amaroq
in his own country
Death can be kind
Death can be kind
There is a ripple of sound from the trees and then two fragments of moon-shine separate themselves from the darkness.
Amaroq falls still and so, too, do the bells and bones that chime soft notes from where they are wound in his pale hair. His horn points like a finger to the shadowed place beneath the rotting trunks, but his gaze is not accusatory but beckoning.
Such things as he see well in the darkness. Such things as he do not fear snarls from wolves or girl-children, not even wraith wolves, not even unicorns.
The air smells of saltwater and snow. It is difficult to know where the first comes from; the second is threatening in the clouds that crowd the horizon, and the ice crystals that ring the moon like an eye. Amaroq breathes out a long plume of vapor, and his eyes do not leave the wolf and the girl. There is a smile on his mouth but it is faint as a shadow from starlight, faint as the waterline on the dead pines.
The kelpie does not snarl back, but his voice is still as low as a growl when he says, almost tenderly, “Won’t you come out?”
And maybe he is thinking of the last unicorn he saw in a place where the air smelled of salt and brine, and winter frost kissed the grass, and a young beast guarded her and licked its teeth in want.
@Avesta |
