a solid gold life sliced off at the roots
A moon is following her.
It is unsettlingly incorporeal, insubstantial to the point that its silver is interrupted by the pattern of the green leaves underneath. It bobs noxiously at her fetlocks. It is a constant afterthought in the back of her mind, both draining and refreshing — the magic takes her energy but replaces it with satisfaction, gets her heart to thrumming extra-loud. She’s tried to make pets, of different kinds — a snake to keep her company, or a bird to watch overhead — but living things still hurt too much. So the moon must be good enough.
Without her mother, or Elif, it’s easy to get lonely. O hasn’t really seen either of them since Raum took over. She should be worried, but she isn’t; she would feel it in her heart (or her third eye) if either of them were dead, she thinks, or even injured. Perhaps they’re even here, following the path to the island just like she is. O stretches her head high and glances over the crowd as she moves deeper into it, seeking them out, but only a few of the faces look familiar — Caine, Aghavni. An ochre hood.
She’s missed the heartbeats of the fruits. By the time O slinks and shoulders her way to the front of the crowd the ivy has fallen away, nothing more than a suggestion of what was once alive now laying dead on the black rocks. Yards ahead the cobble-cracked lava sinks into a paradise too pretty not to be evil — O’s breath catches in her narrow chest as she looks at it. Miles of clean white sand stretch against the ocean, and beyond it the land turns into a patchwork of different shades of green, a jungle stretching to brush up against the cloudless sky.
Yet something sinister hums through the wind, the leaves, the sand. O pauses for a moment on the crux of the bridge.
But people are crossing, and she has never been afraid; she only unhooks the hurlbat from her side, and follows.
STAFF EDIT***
@Apoloniahas rolled a 5! She has been awarded +180 signos.
