Capricious zephyrs flitted wantonly against bone white sands, earnestly imploring the ebb and flow of the tide to cavort with it. Cerulean and pewter dominated the canvas, night having stolen the stained glass perfection, pilfered it of sharp, clean edges. The coast shone in pallid moonlight, a lucid serpentine grit against the platinum and pitch ocean. Every outline had been smeared, dulled to fit the midnight hour.

In the deafening, thunderous roars of the tide there was no amity. Pearlescent froth leaped and curled against the crests, spit from the hungry, grumbling mouth of water. Tangles of ashen kelp coiled limply against the pristine peppered glass, casting deep jade blemishes along the strand. Dried sands dipped from cool alabaster to onyx where the briny swell lapped against it, tossing more yet onto high ground. Conch shells curled like porcelain horns, only to be claimed by the tiny, sky pale crustaceans as they scuttled from their pinpoint holes amid the coarse grit.

Bare steps drank in salt water, naked soles running shallow lakes above the coastline. Liquid locomotion stirred her, muscle sliding hotly along bone as Serna paced. What cajoled her, spurred her hunt on, even the woman did not know. All of it had become some large melting pot of indiscernible emotion. The Fates had given her a chance and this time she elected not to turn from the heavens and follow her destiny.

If she could only remember what path to take…

Memories had begun to ebb and flow, elusive as the tide, often giving a glimmering of hopeful understanding before wrenching it back into the sway. Time had no meaning. Reality was intangible and long left to dry and cure as the salt tickling her sepia skin. Even beneath the frigid, dappled skyline nothing lapsed back into perspective. Once there had been a time when solace could be found amid the winking eyes of the heavens, yet now they lay silent. Cold, deaf and dumb. Nothing more than a sheet of inky satin.

With shattering resonance Poseidon tossed brackish avalanches upon the shore, fracturing the fragile muteness that had slithered into the woman’s wit like an icy worm. The ocean’s bandy jarred her from that restless delusion, rousing her. A weary bobbing, chin tucking against the flat, haggard edge of one shoulder acknowledged its aid.

Tendrils of ducky pitch cast bars against sepia tinged skin as she pulled to a winding halt, the sour stench of briny tide assaulted her nose, mockingly disguised with a sweetness of summer air. A pink tongue emerged, wetting dry lips, letting the warm copper wind bathe the back of her throat. More chill than the dip of the grey swelling waves, slate eyes narrowed to needlelike slits, peering into the growing night, battling against the shadows cast by the jagged spires of stone that roped the edges of the sea swells.

Sweat seeped from bare feet, seeping into the dry grit of sand, rooting her to the spot. Weeks of travel, weeks for a battered mind to stew over possibilities. Again, the innocence of reality plagued her. Left her stranded ashore, floundering.

Taiaka had taken two jars from his pack and while holding them both in one hand, climbed further up the slimy brown alcove. The stones were slick, glossed with wet brine from the release of the tides, and he pressed his other hand against the pucker of barnacles, jamming his toes into sharp pores until he could stand on the balls of his feet. Slapping waves were lazy from springtime’s waxing ebb and they bellowed beneath him; chimneys of spray coated his body with a renewing skin of salt that masked his scent as he watched her. His eyes tracked her moonlit dance, secrets rippled the surface of his expression and her bare legs thrummed the chords of forgotten riffs that echoed in his head like the waves below.

Fate had a strange and sometimes ugly sense of humor, but Taiaka knew there was no such thing as an uncanny coincidence. The birds have reasons behind why they sing and make such dainty little nests in the high swaying branches of beech trees. The wolves knew when to howl at the wobbly moon and the tomcats knew to pester the queens with their tails high in the air. Taiaka knew why they did these things too; they were within the boundaries of body language and instinct and no one expected anything more of an animal. Yet, perhaps he expected more of himself and in some minuscule way, wished others would require the same demanding understanding. But it was impossible for Taiaka to decode the feelings and desires that could not be explained by intuition and breeding. A simple animal did not want the things Taiaka wanted, and they could not feel the complicated firestorm of emotions that claimed his breath.

With his elbow wedged in a crux of stone, Taiaka used his thumb to uncork the first of the two glass jars in his hand. Careful not to spill a drop, he brought it to his lips, kissing the rim to take a meager sip. Its taste was familiarly spicy yet arterially sweet, and the smile that crept along the lines of a frown was hidden by a torn curtain of wiry dreadlocks. He took his eyes from her graceful balancing act of tawny muscle and tight sinew to replace the stopper and shifted his weight to lean against a crescent of hip bone. Soon enough the moon became distracted and it slipped behind the smooth pearly clouds like a lover behind a silk screen; milky shadows hid Taiaka’s ascent to the top of the alcove and he swung his bare feet onto the top of the weathered crag, his eyes lost to the shiver of dying starlight.

