a perfect halo {{ BAB }} Posted on July 4, 2023 at 02:11:31 PM by Yıldırım
painted in flames
He stood on the rise of a dune, surveying the sands that stretched before him bleached white as bone beneath the light of the moon. There, close to one of the brothers, his sister slumbered, and it eased the ache in his hollow chest to see her at peace, and free of pain after everything she had suffered. It had taken time - longer for him - to settle here, but it was beginning to feel like home.
----
Yıldırım would never forget the stories his mother had told him, of a cluster of islands scattered in the sea like jewels, each one a mystery, an enigma - such opposites existing so close to one another, impossibly balanced. The southernmost island was of golden desert sand, like the one where the twins had been born. Salem was the name given to this island, and it was in the province of the Dunes that a pair of unlikely companions had sought shelter.
A spy and a captive princess, hiding from their warring peoples. And where love should have been impossible, there it was, smoldering out of sight, only to ignite when they crossed paths on the mainland sometime later. This was the story of how Yıldırım and Caria came to be, and why Kahraman and Sharazad could never return to their people. The four of them journeyed together, and came across a lone mare, who was fated for Yıldırım. Four became five, and then five became six.
It hadn’t been long after his child was born that the heavens tore themselves asunder and flooded the desert plains. Yıldırım had tried to save them all, but of six, only two remained, and he feared for a time that even Caria would be lost to him. She was in a bad way when he half-dragged her ashore on the coast of the Dunes, crying hoarsely for help with what little voice he had left, his mother’s name as a dirge upon his lips. “Sh-Shahrazad…”
----
They had been welcomed into the Sadim, and with the change of seasons, Caria had recovered her spirit, and Yıldırım his strength. Perhaps there were deeper truths in their mother’s tales. After all, Yıldırım hadn’t thought he’d ever see his sister dance so gracefully again, after the injuries she’d sustained, but she had healed so well, one would never think she’d been as close to death as she had.
Exhaling a soft sigh, he turned his gaze skyward for a moment, seeking the brightness of the moon, as though it might divulge some insightful answer that would serve to clear up the conflict that roiled beneath his surface, restless as the sea that had delivered them to this impossible land.
But no, there was no blinding flash of clarity.
Just the soft shifting of sand beneath hoof from somewhere behind him, and, one ear twisting back to focus, the lean, golden stallion wrest his attention from the heavens and turned to lay gently inquisitive eyes on his unexpected (but welcome) late-night companion. “Forgive me if my moongazing disturbed you,” Yıldırım murmured on a breath of desert-cool wind. It had become something of a habit of his, as of late, to walk the crests of the dunes near the Sadim’s oasis by night. “You are not sleeping with the others. Does something trouble you?”