' Hardly has the universe stretched its wings to span '
“That is not all I want from gods.” Each of his eyes blazes like gold bleeding into the darkness of night, a black so dark that nothing gold cannot die. There is the fading black-water and then there is him and somehow it seems almost easy to believe all those shadows running dappled and rippling came from him.
Veer is thinking about all the wealth that might be carried in a drop of god-blood. He's wondering how much more might be carried in a single feather fallen from his wings. He's wondering, wondering, wondering like a pit that ends only in the center of the earth.
The stallion moves slick as a water-snake towards the shore and Najjad is there waiting for him as quick as a hawk. His wings curl back towards his sides, golden, silent and oh so ready. His beak parts in something that looks almost like a smile (if wild beasts could smile). The feathers on his head are a whisper quieter than silk when he cocks his head and just studies the stallion that has wandered too close to him.
Back in the water Veer is moving towards the shore, back to the place where the oasis laps at his hooves and nothing more. His wings are still lifted and water is still dripping from him like tears of the earth. When he catches them upon the air each beats like a heartbeat (as if the wind lives because he wills it to). “I would not pay the price.” He says and his words are a bade rendering the darkness in two. Each bit of sound from his lips is a weapon rested upon the throat of god.
“I would make someone else pay it for me.” His blade swing and his wings beat like organs on the wind. Water moves away from him like shadows moving away from the light.
Najjad and Veer take to the skies and they are the first to dissolve into the darkness. Their laughter still rings in their wake and that is slower to dissolve than their forms (one brassy and one as deep as a war-drum). The sound of their amusement lingers like the sand lingering between their feathers even as they fly back towards the city boldly blazing in the dark desert.
Tomorrow, their laughter says, tomorrow.
@Toulouse
