elif
Word of it traveled like a wind across the Mors, hot and swift and whispering low. Solis is here and he seeks the bravest for a hunt, a hunt to save the Court.
Elif, whose ears were always to the wind, listened to the talk with an interest so sharp it felt almost like nerves. She spent the night eager, pacing her empty parents’ home, a feeling like heat lightning flickering under her skin. Like Solis, she did not sleep - and as the dawn crested the dunes of the Mors, a sliver of red thin as a cut, she lit incense for the god at the small altar in her hall.
Still, it was difficult to believe it was true - that their god was among them, that he desired their help - and when his voice rang out, insistent as the sun and the heat, she stepped out into the streets to meet him, feeling like she was in a dream.
But she knows it is real as soon as she sees him. Looking on Solis is like looking on the sun; his divinity is undeniable (in her eyes, at least), despite how mortal his features seem, the arrogant twist of his mouth. She can spare barely a glance for the others around him (strangers, all of them - which means they are likely newcomers to the Court), so drawn is she by Solis’s fire and shine.
Don’t stare, she chastises herself, and at last drags her gaze away, though she still trembles as before a race.
Then a shadow falls over her. It is only there for a moment but in that breath it is as though all of Solis’s bright heat has bled away; Elif turns her head up and up, her wings flexing at her sides, and what she sees is almost enough to make her forget the god and the hunt and the snow.
A pegasus, huge and dark and looming like a condor, like a vulture.
“Who is that,” she says, half to herself, and her voice feels tight, her heartbeat shivering like a bird’s.
If she were not before the whole of Solterra, if she were not before the eyes of her god, she would go and see for herself. Perhaps the man is only black in silhouette. Likely he is not the beast she seeks.
But oh, her green eyes linger on his lazy circles, tracing each with the intensity of a hunting hawk, instead of on the god that burns before her.
