The promises we made were not enough. The prayers that we had prayed were like a drug
I cannot rest, nor can I sleep, knowing the stars hang above me with their celestial hunger. I move silently through the trees, a blur of graceful shadow and startling crimson. I do not smile as I wander the evening like a ravenous creature, too hungry to be coaxed into ever-stillness. All around me the shadows seem to glitter and float between diamond streams of moonlight – all around me, I can see nothing but an endless, consuming blackness swathed in gloam and midnight forests. I soak in the moonlight like I soak in the forest. Swallowing each wild, nocturnal melody and wrapping its visceral flavour between my teeth. I want to strip the night of its beauty and devour its whispering terror. I want to feel the wind howling against my skin, while his gentle touch consoles me. I want to pull him into a twilight embrace and tell him the true shadows are not outside, but within – hiding our own demons.
Restlessness and insomnia – an ache, wilder than wild – drives the lilac-haired witch forward, away from the forests she so hunts in, and into the clearing made of the tents and bonfires. Euryale paces silently beneath the moonlight, feeling the cool, night zephyr ebb like rosewater against her silvery tresses. Her hair whips against the wind, and her expression – upon sensuous porcelain features – is near-grimacing. Tonight, the evening feels too warm, as heat descends like a eulogy; like a forgotten prayer, that one dare not sing into empty shadows of a valley made. A crisp, midnight breeze tolls through the darkness again, and the flower-studded meadows rustle like phantoms seeking heat – they moan and ache, with all the broken hunger of lovers lost at seas. Tonight, the evening is wed by sensuality. By starlight. The moon an evasive smile, a porcelain disc, in the wide, open sky that shone bright and hungry with diamond-wanting.
Euryale feels like the dark open sky. She feels raw and unmade, like a worn-down wound; forged of darkness and starlight too thick, too cosmic to hold. Her heart feels like thunder – heavy – in her chest, though she does not know why. Only the steadfast streams of moonlight caressing her flesh feels achingly familiar. Only the deep pulse of her heartbeat pounding through her veins makes sense, when her whole world drips of iron and love and ocean-darkness. Already she misses the biting cold. The winter chill of an endless December swathed in death and in glacial mystery. Already she misses the cold nights of an empty shoreline, where the oceans roared and bellowed in great, arctic waves that loomed high and thrashed low – a snarling violence, she knows well. Already she misses the touch of winter.
Yet, out here – between the breathy pathways and dirtied moonlight dressed by the stench of mortals – the meadow feels far too still, far too open. With many horses bustling in crowds, and none offering an edge, a threat, a desire. Even the bonfires, the dancing, the tents wrapped in exotic spices and burning incense, do not lure her wicked heart towards their bold witchcraft. Euryale seeks the edge of darkness, the path less thread, winding down a narrow path till her gaze flashes bright against a tall, masculine form – the darkness of his complexion, the glowing warmth of his aurora-skin, all of it compels her forward like a dream. "Good evening," Her voice falls low; ghosting along her lips like silk, her words a mirror to his own, dark with curiosity. "I could not sleep – you?"