The strap across his chest shifted, his pack nestling just above his navel, and he pushed the first jar through the gap at its corner. Cautious not to lose his grip, Taiaka quickly picked his way down the steep rocks and crouched like a hunter in the sugary sand. She paced the beach, footprints stalked by an anxious sea so her canvas was wiped clean after every pass. Taiaka’s father was fisherman and he had told his son the reason that the ocean was salty was because it was made from the tears of every widow who lost their husband to the unforgiving depths. Serna continued along her widow’s walk and Taiaka silently chose to make himself the vessel that she waited to make port.

He had his hands behind his back when he stood, callused fingertips prying the waxy cork from the second jar, his guise growing sallow and downtrodden. She could see him now and he took his cue to begin the strange placement of his steps, eyes to the heavens as if he was glibly apathetic to her presence. The jar’s oily contents spilled into a waiting cupped palm and he guarded it with his other hand, flames suddenly spurting and licking through the cracks. Without looking at her, he dipped a finger into the fire and let fat drops fall to the sand; they sizzled and hissed as Taiaka counted his footsteps, looping backwards, wrenching his body to the side as if walking a tightrope, and hummed under his beneath all the while. Some drops he purposely made smaller, others larger, yet they both burned with preternatural amber light and offered the beach divots of glass in his wake. He drew four constellations in burning oil and when he was finished, stood in the center where the light could not cast a shadow for him. After a moment, he quenched the flames that lived in his hands, smothering them of their precious air like the coils of a constrictor, and smirked as the swift sea breezes pulled the surrounding fires taught and blue.

Now, emptied handed, he spoke.

“When a man looks into a bucket of water and sees his own face, he admires his own features. When an animal sees their own reflection as they lap from a pool, they bare their teeth and see an enemy.” Taiaka paused and scrubbed his words of any residual accent, “What do you see?”

Miniscule amber and pallid saffron infernos set the strand alight, dancing halos about the sugar pale sand. Night momentarily stood transfixed, mutated into day by a chance parlor trick. Even through her dull, egocentric stupor, the eerie play of light kicked up her attention. Those half-hearted, hard won troughs filled even as she swayed in her own tracks, ocean caressing slender ankles.

Pitch masked a scent she hardly knew, memories petulantly refusing to mix; oil on water. Wide almond shaped eyes caught and played with the aura of shadow that played from makeshift candles, transfixed. For the barest hint of an instant, that idly featured face turned towards the heavens, questions burning in a slate gaze.

Tentatively coaxing waves egged her to step farther up the coastline, platform underfoot switching from soppy to slack grains. Pard tawny flesh peppered in sweet white, Serna swayed to the rhythm of her own metronome, each vestige bringing her half a step more towards the ring of fire. Dead silence clung to her like a stench, cloying and working to muddle her senses. It was not fear that stilled her, more an inconceivable pose of awe.

Matte black and cadaverous, the apparition that stood before her reeked of familiarity. Nothing in his face stirred Serna’s sodden brain but it was his presence, his ideal that spurred her thoughts. Though the woman could not place why, the gears in her mind buckled and rusted as they were, started to turn. Delicately maintained ropes cascaded over his features, half hiding a nest of finite flesh toned scars along the bridge of his chiseled nose, reflected in firelight. It brought a single word the surface, though a fish unbaited only stays on the line so long. A quizzical tilt, another step and it plunged away again.

“When a man looks into a bucket of water and sees his own face, he admires his own features. When an animal sees their own reflection as they lap from a pool, they bare their teeth and see an enemy.”

It seemed a thing rehearsed, tongue and rumbling timbre practiced in their odd semblance. His voice held a rich growl, rough in tone but perfect in annunciation. Each word was rolled, tasted on dry tongue and examined before it slid from his lips. Captivating.

Coils of iron rippled from beds of vermillion flame, the smoke avidly watched through callous pewter eyes. Akin to a night bird in her endless, scrupulous gaping, the woman missed nothing. The smoke was a shield, adding to the ethereal quality the night had embraced.

