The Pride of Tirnanog

second request of three. lilimin and stone.

****

He was apart from the others, glinting gold, but darkly, as if doing his best to mask the light; alone, and longing for company, which seemed a strange contradiction, when he could simply leave the darkened bedroom he was standing in and satisfy that longing in a thousand different places. She spotted him as she flew over anyway, dimmed and hiding or no, due to his very loud and persistent strangeness, and she was still curious about him.

It was hot. ( He'd left all his windows open. )

stone & aly, near the beginning of stone's extended visit to tirnanog, during wwii.

( I think your father's house is full of ghosts. )

[n.b: reposted from here.]


In every land, hardness is in the north of it, softness in the south, industry in the east, and fire and inspiration in the west.


*******************

She had barely escaped the desert in the east with her own skin; she knew she was headed in the right direction when the rain began. She didn't stop running. She knew better than that. She ran until the soles of her feet split upon the rough earth, she ran until her breath clawed at her raw throat and her heart faltered in her chest, her arms went numb, and she could scarcely hear over the sounds of her own exhaustion; she strained to hear anyway, even knowing that it was useless, for her sisters hunted in silence. She recklessly claimed the heart and soul of a lone boatman to get passage across the rocky, wind-tossed Short Sea, and left an empty, staring thing, still pleading feebly for her return, to mark the place when she stepped to solid ground. She dropped briefly to her hands and knees in shaky relief. That one act of violence, of unlawful possession, might serve to make her a great deal less welcome. It didn't matter. She could not think of her reception, could not think of anything beyond reaching her destination. She had nowhere else to go. Her options had narrowed to the space of a single door.

********************

Most faery tales start out with a once upon a time. ( But that would imply that these things had only happened once. )