“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”
She wishes for winter, when the sea roars with a storm instead of a whisper on a clear day. There would be ice forming on the sand, where water was caught between wave and brine. And maybe it would cool all this fire that never seems to stop sparking in the tinder of her heart. But she is made of wishes and magic, and she has always known that wishes are a weakness. So she smiles and lets the sun dry the water from her belly and tries not to think about ice, and frost, and snowflakes.
When flattery falls from his lips as easy as rain, she cannot help but laugh and cock her head like a sparrow (or like a wolf) at him. “I imagine there are a thousand things other than chaos in your heart.” She does not say, like blood, and death, and lies, but she wants to. Once she knew all the things hearts were made of, and could be, and how they spoiled like meat left under the sun.
Once.
Now she only steps deeper into the sand where the brine has long since seeped into the ground (or back into the sea). “There is something to be said for horses pressed tightly and remembering how it feels to be as wild as mice in the tall grass.” Her eyes shine at him in the sunlight, like caught golden ice that is content to be in a home of flesh instead of winter. “Or are you too afraid to find out what exactly it is beneath all your bright colors?” She wants to step closer, so much closer, close enough to see the way his pulse sings beneath his skin. But she resists and only shakes loose water from her skin. Each drop glimmers even as it falls, and falls, and falls.
“Perhaps you would run by my side.” She laughs and her bloods starts humming a frantic song. It's saying run, run, run and then, be smoke, be magic. Her skin quivers and her hooves start to tap out a pattern in the sand and shell. A mollusk crumbles to sliver and twilight dust underneath the weight of her. “But perhaps you could not keep up”.
Run, run, run. Be smoke. Be magic. A mantra is blooming in her blood, and her bones feel as light as dandelion seeds.
Finally she steps closer, and she still wishes the sea was roaring in her ears when she brushes a touch against his shoulder. “I am only afraid of stillness.” And with a nip to his skin she's off running. The sand sprays out behind her like it's wishing to be a wave, a breeze, anything but sand that must always fall. She wonders if he is wild enough to give chase like a real lion might.
Be smoke. Be Magic. Her blood never stops chanting its religion, but neither do her hooves.
@Huehuecoyotl
