Iskra
I'm chasing starlight to find it's died away
Iskra's lips twitched, as if fighting back a smile, or trying to press one into shape, hard to say. Seems fine appeared to be the best praise he'd get out of the star-touched man. He supposed that was a good enough remark for his efforts, especially since he did not plan on converting his job into poetry. Idly Iskra stuffed the paper back in his pocket and threw his charcoal stick onto the fire. The brittle bits of its scattered into coals and a swatch of sparks danced up from the fire pit like their own set of stars.Curiously he watched Zenith jot down his own writings, but this time as any other person would, the air devoid of the shimmering that they'd been speaking through thus far. Iskra wanted to ask why, but Zenith struck him as a rather private person, and he realized the why didn't really change anything, so he let the question die inside of him as the paper was passed over. Iskra leaned forward, arms perched on his knees as he held the sheet and read the charcoal scratchings. "Oooh, I love the ending!" Iskra grinned, passing the paper back to Zen.
Just then, the world shifted briefly. The hairs on Iskra's arm and the back of his neck stood on end. In the distance, where Goose had been lingering, never deciding to sit with Iskra or Zen, the dark barked deeply. Iskra drew up a halting hand towards his dog, a sharp command cutting through the air, bidding the husky to remain afar. The dog's outcry did not cease, but his body stilled, hackles raised like a violent sail. Iskra squinted against the backdrop of blue flame and quasi-real semblances of this vile man creature. His teeth grit against themselves, biting down on the electrical current that zipped around them, the air thick with the charge of wrongness.
It was over as quickly as it had started. That fact did not stop the hammer of Iskra's heart in his chest, could not drown the fire that raced in his veins, an innate need to call upon his meager power in a bid of defense against this otherworldly danger he had no hope against. Vox's intrusion left no remnants except for the fading din inside Iskra's head and the frayed edges of his nerves. The fire had returned to normal, its blue and purple tinge so absent, that one had to wonder if it had ever been there at all. The shimmering in the air, like a gossamer cloth they could rip from the heavens, was nothing more than the normal curl of smoke. Indeed, there was nothing for them to hold onto about this occurrence, and Iskra at once began to doubt if it had happened at all. A heavy drinker at times, this was not his first time chasing ghosts and memories, nor his first attempt to peel back reality from imagination like a stubborn back on a sticker. Only the acrid smell of singed light, an impossibility that he nonetheless experienced, grounded the woodcutter.
He rubbed at his beard in quiet disbelief, his gaze skipping over to Zen, to see if the man was equally rocked or if Iskra truly was going insane on his own over here. Goose's barking seemed to cut through a false silence that had settled around Iskra, the mongrel no longer able to heed the command and rushed forward, head thumping under Iskra's arm in an urgent assessment, tongue lashing at Iskra's face in anxious greeting. Iskra leaned into the dogs head, gripping the creature's fur as he hugged him tightly. Real — this was real. Goose, and their survival, unyielding still.
"I uh..." What did one say after something like that? It left ash in his mouth, as if that electricity Vox had appeared with had singed the enamel from his very teeth. "I have to go back to work," he said, excusing himself quickly, with barely even a farewell in the apologetic lift of his hands. He reached for his sack as he stood and strode away, not bothering to look back, dog in tow.
