[P] he borrowed colour from the sky

[August]

A U G U S T August did not often stray from the realm of Terrastella, for his home was one of ravenous beauty and as such he truly had no need. Vespera's celestial majesty had never ceased to steal his breath like a spirited thief in the night so that under a thousand dying days he could wander forever across her creation, never feeling the fingers of boredom or restlessness at his throat. For all her grace, for all her kindness, his goddess had carved splendour into the earth; casting marshland against limitless plains against the splintering splitting sea. But that did not mean he could not appreciate the work of other forces - August was not one to sneer in the face of majesty, even if it was not his own. The world was quiet as he moved through the forests that had sprung up in the empty space between Delumine and Terrastella - they punched like victors toward the blue-glass sky and defied the disunion between its neighbouring courts with their teeming abundance. It felt wild here: untouched and untamed, not inherited by thirsty kings or hungry gods and perhaps that was why he loved it so. Was Vespera watching him now, as he wove through plush shamrock-green thicket that had been kissed by foreign lips? He hoped not. Knowing it was naive to wish her omnipotent gaze ended at the Terrastella border did not stop him from wishing it so regardless. She had seen too much already: too many times he had lurched backward into the seedy abyss of red alcohol that took from him all but his sanity, and yet at least, then, he did not have to feel the plethora of things he had felt before.  But that was then and this was now. He could not flounder like a choking child in the shallows for too long; she was gone, and he was changed and that was the way of the world. Skin the colour of molten mahogany etched into a canvas of dappled light as he brushed beneath the canopy, his hooves thudding against the soft earth like a promise of atonement. The morning chorus filtered down from on high, and as August breached a clearing he had come to know so well, he felt something unfurl in his sternum. Relief? He couldn't say. Deep within it stretched like a cat rising from a long sweet slumber and filled the cold spaces between his bones with a colour he could neither name, nor remember. But he didn't protest, for it was kinder than the clanging bars of his mind's callous attempt to cage him like a broken beast, and he knew, well, that this feeling of newness and absolution would not last long. It never did. Silently he moved toward the creek that bubbled at his feet, knowing that the falls from which it flowed could not be far now, and eased down the bank with bunching muscles that rippled and arched like gleaming waves beneath his skin. Summer was still warm in her coffin and the cool grip of autumn was kept at bay by a sun that had never been easy to spurn; the day was young and mild and that was encouragement enough for the soldier to slip into the running water to baptise himself of all the sins he had born since the last break of day. @isra Bear with me whilst I get used to him <33

Image Credits | Table Credits

[Isra]

It took only a story to drive her back to the forests. A story and the dark gaze of a man who seemed like more than just flesh, bone and antler. After him the festival was too thick to bear. All the gazes that skated across her and lingered on the broken, glittering scales over her hollow ribs felt like pinpricks of lightning. She had shivered before all those horses. All their shadows had her bending around them as if she might avoid the world by tucking herself away in oft forgotten shadows. Like a bird in a sky full of hawks she quickly ducked back into the forest and followed whatever path silence made. Where there were voices she would turn the other way. Light too decided her direction and it was only under the glittering starlight and soft moonlight that Isra would travel straight at all. On she went until the trees grew thick once again and the sea turned to creeks rushing with cold, storm water. She doesn't know the name of the place where she finally rests and drops her head to drink deep of the cool waters. Weeks and months have passed since she stopped caring what was held in this place of monsters and fires and men. Perhaps it has been years that she has wandered the lands of Novus. Isra has long forgotten to keep track of the days. She lives as only the wild things do.   She's lost in the loudness of the creek, the way some distant waterfall sounds like thunder. It roars and beckons her, whispering in coos of rushing water that she might sink deep and let the falls wipe clean all the scars of her soul and this strange skin over her bones. There's a hope in her as she lifts her head and turns to make her way upstream. The hope boils in her and overflows like change. It's not until she turns that she spots the man and the ram horns that curl behind his ears. All her bones seize and she freezes wide-eye with one leg lifted back towards the shore. She looks in that moment like a deer, like a wild thing. She could be some some picturesque ruin of a girl. Where she should be soft and tender she is sharp with hunger and exhaustion. Nothing on her glimmers but her scales and the brief places of chain that were washed clean by the water. The rest of her looks black enough (coated in sweat and dust) to be nothing more than the shadows of the lumbering, mighty trees that arch above the creek. “Hello.” The word slips out by instinct alone. The greeting is a throwback to her other skin, her other life, where saying nothing ended in lashes and blood. Isra regrets the sound of her voice the moment she hears it echo like a hammer in her skull. Still frozen she watches him, waiting for the moment he realizes she has stolen away his solitude. Air hardly flutters in her lungs as she waits to see what kind of monster this man might be. When she blinks her fear looks like flotsam in the dread blue sea of her eyes. * * * * * untangle all these veins of mine @August