The howling ghosts have not fallen to silence since the dawn. Ahead of her, beside her, above her, Thana can see the strange beasts running through the rainbow grass. Their smiles are full of teeth and their trails full of pollen. There are moonlit flowers, and petals shaped like rays of the sun, blooming in their wake. Since the dawn neither Eligos, her, or the half-bear half-doe creatures have paused in their flight through the grass forest.
And not once has Thana paused to wonder where it is they are running too. It is enough that they are running like a river through the island, like wolves hunting a stag, like monsters bonded by being monsters and nothing else. Eilgos, understands where it is they are running too, he can feel it in the violence beneath his claws and in the weight of the air pressing in around them, bloated with the roar of a far off waterfall.
He has not told Thana the destination.
The pack is still running, Thana at the center of it, when she hears a mortal calling out beyond the tall-grass. She can hear something in the sound, like sorrow and fury all at once. It awakens something in her, some part that clings to Ipomoea and his castle. It's the part pretending to be mortal. The part pretending that she is not here to tear this world down to white rivers fat with magic and nothing else. Like she's not the only end Novus will ever understand.
That name, Isra, is still caught on the magic wind when Thana emerges out from the pack of howling ghosts. And it's still echoing when she tosses her head towards the mare and Eilgos emerges from the grass beside her. “No.” She answers the question not asked mostly to drown out the please of Eligos as he presses his nose against her hip in a touch that has nothing to do with fondness and everything to do with mercy.
Thana steps closer, ignoring the pack as it runs by without pausing. And when a thorn branch grows out of the island dirt to wrap itself around her leg, Thana does not look down at the root. She knows, that if she looks down the pack will circle back and Eligos will do more than touch his nose against her hip.
This island is full of monstrous things and this girl, with her fiery eyes and whispered word is not one of them. Not like Thana is, not like she's always been.
Please, Eligos asks again.
@Morrighan
