amaroq
in his own country
Death can be kind
Death can be kind
Oh, Amaroq despises the feeling of being hunted.
He knows, he knows, he is not the only thing in Novus’ waters with sharp teeth and sharper hunger. After he had Made the pegasus (a used pair of wings, she had said, a vessel for duty; he wonders if she knows differently now, if she marvels at her wolf’s teeth and lion’s instincts, she who had seemed so numb, half-dead) the kelpie had left the waters of the mainland. There he had waited out the winter and mourned the passing of the zenith of his powers, and there he had wondered whether he might be pursued.
But it is not the horses of Novus he is wary of now. From that first roiling of sea and earth, from that eruption of smoke and birds thick and fleeing and chaotic, the unicorn sensed the change. Something was different. Something was loose. Behemoth shapes slid long as structures in the dark far beneath the surface, and things with too many tentacles, and monsters that would dare to chase a kelpie back to the frothing shores of Denocte.
Yet the pull of the magic is stronger still.
It draws them all, a hum at the back of their throats, a buzzing in their blood, a new kind of need. It draws Amaroq, too - but not until night, and not until late, when the ivy is withered and all the pearls have been swept into the sea. Only then does he come, dark beneath the starless night, the seafoam color of his mane and tail like the path of the moon on the water as it sweeps over glistening black rock. When he arrives he keeps to himself; when he chances to meet another he listens only, long teeth hidden behind dark lips, nothing but another stranger in a crowd of them. There are many rumors, and none are of a kelpie who attacked a girl. They are far more interesting than that.
He is not sure he believes in gods, of Novus or no. But he believes in magic, and that is a thick thing here, almost electric. And he believes in power, and that is what the Relic must be. And Amaroq believes in monsters, and oh, those are here too, he can smell their hot breath, hear their panting in the dark.
The island is all strange - trees and plants that fruit and flower out of season, birthing things of metal and stone. Birds who sing too many notes in terrible patterns, too many eyes that shine out of the dark. But it is Amaroq who feels out of place here, with ice in his veins against the wet heat of the place, wandering inland from a sea that churns with creatures who have woken from a slumber of dread dreams.
The unicorn picks his way through the forest in the dark, and ice melts in his footprints like the ring beneath a glass. No stars can cut through the canopy; the only light is the flicker of insects, the glow of mushrooms, the blue gleam that curls up the stalks of vines. He follows the sound of a stream (but nothing so commonplace as the laugh and chuckle of a brook - this water wails like a violin, it crescendos and fades like a symphony) until he finds the source of it. It cuts black, black, black across his path, and he can’t make out the bottom.
The water laughs, and sings, and he wonders if it is singing in him, too, if it is a black thread to the heart of the island -
Before he can drink, a figure separates from the tangle of foliage across the water. The way Amaroq lowers his horn then is both question and answer.
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