Isra waiting at the edge
“by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being,”
“by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being,”
L
ast night there had been a whisper moving quick as a secret around the bonfires. It twisted and twined from body to body like a black, hungry snake. Each dancer that heard it danced a little closer to the fire, a little closer to the walls, a little closer to anything that was warm and safe. On and on it went from fire to fire, dancer to dancer, drum to harp. Until finally, Isra watching in the night garden, heard it.
A merchant told me, it never said who or where or when, that he saw a thunder-bird on the other side of the pass. There is never anything more than that (and maybe a black whisper about a summer storm and rolling thunder that sounded like gods shaking loose). It is enough she thinks, enough to keep her city awake long after the moon has set.
It's enough to make her eyes spark like galaxies and her magic to sigh like a distant god through her blood. Fable, watching from the turrets of her castle, turns down to look at her. There is an ocean rolling in his eyes. Isra smiles and it's a dangerous thing shared between a woman and her dragon.
It is a look that crumbles worlds.
It's dawn when they finally find themselves prowling the godless lands. Bison are spread low in a valley like small black speaks in a sea of golden waves. For a moment Isra feels like the shark in the sea, quiet among all that gold (but so, so dangerous in her soft silence). Above Fable is flying low lazy circles.
Sometimes he keens like a dying thing just to see what might answer back or come to feast. Each time Isra shivers when the sound of it turns her blood to glass as cold as a glacier.
In the crease of her chest the moon on her bow harness is glowing and pulsing to the sound of her glass blood (and her magic that has not stopped roaring). It's brighter than the pale golden sun just brushing against the dark horizon. Were it not for the way her shadow stretches low and black Isra thinks that the sleeping flowers would unfold towards the blinding whiteness. Flowers don't know what wicked, lovely things the moon grows-- but Isra knows.
A crack sounds behind her and she can tell it's neither bison stayed to far from the heard or thunder-bird creeping low and hungry through the golden wheat. Something in the sound of it settles the moon-fire blazing above her heart. The light blinks out as she turns.
Isra never even draws an arrow. What need does she really have for weapons anymore? There's a dragon circling through the clouds above her and god-magic in her blood.
“Hello again.” Her voice rings out like a bell-toll in the hushed dawn. She smiles. The curl so her lips is the only soft thing about her. Fable lands behind her and the ground trembles beneath her feet (and she thinks it's perhaps more of a comfort than the feather-soft barley brushing at her hocks). The dragon cocks his head in a look far more suited to a curious bird than a dragon.
In the valley all the bison take to the trees with lowing cries hurry, hurry urging on their young.
@Callynite | "speaks" | notes: <3
