FAITH IN THEIR HANDS SHALL SNAP IN TWO,
AND THE UNICORN EVILS RUN THEM THROUGH;
SPLIT ALL ENDS UP THEY SHAN’T CRACK;
AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION.
AND THE UNICORN EVILS RUN THEM THROUGH;
SPLIT ALL ENDS UP THEY SHAN’T CRACK;
AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION.
Perhaps in the great, black and gaping jaw of the night with a crown of storm clouds between it there is a certain romanticism in the meeting of two wolves. Perhaps it is only in the certain way their bodies curl both in the space between them and away from it. Or perhaps it is nothing more than the way the dust and the flame tease each other in the blackness, each a spot of not-quite color in the nothingness.
And maybe they are two wolves meeting between the teeth of the gods.
But if the mare with her whisper of a voice is a wolf she is only sinew, and stalking start of a hunt, and a howling chorus at the moon.
Thana is the kill, the blood, the crack of ribs breaking and shattering like porcelain. There lives in the curling song of her horn the poetic tale of the ruin of the herd. In her eyes there is not the color of lilac but the color of blood coagulated and begging for rain beneath the moonlight. She smiles and her teeth are flat, strong as a stone, and prepared to devour and desiccate despite the way the shape of them begs for blade, and fern, and fruit.
They step closer. Lichen blooms across the marble tiles, each darker and more rotten than the last bloom. The air, the wind, the smell of cloying black candle, becomes weighted with the acrid sweetness of mold, and rot, and time on a corpse. A prayer collar left as a sacrifice on an altar turns to dust when her shadow falls across it. Candles crumble, flower weep and bend towards her like sentries and guards. Her smile does not fade, or falter, or waiver when she dips her nose in a greeting that lowers her horn to the mare's brow.
There, her horn seems to say, I would unmake you there..
“There are no gods here.” She says. The soul of her magic is still fat with slumber, and bloated with the old kills. There are are no gods here to wake it and hollow out the belly of it for more, and more, and more. Until there is nothing left. More. “There is only you, and I, and him.” A growl in her belly sounds like a laugh, a howl, a bray at the moonlight begging to be worn down into a sickle in the other mare's eyes.
Again she steps closer. The blank candle flame flickers against the shadows of her face and fills them with something more profane than red-light. Eligos pulls back his lips and nips at the satin lapping at their feet like a nest of snakes. His teeth sound like an explosion in the black jaw of the night. And after that, when the crack of bone on bone fades into the humming of their hearts and the lulling coo of their lugs--
After that it is not the unicorn who loves a king that speaks.
“If you are clever you will pray to none of the three.” Another bit of marble falls beside her like a dead star holding tightly to a wish. Her belly snarls. “Are you?”
It is not that unicorn at all.
<3 | @Euryale
"Speaking."
"Speaking."
