Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Sleeping in a cage between walls is still strange enough that Thana rarely surrenders fully to the call of the moon. She sleeps as wild things do: fitfully, with nightmares, and unsettled despite the feel of love’s ribcage pressed tightly against her own. Tonight her dreams are feral things full of rabid spit, and monsters, and a river brighter and more blinding than a solar flare. She dreams of deserts, and caves full of dead dune monsters, and canyons above which a hawk is crying out in lament and in hunger.
And she remembers none of her dreams when the sound of her daughters streaking from their room awakens her.
But she is no less the monster in her dream as she follows them. And she is no less a graveyard of death when she tilts her horn into the moon and wanders through the winter-gardens of her king. Eligos is no less a thing in a canyon cave as he follows his unicorn, and her offspring, through the sickle moonlight and the winter snow brushing against his hollow belly.
They, monster and mother-unicorn, are disappointed in the twins for their trail left bright as a line of blood through the snow. Each had been taught better by way of horn, and blade, and tales of sufferings instead of happy endings.
But tomorrow is soon enough for another lesson. Tonight the monsters are curious.
And so they follow, beyond the gardens and the crests of dunes rising from the earth like lungs and hearts from a body. Their steps are near-silent in the winter and their forms are nothing more than a blot of darkness against so many other bruises in the earth.
They follow until the night becomes wounded with lanterns and light. They weave between the horses that stare at them with eyes rimmed in the white of both caution and fear. Nothing turns their focus, not the music, or the whisper of sin, sin, sin, that calls to the dark creature living in their hearts. They follow the trail of lichen blooming across the mortar, and mushrooms creeping from the knots of banquet tables, until the twins are once more (safely) in their sights.
They call it instinct instead of love. They are wrong.
Thana lets a mortal offer her a drink with nothing more than a nod. Eligos presses his shoulder to her own and she can feel his body trembling with the need to hunt, and rend, and ruin, and consume. In their language she hums to him in notes of calm, calm, and later.
On the way home we will hunt and remind the desert monster of their gods. She says to him.
And he does reply, not in words but with a purr she feels like a second heartbeat begging entrance to her chest.
By the stage her daughters have cornered a mortal man. Even from the bar Thana can see the hunger in their eyes and the dip of hunger in their spines. She smiles with a mouth full of teeth that know the feel of flesh and the bitter tang of blood.
Below the eye my loves, she thinks, he cannot deny you entrance.
And when she sips whatever liquid the mortal has given her, it’s not liquor she tastes. It’s the blood of a poacher and the sweetness of cruel justice.
"Speaking." @Ipomoea
And she remembers none of her dreams when the sound of her daughters streaking from their room awakens her.
But she is no less the monster in her dream as she follows them. And she is no less a graveyard of death when she tilts her horn into the moon and wanders through the winter-gardens of her king. Eligos is no less a thing in a canyon cave as he follows his unicorn, and her offspring, through the sickle moonlight and the winter snow brushing against his hollow belly.
They, monster and mother-unicorn, are disappointed in the twins for their trail left bright as a line of blood through the snow. Each had been taught better by way of horn, and blade, and tales of sufferings instead of happy endings.
But tomorrow is soon enough for another lesson. Tonight the monsters are curious.
And so they follow, beyond the gardens and the crests of dunes rising from the earth like lungs and hearts from a body. Their steps are near-silent in the winter and their forms are nothing more than a blot of darkness against so many other bruises in the earth.
They follow until the night becomes wounded with lanterns and light. They weave between the horses that stare at them with eyes rimmed in the white of both caution and fear. Nothing turns their focus, not the music, or the whisper of sin, sin, sin, that calls to the dark creature living in their hearts. They follow the trail of lichen blooming across the mortar, and mushrooms creeping from the knots of banquet tables, until the twins are once more (safely) in their sights.
They call it instinct instead of love. They are wrong.
Thana lets a mortal offer her a drink with nothing more than a nod. Eligos presses his shoulder to her own and she can feel his body trembling with the need to hunt, and rend, and ruin, and consume. In their language she hums to him in notes of calm, calm, and later.
On the way home we will hunt and remind the desert monster of their gods. She says to him.
And he does reply, not in words but with a purr she feels like a second heartbeat begging entrance to her chest.
By the stage her daughters have cornered a mortal man. Even from the bar Thana can see the hunger in their eyes and the dip of hunger in their spines. She smiles with a mouth full of teeth that know the feel of flesh and the bitter tang of blood.
Below the eye my loves, she thinks, he cannot deny you entrance.
And when she sips whatever liquid the mortal has given her, it’s not liquor she tastes. It’s the blood of a poacher and the sweetness of cruel justice.
