HOW DOES A MYTH COME TO BE?
The girl is beautiful, in the way Iscariot has always liked best—the way of all wild and dangerous things. She is blackest night and moonlit silver and dotted, in places, with the promise of death. The blue of her eyes is unforgivingly icy, and it makes Iscariot smile, almost. (She has always been jealous of eyes like those, that bring to mind the sky, or the ocean, or sea holly. Her own eyes remind her too much of her mother, too much of demons and the contract that binds her like cuffs. Her own eyes burn far too bright.)
Iscariot is not afraid. She does not flinch or shudder from the way that arctic gaze rakes over her, like a scientist classifying a new specimen. Iscariot is logical too, and in her head she is doing the same thing that is stranger must be doing—marking down all the details, how many bones line her scalp and what they might mean. Iscariot’s own accessories are nothing more than a family tradition. She has never hunted or eaten flesh; they are the same bits of femur and skull that haunted the mane of her mother.
But this stranger may very well be the kind that kills her own rabbits, and there’s no way to tell in the dark.
“Far away—“ Iscariot jerks back as lips reach for her hair. It’s not far enough to duck completely (she’s not sure she wants to) but her reflexes are sharp and scared from years of fear and she is tense at the thought of being touched. It’s been eons. But the stranger is soft and smells like something or somewhere or someone she knows, and as she tugs at Iscariot’s hair, Iscariot finally relaxes. Her shoulders unroll and her spine unwinds. Her hooves sink deeper into the shifting sand, and when her eyes meet Leto’s they are dark and sweet and winking like stars.
She nods at the introduction. “I am Iscariot,” the girl says, and her voice sounds like a song in the cool, dark night. A tiny smile curls at the edges of her lips. “I am. I need your—I need their help.”
Her jaw tightens a little, but her face is still soft, with volumes of hope shining from her eyes.
