[AW] a trail of fire

[Random Events]

the forest grows dark

The waves roll gently onto the beach, slow and steady as a lullaby. Back and forth they ebb, dusting the beach with sea foam and salty bubbles that release laughter when they pop. Laughter at the unicorn that walks across the beach, laughter at the way the trees flattened beneath her dragon’s feet pop back up behind them as if nothing has happened, as bark knits itself back together and seals itself with sap, and felled leaves return to their branches to tremble and shake another day.

No matter how many times Fable may lay the trees down, they’ll return right as rain as soon as his back is turned. And the magic howls with joy because of it.

It appears with a single flame, cackling blue and white as it dances in the air. It’s there for only a moment, just long enough for the huntress to catch a single glimpse of sapphire before it disappears. The forest grows silent and dark in its absence. 

~~~

After the pair have walked some distance further, a second flaming orb will appear, hovering in the air to their left. It spins and twirls, as if unable to contain itself as the horse and dragon approach. A soft blue light emanates from the fire and bathes the surrounding trees, cool and ethereal. 

When Isra is close enough to reach out and touch it, it winks out of existence much like the first.

This time, Isra does not have to wait long for another to appear.

A flame illuminates the shadows in the distance, its flames seeming to wave at the unicorn from afar, inviting her closer. Perhaps it is now that she turns away and searches for a lighter part of the forest; or perhaps she lets the lights draw her into its depths, where the trees grow tall and their boughs twist themselves together overhead. 

This time when the flame disappears, a trail of them will appear in its stead, hovering and dancing in the air.

Yet every time either horse or dragon approaches one it will die with a laugh, its flames dispersing harmlessly into the forest. 

On and on into the forest they go, a seemingly endless trail. 

Until the path they follow diverges into two - and down each path leads a trail of flaming orbs. The companions have a choice to make.

---

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[Isra]

Isra and a young dragon
“Something is coming to shake the earth,”

W

hen Isra first hears the laughter of the sea, she can only think of jackals howling at the moon. Then can only think of snakes beneath the sand that have not realized that all their highways of earth and stone are begging all the terrible parts of her to becomes something more. Isra looks at the popping bubbles and closes a fist around her heart so she might not learn to hate the sea as much as she hates the gods.

And she hopes they are watching when Fable rolls on the trees that cannot die like a hound rolling in spring grass.

Her magic begs to leak from her skin, to change each tree into a rose, or a orchid, or weeds thin enough to be swept out to sea. It wants to change each speck of blue fire into a star to be cast out into the darkness where she could draw story-lines between one flickering light and the next. If it wasn't for Fable ducking though the crushed trees (that do not stay crushed) to race after each flicker of light, Isra would have done nothing more than turn her back towards the light.

For her this island is not about the gods, or the relic. It has only been about death (and what that death might mean for the children tangled together like weeds in her womb).

But Fable is off racing towards the lights like he has forgotten he's a dragon born of the sea. Isra follows with a laugh, because she cannot help it. Even hunting she is not cold enough to turn away from anything that makes her heart bloom petals instead of thorns. Having a dragon should make her strong, but it doesn't. Oh it doesn't.

Fable follows the lights and Isra follows him. And each light that laughs at them has ore blooming in the hollows of her hoof-prints. The wind is howling through her horn, and yet it does nothing but bob these endless lights in patterns that make no sense it all.

Soon it's not a single path lighting the way, but two. Each stretches out like a comet's tail and everything in Isra screams to turn away, to turn the whole forest into a meadow blooming with thistle. Fable pauses, and stretches his nose out to a flame he knows he will never be able to touch. He turns towards the path leading into the forest.

Isra, because she loves him, has no choice but to follow.

And still the ore at her hooves keeps blooming as they walk between the darkness and the light.

@Sid @Random Events | "speaks" | notes: please excuse this crap

rallidae