Merlin 3:16 “Porcelain Heart”
A ragged violently drawn surface, never carved by iced peak the rough terrain is a summiting area named Aordngtoumh on the oldest of maps, a mountain where the scarcity of rock goblins dare not hide. The sky is blue as the height reaches, near the top a small plateau resides the size of a yard, a smooth and grey clearing abraded somewhat like a bowl and in it bathing is a giant egret the weight of three horses, the collected water filled with the day’s rain so oft of heights. Preening with sense of stamina it flings water when it can, trying to bury its head in shallow water a task encumbered by the length of its beak, its wrists occasionally rubbing over eyes in the ways some have seen cats do. Nearby considerably accessible in terms a giant radiant white heronshaw understands a nest made of dead trees, adjacent the water is a cave entrance.
A red lady exits the caverns, suited for work, her gloved hands have exposed arms to the hooded shawl over her shoulders by her skin the color of a dark tree, the goods she carries are bound in a muslin sheet wrapped and at end with the limbs of bows uncovered. She stands before the heron, raises her left hand, the bird stands primly, and walks to her and bows for her to lift her belongings onto it. All to secure them with a belt of her possessions and foists herself upon it. Her hood she throws back to further reveal her face young with eyes of contrast hazel and hair of auburn fire brightened by many hours of sky and sunlight and station. They lift with grace swift and silently from hearthstone unto the heavens, trailing water from laggard avian legs, soon hiding in the baby-blue sky.
Troy meanwhilst rests on the phoenix, hiding from the ground his waking time to practice vaunted maneuvers and in even sleeps with phoenix Alerion in a field of healthy roses, burned in a small circle to nest until morning for a breakfast of rosehips and ash. On the second day, Troy sleeps in flight and in spotting a deer, the phoenix majestically lands without waking him, only to buck him abruptly to the side and ground to wake him. After arguing with the bird for a matter of minutes, he notices the stag in the distance and practices his longshot, as much as his manna, hitting the deer with one distant arrow let. On the third day, he trains with Alerion for combat, in how to defend against each other by sword, man, or arrow. In boredom, they take to flight and this day fourth find another in the sky.
Troy turns in flight away, due to without Merlin and others, his desired precaution-unattempting slight by unknown fate of peril allure. The sky is patient as winds are calm so soon with day irradiant and horizon at bay of endless blue sky the warmth of sunlight in his palm. Nowhere in plight his morn the night reverse his sight recurs seeing tother in flight at his extreme peripheral to his right. Toward him, she flies and a smile in her eyes as she comes to pace and shows her face to he who spoils to speed and impress from this trivial of conventions. Toying with him she and her aigrette hesitate, letting him to think he can of her outfly, outré she turns white bird with speed absurd to him, with some helical display thru the airs across the meadowland, keenness and chase of flirtation, landing to speak with ease amongst the breezeless trees.
She, pulling her hair behind her ears, begins to speak in the warmly cold language of Niflhel, which he does not speak or understand. He rashly deduces she is giving greetings of her name or humble salutations to the phoenix, as her beauty keenly smites him. He confidently walks and impetuously kisses her, a humble moan of desire passes from her lips onto his. They inhabit emptiness with complete surrender, the miraculous something emerging from ethers of apparent kismet, the phoenix and egret walk away, the firebird twisting neck to look at the heron’s long legs and strange gait, into the air they fly, first the light then the dark as new lovers tryst.
It is by the afterthought of later he begins to attempt conversion of his name and ideas with a patting of his chest and gesture to her.
Troy: “I am Troy, you?”
Kylesa: “Kylesa Mara, bowyer, stringer …fletcher –“
Troy: “You speak the language.”
Kylesa: “It expected, I huntress the rooks off Niflheim, it helps me catch your soul.”
She crawls on his body, kissing and other intricacies, bareheaded into a furlough of worlds separated by waves of light and fields of erstwhile sight, and closer night.
Troy: “What would you know of bows?”
Kylesa: “Is first to a strong wood.”
She situates herself in his embrace, kissing him again, then sits upright and holds her hand into the air in hopes her egret returns, it still flies toying with the phoenix in speed but less agile in maneuvers, Troy slightly sits upright with his elbows locked and hands on the ground. Looking for the fliers, he lifts one hand into the air and snaps his finger, Alerion cuts away to return to him, a turn the air to burn.
Troy: “We must draw its attention with passion and fire.”
They renew sophisticated coitus until the phoenix lands with first its talons and its cubit-reversed elbows, secondly followed by the graceful landing of the majestic white egret. She whistles for her avian just as he has many times to his. Wrapping a blanket on her skin, she speaks.
Kylesa: “Seller longbow and standard armaments, forests bower so may bowyer and string-maker hemp.”
She rises to walk robed solely around her torso under arms to just around her hips and walks to her creature, persuasive to catch his thoughts from any elsewhere.
Kylesa: “And fletcher added importance, will give you one mine…there are none more it like.”
She drinks secretly a tiny bottle of something warm and red, Troy under coverture takes the bow in the light of dusk, he as at loss of words and again stricken by the beauty of its constructing, the moonlight to its grain, figure, and curves as much as hers as she disrobes and poses to enthrall him. The moonrise bathes the expansive meadow in rays of light behind her that match her wind-swept hair and fade into the colors of her complexion.
She kisses him again and a state of intense unnatural passion consumes his thoughts more than swiftly at a momentum alas too quick for him to notice his collapse into sleep. His body rolls back and head collapses into the meadow grass, in her periphery she notices Alerion enquire suspect so she pretends to ask why he sleeps and feigns minute pomp insult, ever cautious of the phoenix, petting its beak then leaves in the dark post haste.
Proceedings ostensibly lead her back to the cave that she had departed days four ago, it has rained and the water pool recollected slakes avian and aviator, into the cave she enters without light or torch. Thru the darkness she wanders with her hand on the wall for the silence that follows is for none and to all, that this darkest place has no shallows for the walls to let in moonlight her pace constant and an unseen calm on her face. Nearing the light of fires lit by hexed diamonds in clear oil and smokeless heat to fill a cavern by the climes of clandestine opulence the likes of witches, demonic grimoires, and Sino, full to intimidating armored untrustworthy armistice.
Sino: “A soon returns you have not safely.”
Kylesa: “It is done to know. Soon his hunger for my affection will match our own.”
They kiss with passionate affection with prowess of lovers, while holding her she pulls her face from his, and in his arms waiting for him to speak in adoration redolent he stares in memory.
Kylesa: “You don’t know when to silence yourself, do you?”
Sino: “Lesa, spirit, nay soul, of my song, I pride your gift, do tell me how it went with you in the arms of another.”
Kylesa: “I spoke Niflhel and as your magisterial plan, he bought more than he can handle, and even took the bow as you had hoped.”
Sino: “As I knew would be.”
He carries her step and tosses she onto a bedding of silken quilts and down beneath pillows, and smiles of pride and certainty, removing armor as he speaks revealing scars so much a many, the likes of surviving the death of a thousand cuts abruptly.
Kylesa: “What you need now? A Niflhel doll perhaps?”
Sino: “Poison, so strong the naïve fear the fang from whence it was drawn, verily its toxin and blight to air that it should dismantle even evil men.”
Kylesa: “I am what you need.”
Sino: “You are the best of both worlds.”