Delicate as the cooing of a dove, Serna let cool words of truth drip from her tongue. It was then that her ward broke, silver slits casting skywards, matching the thumbnail crescent of moon glow.

“A destroyer. The greatest enemy of all.”

Silence sprouted from the sands. For a breath of time there was only her shallow, dull breaths; heartbeat singing to the tempo of the tides. Baring a burnished sepia palm to the stars, a lover’s gaze played along the wrinkles and lines. There was something there. Just beyond her reach.

“Myself.”

Fate never hesitated to cast one life in the path of another and now, it seemed, was no exception. What role the Gods had yet for her to play as beyond mortal reach. Serna only paused to consider, letting the memory of a familiar musk and a familiar face slide from comprehension. Nothing about the man seemed to strike a chord in her, nor tug at her heartstrings. Part of her cried out piteously, drowned out by the waves and decades ill spent.

His nod had the auxiliary clank and chime of scrimshaw on glass and glass on copper and he squared his shoulders with the sea. Letting his toes drag in the sand, he drew stuttering spurs that led to the water’s edge; the fires burned angrily behind him, lengthening his shadow with fickle flashes of fading fire, twisting lanky limbs longer. The waves pressed him for the response her silence denied.

“These are the games of a Cancer moon, no?” He balanced on the thin line of foam, heel to toe, chest rattling with a bark of sharp laughter. “You pretend to be an illusion. You wear a mask of ignorance.” Arms out, he hopped the slosh and hiss of a routed wave and continued his wobbly walk. “I’ll play your games, Serna.” An unwelcome surge of ocean caught his ankles and Taiaka paused, “But you are bound to win since I don’t know the rules.”

He winced, the placid veneer of forced levity forming a weedy sneer and he circled closer to her, raw hate hidden behind the thin ice of his glare. If storybook prose was enough, Taiaka would recite the rhymes of lore and speak the bars of soppy stanzas to impress the girl. But he was warily amused, his attention was hers, and he wanted to shake her by the scruff of her neck until she showed him her belly. Their binds were more than empty verse though, their threads of passing fate were so interwoven that the cloak they sewed was too thick in the summer, and too thin under a winter sky. Taiaka ruefully knew he could draw the lines on her body from memory as if he was a cartographer. He was so careful with his recollections of her and he couldn’t help but pity himself when Serna made it painfully clear that he was just a running stitch at the fringe of her mind.

Goad her to action, bade her to bite, he thought bitterly as the clouds flowed away from the face of the golden moon. Haughty light stalked the beachhead and Taiaka drifted ever closer to her, an angled look of disappointment spreading brightly on his steady brow. He stopped when his shadow touched hers and he reached out his hand, stroking the curve of Serna’s dark silhouette, his fingers curling around the outline of her jaw. But the clouds, seemingly sentient and wholly uncaring, stole the light once again and Taiaka pulled a callused breath through his teeth. He would choose to spend the night with her reflection, stay within the limits of her skewed peripheral, and fall gleefully into a masochistic predisposition but he knew it would not sate his fettered rage. So he’d do it out of spite.

He opened his mouth wide to laugh at her and shook his head with an air of snide contempt. Suddenly, he pretended to be more interested in the lumps of rosy coral that peppered the sand; they would make a fitting ring to the fire pit he was digging with his heel and he looked through her to scan up the sand for the rustle of dry kelp for kindling. The pack slid from his waist when he pitched his weight and sat cross-legged, smiling gaily up at the suffocating yoke of starlight.

“Should I let you sniff my hand?” He cooed darkly, idle hands eager to notch keystones of coral into a wreath. Returning his cold stare to Serna, he let her see the lecherous fragility and fissures in his failing façade, motive sucking the air from his lungs. It would have been easier to snub her if she did not smell of heady patchouli and an autumn mix of crushed leaves and tepid seas. She seemed more tempered to their encounter than he; steely and tarnished, her patina was blazoned and streaked with the markers of an apparently forgotten faith. Taiaka’s questions, the ones he chose not to voice, were dripping with venom and he had to chew the inside of his mouth to coax the rancor on the side of pain.

“What do the Stars say about these games, little one? Do they want me to play the role of friend or foe?” He brushed the sand from his hands and let them lie on his bare thighs and looked up at her expectantly. “We can play games of chase like back in the clans. You were always swifter than me though, nipping at your flanks as you cut turns at breakneck speed.” He licked his lips, mind reeling form the taste of brine, unconscious to the fact he was panting around the drawl of his words.

