Oh, there is hunger in him. I can feel it there beneath the surface, there in the red of his skin, of the sharpness of his horn, of the bright-white flash of his teeth. It should be a warning sign, it should mean something to me —
but it only makes that pit of magic and anger and sorrow all wrapped together in knots inside of me, begin to purr. And growl. And lay their teeth against my ribs.
but it only makes that pit of magic and anger and sorrow all wrapped together in knots inside of me, begin to purr. And growl. And lay their teeth against my ribs.
S
he stands there with the water lapping at her ankles and a man and his hounds emerging from the water, and all she thinks is how the world might look when she and her sister at last consume the moon and the sun.Her made-in-magic heart trembles to see the reflection of it cast on the water behind him. Of that eye-in-the-sky that is watching her, always watching her. Like a god watching the titan, like a war that is brimming.
And Isolt —
Isolt is the wolf who will consume the world in the war that is to come.
So she smiles at that moon, she smiles with every one of her too-bright and too-sharp and too-hungry teeth. And when she turns to the man the smile lives on in the brightness of her eyes.
His horn is moonlight when he raises it in the greeting that all unicorns recognize. And Isolt wants to pull every quicksilver thread from it, to let it run down her brow like moon-kissed water. She wants to watch it drip, and drip, and drip, and spoil as it touches her skin. She wants to see it turn from white to black, from life to rot, to death, to a plague that she will feed back to him.
She wants to consume him — she wants to consume everything. His hounds, the water that clings to his skin, the entire desert her father loves so much. She wants to tear it all down to its bones to give them as a gift to Danaë.
That magic in her blood whispers yes, yes, yes to her heart with every beat. And it begins to feel as though she is holding back a tide when she lets the water kiss her feet like sinners kissing the feet of their priest.
She does not step any farther into the water. She will not let it wash away the memories of the stag, or the meadow hare, or the elk, or the girl from the island — she will not let it take their blood that is still dried in flakes on her horn. That is her’s, and her’s alone to keep. That is her reminder of her risen things, her bright, dead things that come to her each night and run freely on root-and-bone legs.
But she does not tell him any of that. He would not understand that the dead do not scream to her — they cry out to her. They whisper their hopes, their dreams, their memories of living, their hunger. They beg her for hearts to beat with and legs to run on, and she — blessed, merciful god that she is — grants them their wishes.
Instead she only lifts her bright gaze to his, and asks him: ”Who?” Whose screams does he hear? Whose blood does he wear? Whose life did he take? And where? And why? And how can she find them again to grow daisies in their unseeing eyes?
Isolt steps closer to him, and her tail makes a hushing sound in the sand behind her. She steps close enough that she might count the tracks of water running off of his skin like the tears of gods.
“At night, all dead things are awake.” She aches to drag the words across his skin with her teeth. ”Including me.”
rotting and rooting
wilting and blooming
wilting and blooming
