Eik had sensed Isra’s presence from the moment he stepped foot on the strange island. Her magic here was like a second sun– he could feel it on his back, dappled in the forest, blazing on the sandy beaches. Around that two stars orbitted, laughing, dancing, writhing around each other like two magnets inextricably attracted and repulsed by each other. Each gave off a warmth and color of its own, and they confused him. He did not understand. Was it Fable? Was it himself?
She went one way and he followed, tracing trails of iron and cobalt, flowers and gemstones. It was difficult, but not impossible to tell what was her work and what was the island’s. Perhaps it was the result of his magic, or his love, but regardless– everything of hers had a signature, if you knew what to look for… although, it was not so much about looking as it was about feeling, like reaching about in the dark for something. And of course you don’t know what it is you’re feeling for, not until you find it, so you can’t really explain it to anyone else.
(It’s beginning to sound less like magic and more like love, the secret to his knowing, for it is a well known fact that magic follows the laws of reality more closely than love)
He follows patiently, stopping every so often to look, and listen, and wonder. Does she know he follows? She must. His magic comes to life here, too; He’s certain she can feel it caress her cheek with the warm salty air.
It is deep in the jungle where they finally meet, in an ancient grove (as ancient as a thing born yesterday) of banyan trees. Oddly, it is almost bright as day here, for the clearing is full of fireflies. Most of them hover close to the forest floor, a shallow sea of light, and many of them crawl as though they are sick. Eik tries to move gingerly through them but every step crunches in a way that makes his stomach cringe.
crunch, crunch, like a god and his toys–
crunch, crunch, do they prey for mercy? He can't hear. Maybe he's not listening hard enough–
crunch. crunch. He feels sick, like he’s about to wake from a bad dream but also-- he feels nothing. The significance of all things falls away to the distance between the two lovers. They meet in the middle of the grove. The light of the fireflies are gently pulsing now (when did they start? were they always pulsing like that?) both in brightness and color. The yellow glow fades to violet, to white, to blue… but he’s not looking at the fireflies. He’s looking at Isra, and how her face seems to change with each color. Yellow and she is sovereign of Night Court, rebuilding the court alongside her people. Violet and she is on the mountain, streaked with blood and dust, alive with vengeance. White and she is in Solterra, blazing like a star about to collapse on itself.
Blue and he can’t see her face anymore, the short distance between them is no more. His lips greet her cheek, her neck, her shoulder, her belly– her belly–
The two stars he felt, they’re–
They’re twins.
He looks at her, surprise draining all other emotion from his face. “Did you know?” He searches her eyes, wondering if from them he can sift the answer before she can speak it. It does not occur to him to use his magic.
“Did you know there are two?”
E I K the world, a double blossom, opens:
sadness of having come,
joy of being here.
Preggo @Isra :D
(Those poor fireflies xD I used the relic hunt tag in case they branch off from here and explore, but they certainly don't have to! I'll edit it out if no exploring happens)
Isra who is still "Seek out the signs that precipitate desires: Shooting stars, falling objects.”
It would not be wrong to say Isra is running through the dark again. She's always running now. Through the dark, through a meadow of dying light, through sand that shifts to pearl in the small half-moons she leaves in the shore-- she is running. Her nose is lifted towards the sky and she's running after the acidic tang of poison on the wind. Sometimes when she lifts her nose it's only to smile with her teeth (like fangs) at her dragon swooping overhead.
It would also not be wrong to say that she can feel the brush of Eik against her cheek like a ghost. In each step she takes, in each inhale of tainted air, the island is telling her that Eik is here--Eik is here. And still she keeps running because her teeth are aching and hungry like monsters between the dark gap of her lips.
She knows he would read it from her eyes, the way that she's wrapped in justice and her magic is roaring, roaring for blood. Isra isn't ready to let him touch her again and taste all the ways in which she's still a star imploding upon itself. Not yet. So she walks deeper into the jungle and further into the black, until the meadow of fireflies is crunching under her hooves and pulsing like her broken, aching heart.
Then she turns to him, and watches the way the light makes him holy. She stops running into the dark, into the places where she is a monsters, a hunter, and sometimes some terrible concoction of the two. Fable swoops low overhead and the fireflies move like a wave underneath the current his wings leave behind.
Isra walks through those places, where one crest of light curls over the last in a frothy glow. She walks in the only direction she ever really wants to go-- towards him.
Eik traces the shape of her in kisses. Isra worships all the worn gray of him skin in all the ways, with all the fire, that the light never could. He whispers to her belly, to their twin stars, and she only looks at him with all the ferocity trapped in her small, delicate body.
She glows. Of course she glows, there are dying fireflies all around them (and under them).
But she only calls the silver-light between them love. All the death in the world would not make her call it anything else.
“I wondered.” She says into the place where his mane meets his ears, where there is no sound for him to hear but way her voice moves over his skin. Fable roars overhead and all the fireflies take to the sky in a meteor shower that has forgotten which way it is supposed to fall.