A tepid tremble caressed Serna’s backbone, a forgotten brush of onyx fingertips. Raw incredulity starkly painted her visage, chalky slate gaze wide. Playing any part or new role was not in the woman’s repertoire. Rather than being cast as the fool, the gods gave her a role of honesty. Under the callous silence of starlight, Serna was blind.

Wary as a hound struck too often with a switch, the woman shied, sand spilling aside her instep as she hitched. The utterance of her own title had congealed the briny air even as she struggled to breathe. Plain and obvious, ripples of uncertainty shimmered in wide, brimming eyes. Serna. Stalwart as a length of silk twine the name held her, rooted her sweating soles to the strand.

Delicate lips parted and stilled, wordlessly muttering. Her tongue lay on the floor of her mouth like a dead bait fish, useless. Naked anguish narrowed her cheeks, casting indigo shade where there was no shadow before. Taiaka spoke in an unvarnished tone, the bitter whispers causing a nervous twitching down her spine.

“The Stars no longer speak to me.”

When first her lips came unglued, her tone was the icy whimpering of a child. Piteously reeling in vertigo, Serna could find no solid edges to grasp. Black veils met and exchanged gestures on the buff canvas at her feet, a hand moving to cup her dark sister’s jaw line. A tentative flaxen hand hovered in the orange glow that lay between them, shaking like a fledgling cast from its nest. A voice cooed softly in her ears, a pinch at the back of her memory. Caution stayed her hand, palm dropping empty back to her side.

Empty.

“The sound of that name rotted away seasons ago. How is it that you’ve come by it? It seems that I am not the one that has been playing games.”

Serna’s voice was the same as it always had been, cool and pleasant like a spring rain. Even the brittle edge of disdain did little to harden her tone.

Madness paced eagerly at the barriers of her conscious, slavering maw ready to snap. The kohl stained man spoke in riddles, setting her whirling ‘round in circles. A musk, rich and loamy had teased along the back of her palate and even still she strove to find the source, sucking in great lungfuls of air so loathe was she to risk losing the giddiness it served. Only that gave a glimmer of familiarity. It was reminiscent of long summer nights, the rhythm of hide hand drums.

Grave lines shone in her face, frown evident even in the half light. Adrenaline perspired through tattooed skin as she chastised herself for letting the man burrow under her skin like a mite. Sweat slicked slender hands, salt stinging bitterly, seeping into the pink half moons nails had pressed into quiet palms.

“That Stars won’t let me see…that path is blocked to me.”

A dry simper cast across dry lips as she spoke. Such an inappropriate thing to say after decades apart. Surely she would have felt remorseful if she could only remember.

Ashen eyes glowered orange in the firelight, reflecting garnet tones the woman could no longer see. Knowing the vermillion heated stain that should have illuminated the beach only spurred her bitter smile. It wavered to and fro like the unpredictable shiver of luminescence on the peppered sand.

Earnestly Serna followed each coltish motion Taiaka made. Twitching lips hoped to implore him, milk secrets from him. Perhaps the heavens played games with him as well, though there was a bare hope that he may hold some elusive truth.

Tell me, I pray you. What do the stars whisper of me?

Vague acknowledgement dipped his chin, the banal shrug of slanting shoulders and the offhanded tilt of his eyes beaming up at her formed a mask of shadow. In the fire pit, fledgling flames caused the dry kelp to simmer and the hard golden berries burst shunts of boiling sea water onto greedy driftwood. Taiaka’s sigh was heard over the sizzle and hiss as he shook his head sourly.

“Serna, yes Serna, what else would I call you?” He jeered, lilting timbre rescuing his tone from being assuming, “Don’t you remember me?” All barring hints of patronization were peeled away and though he did not doubt the girl’s potent venom, Taiaka had always thought that she would sheath her fangs from him. She was being cruel, stubbornly so, and he was being groomed, carelessly, for her to strike. All expression was leached from his features when the fire flared bright; a wan pallor tightened mostly around the fixed chalky line his lips formed. He lost his wounded gaze in coils of seaweed and his fingers flexed as they plucked at the clasp of his pack.

“Wouldn’t it be kinder if you just told me to leave?” Uniquely meticulous, Taiaka had honed his words to a steely edge. “I’ve never done anything to you, I don’t deserve the ridicule. I was excited when I caught your scent. I thought you would be pleased that I tracked you.” His mouth went dry, “If the Stars were as altruistic as the texts say, then why didn’t they warm me off your trail? Apparently, they do not speak to me either…Or I would not be putting myself through this ceremonial removal of my memory.”

