so we let our shadows fall away like dust
Then I suppose it doesn’t matter where we go. The grey mare says and Luster only shakes her head in agreement, smiling uncertainly again before turning away. “It doesn’t,” and her voice is silver, distant, “you can choose, if you’d like?” It seems like a safe offer to Luster. This is the only place she doesn’t want to be, the only place that from time to time still finds her in her dreams, darkening them to nightmares. It is true that she would prefer not to return to Sylva either just yet, prefer not to be a shadow beneath those fire-gold trees, prefer not to see him, that deepwater man she had come to love so dearly. But even that would be a lesser pain than this one.
Luster moves without prompting, assuming the woman will redirect her if she decides to take the blue girl up on her offer. But instead she falls into place somewhere behind and Luster lets her feet do the choosing, willing them to choose better than they had before. There is a moment where she imagines she can feel a sensation of heat against the base of her tail, can sense eyes on her skin as heavy as wandering fingers, but when she turns to look behind her there is only the small grey mare, only a face she has foolishly decided is friendly. Still, fear is an instinct and it must know some truth she does not, because she can feel it darken in the hollows of her face, draw cold fingers across her belly so it tightens and fills with butterflies.
You’re just jumpy now. Her mind reasons with her patiently, all while her heart turns wild in her chest, fighting, thrashing, eager to escape.
Then suddenly the small mare is beside her and Luster reaches out with that reflexive smile again, drawing soft, pale lips across those beautiful silver dapples. When she turns her face forward again, she does not have a chance to miss the closeness of warm skin because the woman has settled close enough at her side that they brush together at hip and shoulder. I have an idea, the woman says, and Luster finds her eyes returned to the pale pewter and white, why don’t you try and guess my name? I’ll give you three tries. Luster’s eyes go round with surprise, dark and luminous and curious even as her head tilts slightly in question. “What happens after three tries?” Her voice is whisper soft, gentle.
But the mare trots on ahead and Luster hesitates, wondering if she grew suddenly bored and has decided to leave. Except she only pauses and completes a circle, light on her feet and muscle flexing beneath the grey. What do you think? She calls and Luster hesitates, considering. Am I a ‘cinder’, or more of a ‘sterling’ sort of gal?
Luster catches up to her quickly, touching a soft mouth to the point of a dappled hip before continuing on, still eager to leave this part of the forest behind. “Fire or silver,” she muses thoughtfully, glancing over to look at the woman again, “I think maybe you are both.” She pauses but she knows this is not an answer, not what this new companion wants so she delves a little deeper. “But maybe you are neither, maybe you are more than something so singular.” She is quiet again for several moments after that, keeping those quiet brown eyes, bruised and luminous, on the endless white of the new snow. “I think you are more of a Cinder, though, something that lives on even after the fire has gone.” She turns then, running gentle teeth along the curve of a grey jaw so that the mare will pause and look at her, so that she will see the smile on Luster’s pale mouth when she adds, “Something stubborn, perhaps.”
