillness of the night just before the sun rises, when she draws, when she paints, thinks she finds jungles in the shadows of her tablets. Great vines sweep out, covering the Tonnerre Estate - oh, it had happened before even Novus stumbled upon the phoenix. Snippets of deep green and bright purples and pinks and fuchsia staining canvas after canvas until a messy, tropical, beautiful scene is dripping with sweat and heat and creatures so beautiful and foreign to her that her hear taches to reach out and simply brush a hand over wings and fur and fronds alike. There are moments when the phoenix will bolt upright in bed, covered in a cold sweat panting, heart thundering, eyes wild and narrow and blood still on the tip of her tongue (is it hers or another's? Moira never really can tell in the end). These moments when she's still somewhere in a misty jungle, still tangled in silken sheets about her feet and unkempt hair, it's hard to tell what she is more: a beast or a healer; a girl or an animal? Most nights, she could lull it away, drink a cup of tea and let herself fall back into the blackness, dipping into an abyss so wide and full of splendor that she does not always wish to leave it.
Today, the phoenix cannot. As she rises from her bed, discarding her sheets and blankets in favor of her anklets and bangles that are carefully threaded between feathers of sunlight and dreams, her head is not where it should be. Within her breast, a caged bird sings and screams and yells. There are songs hammering on her ribs, thundering against her heart as it beats louder and louder and louder until it is a wild, roaring call that she cannot resist.
So, the girl of sunsets and dreams and healing and mystery and so many more innumerable things, she listens.
Quickly, before the sun has a chance to raise his head over the mountains and pull those late-night lover to their beds once more, she slips from the castle as a phantom fleeing in the night. There is that jungle music, the humming and thrumming that sound like home as though she's never known the word before in this way, where it simply sounds right and feels as though keys are turning in locks and at last - at last ! - they fit. Tumblers turn and move, grinding open one by one as she draws nearer to the mountains. To that unavoidable song that fills the very woods that surround her.
Carefully, so carefully, wings extend to brush against the trees, pine needles finding feathers where fronds do in her sleep. They are only glimpses, and she does not always remember them, but how Moira sees that distant empire now. There, inhibitions run free; there, only the strong survive; there, it is your wit against the world; there...There her heart beats in another chest. As she turns down a labyrinthine pathway (if you ask her to follow her steps back she could not tell you the way), there is a coalescing within. Birdsong crescendos, rising higher and higher, nearly a battle cry and gentle welcome.
She does not expect the tiger atop the mountain to stare down at her when she looks up. Oh - but Neerja takes her breath away. A gasp, a strangled sob slips past her carmine lips as she feels the whisper in her mind as though the tigress were there, curling against her side in a heap of legs and fur and love. No time allows for her to stop and question when she began running, when her feet betrayed her patience and calmness in favor for one who speaks the same as she, for one who loves the same as she, for one who is her other half in every sense where Estelle had not completely and always been. They are two sides of the same coin, Neerja and the phoenix woman who halts just as quickly as her harried race began. How she pants now, almost gasping for breath. How she lowers her head, gentle phantom hands grasping the cat's face in a warm embrace, stroking down her neck as their foreheads touch.
"Neerja" she croons at last, a sigh, a lover's whisper as the sun peeks over the mountain (is he too embarrassed to watch something as touching as the reunion of two souls broken and not quite whole find each other?). There are tears on her face, tears she lets the tigress lick away with a rough tongue that is gentle only for the Pegasus. And at last she settles then, listens as their hearts beat together as one, their breathing synced up, echoes the resounding song that crests in joy and love and something so pure and unbreakable that to touch that sacred bond would sear and burn any who try, and looks over the great masses of fur and stripes and beauty. Looks at the friend she's yearned for from before she can remember. And, with another phantom stroke down the tigress' face, spine, she smiles.
"Let's go home, my friend."
@Random Events | "speaks" | thank you so much, this is absolutely beautiful and perfect !
