HOW DOES A MYTH COME TO BE?
It is a sweet night that descends on the island.
The spring wind a little warm, a little cool too, like a kiss. The stars overhead are faint enough to be pretty but not threatening; strung between their lanyards is a waning moon that sheds silver on the water like so many scales, moving gray-white-blue as each wave crashes. The darkness of the jungle has been amplified a hundred times, so that each swirling leaf has turned from green to black, and the shadows have become pure, perfect ink.
And Iscariot is not deserving of such a perfect night, oh no, she has work to do, but—who is she to ignore a gods-given gift?
The island has calmed somewhat since she crashed into it. She hasn’t talked to anyone since the portal threw her in, but she’s picked up information, bits and pieces, from listening to the conversations as they pass her.
From what she can gather, the island is new. And… not normal. It sprang up from the ocean. From a volcano. Under the tongue of a god—gods? And they say that it’s bursting with magic. (Which Iscariot has to laugh at—magic, yes, maybe, but hardly. Like a sneeze in a hurricane. Their magic is pathetic, nothing compared to the magic of her mother, nothing compared to the magic of her debtor. But let them think it’s magic. It’s nice to laugh at something instead of snarling.)
Anyway: the night is sweet, and Iscariot, against her better judgement, is enjoying it. Her spindly frame is splayed out on the beach, cheek pressed against the sand, which is still warm from today’s sun; her eyes are open but only lazily, and her dark tail splashes back and forth behind her. For the first time in a long time, she feels.. calm. Her heartbeat is slow. The world is quiet. Only the low sound of the wind and the movement of birds resists the silence that lingers above her head.
In the faint dark, she could almost be a phantom.
