IN MY PREVIOUS LIFE I WAS A TWO-WINGED SPARROW SITTING ON THE UNROTTED FENCE, SINGING TO THE WALNUT SAPLINGS. OR MAYBE I WAS SALTWATER CURLED IN WARM MURMURS AROUND THE LIMESTONE CALICLES OF LIVE CORAL REEFS. OR MAYBE I WAS AN IRIS-BUSH, MY HANDS HONEY-BEE-LOUD, MY LAUGHTER BLUE AS UNSPILLED BLOOD, OR HAVE I ALWAYS BEEN THIS SHAPE OF BODY-STRIVING-FOR, THIS MAN DESTINED TO ACHE? I WORRY I AM ORPHIC NOW ONLY IN THE SENSE THAT I'M LOOKING BACK? NO, SOMEWHERE IN ME THERE MUST BE A FLIGHT AND CHURN AND BURSTING OPEN.
Lyr is one of the few men in his unit that prefers sentry duty at night. Perhaps it is due to his natural introversion—well, it is most certainly due to his natural introversion—that he so adamantly chooses the seclusion of the night. And, at that, it is a good night; he has been assigned Susurro Fields with one other soldier, a man named Buckner. The two of them have agreed to split off at some distance and reconvene in an hour or so, cutting the job in half. Technically they were meant to stay as a pair, for reasons of safety, but it was a quiet night and they expected no trouble.
Beneath the clear moon and the brilliant sky, the mare in the distance is blatantly visible. It is only because the spring air is so clear and cool; Lyr is at a distance when he sees her and so he is also at a distance when the stallion approaches her, a man he recognises vaguely as a member of Dusk.
Either way, there is something about the encounter that intrigues him enough to change his course through the swaying grass; he lopes toward them and the stalks, as he run, sound like the shushing of the sea—it does not take long for Lyr to summit the hill and take note of how both of the other stare up toward the sky.
Lyr does not hear Rhone's sentence in its actuality, or even its completeness; only enough to catch the gist. Only enough to become unsettled. He asks, in a tone that is noncommittal but curious, “Are you speaking with Caligo?”
@
Coding by Avis.
i know i am damned for the pyre
no matter how bright you glow when you call for me
