isolt.I hate the city — I tell myself I hate the city. I hate that it always smells of piss and perfume, the tight walls barricading me in, how every step on the cobblestone roads echoes in my bones. I hate the people, and their worries that mean nothing to a god, their prayers that fall on empty ears.
But all those people, packed together like sheep to the slaughter —
they call to me.
And the magic in my blood calls them to come home, come home, come home to die.
But all those people, packed together like sheep to the slaughter —
they call to me.
And the magic in my blood calls them to come home, come home, come home to die.
A single tower pierces the sky like a spear, a statue of a rearing horse serving as the spearhead. Even from here, Isolt can see Vespera’s colors, can see the way her head is tucked back against her shoulder. And the horses wandering the streets just below her watchful eye, going about their day without ever knowing of the danger that lurks just outside their city walls.
She tries, oh how she tries to see the beauty in it. And some part of her, the part that is not a monster trapped in a unicorn’s body, the part that remembers what it feels like to be born — that part of Isolt can see it. The way the light fractures into all their colors across her brow, the way the sunset is captured in swirls across her stony skin, the tender look of a mother looking over her flock of children that make up the city. Something in Vespera’s eyes makes her own soften, turn from blood-red to rubies frosted in the winter chill.
But the rest of her sees only the violence, and the tears dripping like blood down the goddess’ cheeks from all the prayers she could not answer.
And it makes her want to run, run, run straight to the citadel and tear the statue apart rib by rib. She wonders now, if destroying a god — or even the likeness of a god — would be the same as destroying their creations. If it would fill the aching inside of her, if sinking her teeth into stone and glass would soothe her hunger in a way the grass never has. Oh, the wondering alone gnaws at her now like a wolf, and every bit of her magic is coming alive inside of her and howling at the statue that has become her moon.
Her heart aches with every beat.
Her teeth ache when she clenches her jaw together like she’s chewing out the marrow of a femur.
Her magic aches when she does not move any closer to the city.
Everything in her is screaming and sobbing and singing at once, begs her to take, take, take and devour the court until only its bones are left gleaming as a reminder in the fading light. Her monster, her terrible, lovely monster sleeping in the pit of her stomach is twitching with dreams of the hunt.
And around her hooves, the first few blades of glass turn black and brittle. Her magic whispers home. This ring of death creeping out around her is home.
Isolt blinks slow and long and dreamlike. And when she opens her eyes their is a mare, winged and autumnal and marked like something belonging to the forest. And before she can begin to wonder why, Isolt is stepping forward to meet her, close enough to see each serrated edge of the leaf on her brow.
i wonder what i look like
in your eyes
