If there is a cord between them it is pulled tight and made of gold. And perhaps if there is a wire, made golden twisted and twined between their hearts, there is another one attached to this island. Isra thinks, as her beast of magic roars and hisses and makes itself into teeth and claw and wing, the the island's chord must be a black thing waving around with no end. In the sand, protesting the way she makes it to peal and ore, Isra can feel it looking for a landing.
She wonders what it will feel like, when that thing lashing in the dark decides to settle. The thought isn't an easy one to shove down. But when she looks at her friend, and the way her horns seem like something more than bone, it seems almost natural to look away from that gnashing darkness.
Before them the forest has just started to rise up like holy spires to some undiscovered god. “Raum sent some of his followers to Denocte. I think he hoped that burning our food stores would make us weak and afraid.” Isra laughs as she walks into the dark forest. She laughs because Raum only made another one of her bones into steel.
Around her a frond turns to an apple branch. A fern ripples in a rush of magic and becomes a stalk of wheat. At her hooves all the sand is turning to seed that catches on the wind and heads to sea Isra plucks an apple between her teeth and bites hard enough that the sudden explosion of sweetness makes her shiver. “But he was wrong and I will make a garden of his bones for the mistake.” When she turns back to Noctiilucent and offers her the rest of the apple, there is a smolder in her gaze that sparks when she learns of dead bodies and closed border. “I would not have let them keep you.” Isra does not blink until the words dissolve into the shadows pressing in around them.
And when she thinks of her children it's with somethings as hot, and violent as rage. Bit by bit this place needs to be broken down and remade. This world will not have them either.
Isra lets herself be distracted by the thoughts of her friends dreams (later, she's still telling herself, later there will be more time to make gardens). This time when she touches the golden mare there is only pride and fierceness in the look. She does not know it's the way queens are supposed to seem to the rest of the earth. “There is nothing you could write that I would not want to share with everyone.” Isra brushes her nose across her friend's cheek. The leaves and the fronds are whispering against their backs, and she imagines they are two wild things passing through the gods-wood. She imagines they are holy.
“Someday will you read the story of our hunt to my children?” And the way that she says someday makes it sounds like forever.
@Noctiilucent