Isra smiles into the secret place of his poll even though she knows he will not be able to see it.
He knows that as a matter of practicality, their child– their children– would be safest locked away. Only the most trusted of guards should be allowed anywhere near, and all food and drink would be sampled to be deemed fit for consumption of the night court sovereign. But she’s here, of course she’s here, in this wild world with her wild vengeance and my god, how he loves her for it.
(he does not stop to think where she might be going with all that rage and all that– hate?– he does not stop to call out take me with you–
sometimes to love was to make a home of yourself, and wait for a safe return)
Somewhere in the dark night is the whoosh– whoosh– of the great wings of Fable, king of the sky. He looks into the dark and sees nothing– no moon, no clouds, no dragon. Just darkness, deeper and wider than he could ever begin to imagine. Far more darkness than light. And when his gaze returns to Isra she’s looking at him in a way that makes his knees ache. A breeze flutters through all the rooms inside of him, all at once, but not a single door slams.
Eik doesn’t want his children, his heart, surrounded by walls and watchful eyes. He wants them free, and fearless, and here, with him. Its only right that they know the sea, and the cool night air, and the magic that is their birthright. He opens up his mind to show them what he sees: their mother’s fearless face, illuminated by the strange magic that takes to the air. A wind-swept forelock sweeps across a proud brow, framing blue eyes that are not made gentle by love, not tender but hurricane-fierce and wild wild wild. Why were there never any poems about how the tidal wave loved the shore, the mountain!
The twins do not form words, as they roll over in their warm bed, but he could swear they are laughing- “we know, papa. we know.” and they return to their own dreams, their own magic, legs tangled up like roots.
"They're... perfect." Eik wants it to always be like this: gently glowing lights and little moons and life– life! They’ve made, they’re making, life, and from what? air and water and blood and love? Shouldn't it be more complicated than that? (everything else is, how backward is that??)
All he understands of it is that the future now seems so certain in ways it never did before, and somewhere in the sprawling mass of his mind, a decision is made.
“I’m coming home with you.” He can’t help the ache in his chest, or the way it spills into his voice. It doesn’t matter that all roads led to this. Love shouldn’t feel like treachery but it does, it does, and he does not know if he will ever forgive himself for it.
(sometimes a heart has to break, in order to grow)
Eik steps forward once again into her embrace, noses her bulging belly and the little gods that sleep within. Reminds himself what matters the most, now.
E I K the world, a double blossom, opens:
sadness of having come,
joy of being here.
Isra who is blinded “Your eyes have the colour of the moon,”
Isra does not know how wild she seems, or how strangely the moon (and the dying fireflies) make her eyes glow. She does not know how her scales glimmer like a hurricane sea in all this waving, fading light. Nor does she realize how reckless she might seem, hunting in the forest like a lioness instead of nesting like a sparrow. But in each touch between them there is still the sea, and wildness, and desperation. It makes her forget to be afraid of the things she does not know.
Each time she tugs at a bit of mane or brushes their bones together, she is rushing out to meet him with her thoughts. She always feels like a thing before history with him. Every time he touches her there is another bit of her to be discovered. First it's a pillar of bone she did not know could feel. After there is a plane of her hip she did not know could bloom. Then--
Then, there is the feel of eight legs tangling in a web that's already catching dreams, and hopes, and eternity. It is like nothing she has ever experienced and she wants to paint his skin in a thousand thank yous for it. Thank you for these two perfect souls. Her teeth are aching with the words, but she only lets those words leak out towards him over, and over, and over again like petals opening.
If there is still light around them, and between them, she has forgotten it. All she can see is the burst of moonlight caught in her skin and the way his whole body is slick with oily light. Because he's saying that he is coming home and that too is only another thing trapped between this massive ball of light exploding inside them.
It is always light-- bright, bright light.
When he touches her belly again, and their stars, Eik will find waves (and waves upon waves) of happiness rushing out to meet him. It is blooming inside Isra like a garden she never knew went to seed and root. It's a small sun worth of joy trapped in bones that ever only held between them cool silver moonlight. “I did not know I needed you to say the words.” Isra says against the curl of bone around his heart. And if the words start to taste a little bitter and sour like betrayal, she tells herself that it is only the tang of dead fireflies around them spoiling it.
She knows what it cost him to say the words and she knows it's a payment she wasn't prepared to make. Isra knows it makes her terrible. She knows that he can taste the thought in the sea they are always drowning together in. The knowing waters the sea between them a little more with fat drops of sorrow.
Will there ever not be a drop of sorrow between them?
“But if you ever need to go back,” Isra pulls away and the two bodies inside her lament at the loss of their father's touch. “I will understand.” She would have to cover up the ears of her heart to it, but she would understand even as it broke it to listen.
Isra hopes though, with a feverish hope, that she will never have to hear the words.
