[twwm] rabbits and painters - 1

The sand was soft against Illuse, cradled in its grainy palms as the sky slid across the horizon, moon falling behind in the race of the heavens. She had lain there for a long time now.

This spot called to her, a little dip in the dunes that she could rest her weary body in - light as she felt, as she was, there was still a heaviness to her form. So she rested, and waited.

She walked, tight pacing circles. She rested. She waited. She held on to hope that was fading every day, like old parchment. The day her hope had almost flickered out wholly was when he happened upon her in the sand.

It was funny, really. He was running along the sands, feeling the wind in his fur, his birds keeping pace, when he tripped over her curled up body in her resting spot.

When he poked his head up from the sand into which he had tumbled in, sagebrush antennae quivering, she was standing over him angrily. "What do you think you're doing? You could've hurt me. You could've gotten hurt!" Illuse realized she was scolding this unknown esk, and instead stepped back. "What's your name?"

He looked up at her quizzically, shaking sand out of his fur. "I'm Menri. You are…?" He was no longer a jackrabbit, but he still had manners. The other had fur ruffled with white patterns, head adorned with succulent leaves, (just like the ruffs of the lizards Menri adored so much) and a small bag swinging from around her neck.

"Illuse," was the clipped reply. She began to tread back to the disturbed spot in which she had lain.

"Wait, Illuse?"

Her glare was unmatched even by the sun's burning rays. "What?"

"Do you want to come run with me?" Suddenly, he was awkward for the first time. He had always been alone in these deserts - no one had ever bothered to come visit or - well there was that one time but they hadn't stayed - Menri shook his head to clear it. "At least for a little while? I can find you a more comfortable sand pile to lay in."

Illuse looked at him. He was funny, in the way you might find new life growing on a rotten oak funny. He seemed to twitch with excited energy, and the birds milling at his side cheeped to each other, and to her. She glanced back at the empty dunes where she had laid, and nodded.

They were off together, and Illuse ran faster than she thought she ever could. Sand escaped under their paws as they sprinted, and she was reminded of a particular portrait of hers. When she and her daughter had taken a trip to see the wild horses of the Chincoteague, she had painted them.

Now, she was painted against the sky in all the glory she could radiate. Wind whipped through her fur and she felt the splash of the river in the horses' mane, dappling their coats and hers with dips from the pressure of the breeze.

She whooped, yelling her joy through wordless sounds - the sound of creativity and love and joy for what you have made - and it spilled across the dunes. Menri's voice joined hers, honey and cinnamon and warm safety of soft furs, and for a moment they mingled in harmony. The two as one, spirits aligned in the wonder of movement and love of energy.

They ran to the coastline, covered in scrubby bush and grass, and when Menri stopped suddenly, Illuse did too. "This is my favorite place." His voice was quiet when it came, but it was there. Sand and salt and wind from a mouth extinct. "I feel free here, I feel at peace. The ocean is like hearing what I've lost." Menri was mumbling it to himself now, looking at the horizon, but made sure she could hear it.

On instinct, Illuse turned to him, sachet swinging and smoke billowing from it, purple and thick. She sighed, and Menri turned. "Hang on," she nodded down at the potpourri. "It'll help."

Menri tilted his head, and poked the ornament with his muzzle. Finally, he looked back up into the eyes of this no-longer stranger. "Illuse, you don't have to fix me." The smoke dribbled, trickled to a stop, and Illuse looked at him strangely. "I don't want or need to be fixed - not that your offer isn't kind, and amazing what you can do - but I just need someone to be near."

He wandered down to the shoreline, and Illuse followed. Night fell as Menri narrated his adventures, making her laugh, pointing our crabs and sand fleas, dancing on the dunes, drunk on the joy of company.

Soon the pitch-black of the night took over, illuminated only by the moon as they rested on sandy dunes. Illuse gasped when she saw the first one, Menri quickly looking up to see what it was that had caught her attention. In front of them were fireflies, blinking like millions of neural pathways, a Morse code they could never hope to understand.

Illuse looked at Menri, a stranger that had become a good friend - someone who didn't want her just for the ability to help. She laid her head against his, and they watched the sea and the lights of the insects rise and fall together.