Isra choking on a pearl
"if a goldfish could but leap over this waterfall, she would become a dragon.”
"if a goldfish could but leap over this waterfall, she would become a dragon.”
S
he wishes she could read all the things dancing in and out of his golden, sharp gaze. Each thing dances briefly across his eyes and through the weighted space between them. Isra wishes she has a name for it, any name at all but mystery. In him she can see nothing but youth and darkness, and a hundred small cracks of gold covering things she knows nothing about. She doesn't know war yet, but she's learning. Oh she's learning!
“A pity.” Her voice is still a softly tolling bell, a church-bell, a stone bell, a death toll. Part of her wants to move closer to him, to taste the brine and salt and whisper to him that there is more than violence in the sea. She wants to ask him if he sees the dark deep when he closes his eyes to sleep. Or does he see blood, gore and battle? Isra wants to know what it's like to be black cut through with gold, like a stone. Small rivulets of gold start to run across the floor, like snakes.
She wonders too if he will see the warning there. The way her magic reaches for him and promises, turn your satisfaction towards my city and I will drown you in a sea of molten gold. There is nothing left she would not do for her shining city under the moon. No night she would not tame, no ghost she would not burn on a pyre.
Softness does not protect a city, this she has already learned. Softness does nothing but drape necks in necklaces of teeth and blood.
Isra doesn't answer his question not right away. The truth sits like a black pearl behind her teeth that she could choke on. So she only says, “follow me”, and turns back towards the door. At the window her dragon pulls away and takes the sky. All the light pours in without his body blocking and and everything seems brighter. The gold shines like a polished blade on the blackness of the magic made ore.
The floor is still changing at her hooves as she walks. First it's marble her hooves sing against, then pearl, then glass. And when she reaches the great entry doors there is nothing but plain, gray stone at her hooves. Isra presses her nose against the door and it becomes strings upon strings of silk ivy with berries made of ruby hanging from the roots.
It almost feels like a caress she when walks through the jungle doorway. She thinks of Eik and it's still in her smile when she looks back at the boy who finds his pleasure in war. It's a strange smile, tight as a noose between her lips. “ I used to find my satisfaction in hope.” There are no other words that she wants to share to this boy, or with anyone. She doesn't want them all to know that she's turning away from stories and softness.
Fable lands on the steps. He reaches his nose towards the stallion like a small puppy looking for a gentle touch. Each of his wings are spread wide and they cast mighty shadows across the stone. The dragon waits and a throaty sounds trembles in his throat.
Isra watches the interaction like the test that it is.
@Erasmus | "speaks" | notes: <3