But he wasn’t gruff; his voice was rough and gritty as if he was struck in the face by a plume of acrid smoke, but his pale eyes were wide with liquid shine. The hollow places inside of him whispered of embarrassment; a wider rift of hope fissured in his guts, inevitably leading him to laugh when she breaks and tells him his sense of humor is lacking. Being the butt of the joke would seal his delight, and they could go back to picking nits from each other’s fur, spending weeks in the lazy guises of the four-legged. Complicated and affected, Taiaka grinned broadly as if repressing a gag, ego and id both reaching out to be slapped with dark levity.

As he waited, he busied his hands in the sopping recesses of his pack. The bottom half had taken the brunt of a stray wave that had sputtered up the beach on the incoming tide; it was caked with sand and Taiaka’s fingers felt blindly though the sodden contents for the marron crinkle of slick crescent shaped nuts. He brought out a handful and set them in a neat row, three by three, on the surfaces of the hot coral rocks. The ocean swelled to a panic as husky clouds crowned the moon with undulating striations of aural colors. Taiaka smelled the storm coming even before tarry streaks of slate painted the sky. He pushed the nuts into the fire with a bent wand of driftwood and leaned away from the spray of embers that threatened to singe his forehead and tangle in his hair. The ones that ended up drifting down to tickle his forearms became ashen markings on his pitch skin, little wonton blisters that he enjoyed like the needle prick of an ink stick.

“Trust me tonight,” he said listlessly. “We’ll hide together when the rains come.” Never looking up from the splitting chitin of smoking nuts, he angled himself comfortably back onto his elbows, belly rising softly after a wheezy exhale. “Run from me at dawn if you choose, and I promise I won’t follow.”

Touching tawny features, Taiaka’s dim stare traced the long lines that slithered around Serna’s arms and shoulders. On his own body, he could feel the sticky outlines of celestial silhouettes spanning his skin, and pressed a spindly index finger into the center of his palm. “This is where I’ll always be.”

He fought the shiver that ran the length of his spine by arching his back and searching the heavens for the crack in the overcast night. He wished for a wink or a twinkle but received a cool splash of clean drizzle for his trouble. He promptly licked it from his lips and fixed his gaze on the buttery oil dripping from seams of the meaty Bakki nuts.

Personal defenses began to crumble and battlements that had been so painstakingly set in place started to erode beneath Taiaka’s acrid statements. Shuffled between bitterness, a pinpoint ray of hope had always endured, awaiting the symbol of her own vindication. Perhaps there was something to be gleaned from the man; a grain of truth. Strenuously, Serna managed to swallow and still the hammering of butterfly wings that tickled at her breast.

A clammy sepia hand fidgeted against the leaden ambiance, shadowed fingertips grossly distorted as they stroked the kindled flame. However, it was not the wanton wash of fire light that captivated her so. Serna’s own ochre palm set against Taiaka’s matte black form was what waylaid her so, stole the ashen breath from her panting lungs.

You meant something to me, didn’t you?

Questions reeled and careened ‘round in her addled brain, gears still clicking agedly away. This man’s voice, his very air smacked of familiarity. The long curve of his thigh, all dappled in star light, gave a sweet, lingering suggestion of mottled brushes of fur; endless marathons run amid in the cool shade of evening. Even the shallow depressions his soles patterned along the strand milked a feeling of ardor from the woman, somehow knowing that she would follow those bare impressions to where Stars no longer shone. A delicate sweep of a lithe arm and Serna’s hand fell back to her side, no longer admiring her flesh against the color of the stranger’s.

“I am not ridiculing you.”

Serna steeped her tone to a soft lull, choking back the gritty crack that threatened to spill from her gullet. Somehow, she felt shame. Shame for her lost past, shame for not knowing why the man pained…having the knowledge that she was the cause, but not why. Slate eyes blinked to darkness and for a stark moment she was unable to meet his gaze.

“You know me, yet somehow I cannot remember your face.”

The woman busied herself with twisting a tendril of that obsidian curl, making to act as if she was refastening a loose assortment of iridescent hummingbird feathers. The gesture made the dip of her spine, her posture, seem childish. Uncertain. Truth had become elusive and despair was evident in the damp shine in those wide, almond shaped eyes.

