There is a promise of power on the island. The forest is almost vibrating with a magic that feels a little too like that beast of power making a home in her blood. She can feel it in each strange bird singing warning to her. Magic is alive in a doe that pauses in mid-step with antlers of amethyst rising from her brows like crown. Everything around her is purring, and singing, and beating the same drumming battle-cry as the organ hiding beneath her skin.
Isra should be worried about what the island means. She should be worried about the volcano sitting dull and dormant in the distance. There are a hundred red flags waving a warning to her that she doesn't know how to fear anymore.
A dragon is flying over the forest in which she's walking. His wings are painting strange patterns of thick black on the jungle fronds. Fable is searching for something, that same taste of power and death that's a bitter sting on her lips. Below him Isra knows she will never have a thing to fear again.
A ghost is here, they both know it. And soon the sand beneath hoof and wing will be grave-dirt freshly turned.
The arrows cooing a soft moonlight song across her shoulder are home in the thicket where there are sharp-tooth cats peering out green-eyed and bejeweled. Her magic is humming a greeting in her blood. Sand is turning to ore, and citrine, and quartz in the places where she is walking. Leaves are shining gold-dust when she pauses to brush her nose against a petal like a lion hunting a wounded boar. Birds are swallowing their songs when her magic whispers things like, become, become, become to them.
It is almost a terrible thing, to walk among a strange island and know that the beast in the blood is home. Almost.
Ahead a sound breaks through the dying birdsong and the leaves sway beneath some force that is not her own. An arrow vibrates and starts to glow in its quiver. Isra pauses, hoof half in the air. Her horn aches upon her brow like a reminder that she never has to be afraid again. Now she's the danger in the thicket.
“Hello.” Her voice rings out, clear and sweet. But beneath it is the warning her tongue, by way of tooth and poison, has learned to give.
@Callynite
