Watching Callynite handle the bow so easily feels like discovering a secret Isra didn't know she was waiting to learn. It's the same way Isra handles a story, or her magic when it is gentle rain instead of a roaring storm. There is a tender touch here that reveals an etching of metal she didn't realize she made. Then there is the way the bow pulls tight like the apex of a story before the mare releases it.
There is in the doe-mare all the grace of a warrior and Isra wonders if she notices the way in which she moves that suggests something dangerous instead of soft. It's the same thing in her that is learning to love the way sharp things feel. “Maybe we should remind the gods of all the things they like to forget.” Each word is as sharp as the glass tips on her waiting arrows, and as jagged as the edges of her that are still trying to find ways in which to meld back together.
For the first time it does not ache to swallow down the echo of jagged words and sharp silences between them.
Just as more sharp edges are hanging on the tip of her tongue, the jungle comes alive. First it's nothing more than the croak of a frog. Isra tilts her ear towards the sound. At first she ignores the sound as nothing more than another sign that this island is hiding more things than Raum. And Isra is still too full of jagged bits that want to bleed to care for mysteries and frogs out of place.
It's not until they start to shine like stars of all the wrong colors that she turns towards the trees lined in light. Everything in this forest is light and strangeness, magic and danger. All of it makes her miss the bonfires and fragrant night blooms of Denocte. The frogs are burning the edges of her pupils and Isra shutters her light against the brightness of it all.
When she opens them again the jungle is no brighter than a jungle on a strange island should be. The sight settles something she did not feel rising in her like a storm (magic, or maybe rage). She turns towards the dark places between the trees. Upon her shoulder the lunar bow starts to glow silver-white. The cold of it against her skin feels like the sea. “Shall we look in whatever darkness the frogs went to first?” Isra turns behind to look at Callynite just once; the golden bow stays a bow (and it's begging to be touched again)
Then Isra walks into the dark where her bow is the only light at all, and each steps makes her feel like hunting is becoming home.
@Callynite