Forlornness allowed her nothing save a seat in the warm umbra from the blaze. Dark vermillion and honey saffron sweated across her skin, casting half her features in an ever changing halo. Quiet contemplation was hidden beneath a kohl veil. Tepid sand warmed Serna’s feet as she meshed her toes beneath the buff grit, chin atop her forearms as they rested against coltish knees. Seasons seemed to pass silently, only the resounding crash of waves relieving the echoing stillness. Aquiline features twisted towards Taiaka, jaw line pressed against a slender shoulder. A sigh rippled from between cupid bow lips, brimming sapphire eyes intent of his obsidian visage.

“I’ll trust you.”

Even as the words slipped from her tongue, they sounded crisp and disheartening. Serna’s own chill tone forced a shuddering breath from her lungs, the sound drowned by a growl against the horizon. Thunder.

“Since you know my name…it’s only fair you give me yours.”

Teeth delicate white as fish bone flittered against buxom lips; a halfhearted simper that never quite reached her gaze. Fluctuating feelings of disbelief and skeptics belied her true colors. Even in the eerie, ethereal glower of fire light, the woman could not bow to sheer hope. Serna’s breast burned fiercely, pleading that she might forget to remember; fill in the blanks with untruths. Raw anticipation flooded slate eyes as she gazed auspiciously at Taiaka.

Her eyes were the purveyors of truth and Taiaka watched their every nuance; they were star sapphires primed with an arcane touch of divinity. He knew he may have been generous with his usage of hyperboles in the past, liberal with his greedy flattery, but their story was woven with wasted breath and broken smiles. From Serna’s slow blink to the way the corners of her mouth tightened as she spoke, Taiaka watched, and forgot about the nuts roasting in their fire. She wore shadows in her hair and moonlight on her skin and when she touched him, he thought he would shatter into a thousand dark grains of sand. Instead, he laughed miserably.

Dogs in the starlight, alone but for the fleas of thought that made them both itch.

If Taiaka had a piece of gold for each time he told someone to try to forget his face, he would be a rich man. But they usually didn’t; they would beam with recognition and welcome as if the warning was just a friendly turn of phrase. Taiaka was uncannily aware that it had, and always would be, a strange request of his acquaintances, but he would never have assumed that Serna would have been the only one to heed his words. It seemed unfair and sardonically ironic, like a coughing fit in church, and he didn’t know if he would ever find the words to regale their history. Too many years had passed between them, the convenience of caged simpers and hiccups of conversations had been replaced by an inky sheet of oblivion. Taiaka thought perhaps it would be better that she did not remember him; he lived comfortably beneath a cowl of disappointment and spoiled surprises. He expected nothing less from those he loved, even if the feelings were worn thin and tattered at the edges. Yet, Serna could not hide the lines that crawled beneath her tanned skin and Taiaka, drawn carefully with the imperfections of snowflake obsidian, knew the same man from their clan had bled them both. If she did not know what they meant anymore, or if she chose to name them as scars of a life that had ‘rotted’ away, Taiaka would know for certain that the parchment was blank.

He was humble, “I am Taiaka Vin’Kai of the Empty Hand,” and his accent knotted thick, words coiled in creeper vines, sweet like red papaya. “Born under an empty patch of sky on the worst day of the year on an island that grows the best coffee in Arda.” For as foolish as he felt giving his title to the one who should know it best, he enjoyed stating it as clearly as he did.

White lightning quickened the horizon, thunder willing to amble along the edges of the breakers until it collapsed on their beach like a throaty purr. The rain seemed skittish and afraid to choke the night with its pattering din, but the storm’s wind pushed away the settling humidity until Taiaka could smell nettles and bitter wormwood. The flames in the fire pit refused to surrender, and neither did the scions of reverence that loomed within Taiaka’s absorbent stare.

Serna recoiled unto herself like the flippant rain clouds, but the dark man knew he would be of little solace to her. The reflex of familiarity caused him to shift his weight and disregard the expected distance between strangers. Pressing his hip against hers, he brought his knees to his chest as she had done with her own, and placed his chin on the length of his forearms. Taiaka could feel her breathe and turned his pale gaze to her without lifting his head.

“You don’t have to trust me if you don’t want to.” Feline tilt and ruby eye shine met the almond-shaped speckles of clean cobalt in her skull. He took a deep breath and his nostrils flared giddily from her wild and heady scent. “But I have always been conscribed to your safety, flailing for your adoration and respect.” He buried his chuckle in the crux of his elbow, dreadlocks sliding from his shoulders to slither down his back where the beads and bones and feathers tickled and cooled his spine.

Waiting until the roll of distant thunder passed, his drew his words in a guarded whisper, “Why don’t you remember me, Serna?”

Taiaka’s adolescent gawking bottomed out, his contempt trembling and dying within the slits of his tarry pupils. “Are you sick?” He swallowed as if testing the legitimacy of his own throat, unable to stray far enough from his own memories to string sentences together. Again he wished, silently upon the clutter of his brain like a child upon the veil of Stars, to fall asleep in her arms and wake up only to juke a nightmare.

Star-crossed amour sprouted ill saplings. Decades had set to sour the passion between them, fate doing double the load in jarring her recollection. Foreboding forecasts loomed not only on the rolling pitch horizon but worked to fabricate storm clouds on her psyche. Tribulation tore stitches from her heart as Taiaka gazed dolefully at her bemused features. The motion left tender aches and crippling pinpricks in a place Serna could not soothe.

Pastel star light ignited tarnished obsidian and cast a chalky silver glow to kiss along Taiaka’s clean, curving lines. Evening blunted each rawboned juncture and smoothed jutting edges, making his waspish, reedy appearance into something ethereally striking. Matte black flared iridescent novas and each intake of air set his chest heaving like a bellows. Likewise, the pallid glow turned Serna a burnished copper, ochre and saffron painting her hide. Contrary twin carvings smacked of irony, the scene laughable in its contrast. Double spears of illumination birthed from the same spectrum.

‘I am Taiaka Vin’Kai of the Empty Hand. Born under an empty patch of sky on the worst day of the year…’

Captivated by the woolly timbre, Serna shed her pitiful insolence and turned an attentive ear, hearkening to the mild lilting. The accent snapped her to military attention, the clipped tone almost tangible in its familiarity. Word for word the empty gestures her lips played against the shadow Serna matched him. That humming coo boasted a devoted sound, something meant to lull and cozen. It resonated between her ears, a voice bred to chase what sanity still lingered.

Nuzzling like a nursling, Serna towed her light pied chin over the length of one forearm. Inconspicuously masked beneath a shroud of raven wing black she attempted to stifle his musk. Patchouli and milkwood stung the back of her palette, a loamy, rich tang that cast stars across her apprehension. Lynx-eyed, Serna blinked, gaze toying along his knuckles. There was at least solace to be had in the truth that they endured the same blight. Delicate as a porcelain doll, a sepia palm emptied upwards, deftly catching a droplet of limpid crystal; the first of many to come.

Seasons of conditioning lost snapped back in a single reflex. Golden sweat leeched from the Bakkai nuts forewarned overcooking and with a dexterous motion, the woman removed them from the stifling blaze. Still transfixed and beguiled by Taiaka’s speech, Serna’s gaze remained stoically upon him. Balanced between glassy finger nails, the nut meats were hauled to the safety and sat sizzling upon a limb of driftwood.

Familiarity was rampant in Taiaka’s press of hips, though rather than recoiling Serna stay put. Strangers, no matter the flavor, found close quarters distasteful but a lie could not dupe all her senses. Instead of letting a fly-bite flinch roil across her hide, she wheezed a single breath too minute to be called a sigh.

“Taiaka.”

Each consonant lengthened considerably as she forced it from a rigid tongue, taking care to savor the name as it dripped honey-sweet from her lips. Nothing echoed in her memory but endorphins trickled through the blockage.

“I said that I do not know your face.”

An eerie hush tracked her words, broken only by the shudder of ivory and clay beads waltzing as she lifted her head. Paling and angled, her chin was tucked against her chest like a drowsy night bird, a mannerism that gave the woman an air of wariness. Clouds opened above the strand, weeping lukewarm dribble. Tawny cheeks peppered with pellucid drops, Serna brought her cerulean gaze to play along Taiaka’s features, searching for the thousandth time to dispel doubt.

“Your voice. The scent of autumn. And other things. That is familiar to me. That, I know.” Setting the wide-eyed child aside, Serna breathed a cool, bitter chuckle. Laughter choked back tears, nothing more. “And, no. I’m not sick. I’m condemned. You say you share the same patch of sky I claim, so you know better than most.”

Incandescent and rain slick, Serna offered a sepia palm flat to him. It was meant as a gesture and nothing more, as if bidding him to agree they shared the same path. Pewter droplets spilled from her fingertips, spattering the bare buff curve of her ankle. Perhaps she had exerted too much in trying to flee from the arms of fate and all she need do was rouse herself from this waking nightmare.

A break threatened to bruise her resolve, tone revealing a hairline fracture in her annunciation. As hotly the want for answers burned in her breast, Serna quelled the need. “It's cruel that you know loss and I cannot remember enough to feel poorly for causing you pain. You have my trust, Taiaka Vin'Kai, though I know it is no substitue."

Wet white smoke gathered beneath the bend in Serna’s wrist and Taiaka knew he should have smiled at the gesture of her palm. Piecemeal understanding fettered his stanch opinions and though he did not approve of the girl’s explanations, he would not be the one to mark her words as lies. Jealousy and desire boiled in his belly, his anger recoiling until he felt the cool wash of practiced numbness take his stormy blue eyes to the crumpled horizon. The fire gave them false hope from the rain; wintry needles drove themselves into the powdery sand and sewed patches of clumps along the dimly lit strand of beach. Flames lashed at their bodies when the wind changed its course; smoke curled from dying embers as he watched her rearrange the Bakki nuts. His lungs took a hot hit, his eyes watered but he threw his head back, and blamed the rain.

She was correct in her assumption: He was not sated by her words; his name from the purse of her soft lips the only consolation, bittersweet like cheap chocolate. She would trust him but she had no idea why. She would let him seal the distance between them and press his midnight hue against the breadth of her tawny ocher. Taiaka felt like a thief in the night, the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, and in the darkest recesses of his mind, wondered if Serna retained the will to bite. Fate was tempted under their empty patch of sky, but Serna was wrong: He did not know better than her. The Stars held themselves in their quiet repose and Taiaka could not escape in their guidance.

“Condemned or blessed?” Musing tones seeped into his words without the trappings of patronization. When he stood, he felt her sweat chill the length of his thigh and one by one, he plucked the Bakki nuts from the palate of driftwood. He was afraid the rain would cool them too quickly, crack their pitted surfaces with an unrequited irony.

“The fury of Fate never turns a blind eye. Karma balances out pity and regret. The wicked get their just deserts.” Taiaka circled around the fire pit; fat raindrops fell upon his long arms and took the path of least resistance. The water traced the raised lines in his skin, glistening like tree resin until it dripped from the tips of his thin fingers.

“But you are not wicked. If I was a holy man, I’d forgive you sins.” There was an odd tilt of his head and a downtrodden shrug. “But I am biased.” Two-tone clouds stirred with a serpent’s kiss of forked lightning and as the thunder rolled along the cloistered beachhead, Taiaka hesitated.

“If you are not sick, then you are cursed?” Nervous pawing led to his pacing and his wild eyes chose not to loiter upon one surface for too long. Over his shoulder the sea had grown fuzzy and the rage of the waves was muffled by the shaking sheen of a sulking downpour. It came upon their camp in sputtering billows, wind and water causing their meager campfire to mew and hiss, the sand leaping up to stick to their slick skin. Taiaka let his mane of hair spill from his temples and cover his ears like a wooly hood. His gaze kept the amber flames until there were no longer any shadows but the ones from a choked pale moon.

The storm would not allow Serna to hear a voice borne from a whisper, so he let his jaw hang and crouched as if scrying the dead embers. “I believe everything happens for a reason, there is no such thing as coincidence. And if the fates brought your scent to my nose and allowed me to speak with you about the memories you have lost, then there is a purpose to it.” Rain drew a shiver from the base of his spine and he let the paleness of his eyes beam with less than lucid resolve as he sought the droplets of water that settled like seed beads on her eyelashes.

“If the Gods will not answer our questions, then the Oracle of the Night will. If we can find her.” Hurried words, Taiaka’s timbre turned feverishly warm and youthful. “But those of us that walk on two legs cannot go where we need to go.” He placed two Bakki nuts in the palm of his hand and offered them to Serna. Their meat was fibrous and bitter but the dark man had plucked them from the thorny bushes not for their nutritional purposes, but for their soothing intoxication properties. Taiaka grinned widely, showing her a chipped canine.

“Paws and claws?” He asked around a throaty chuckle.

Silver gloss rippled over sepia flesh, the heaven’s woe drenching kohl tendrils to lie like curls of beached kelp against her cheeks. Weeping clouds disguised the truth, obscuring the bitter well of salt that slipped to sweeten the rain drops. Sluggishly a delicate wrist wound, letting the fleeced pewter drops patter against the darkening grit. The motion was dour, languid. Clear cobalt chips quickened along Taiaka’s form, no longer attempting to trace his features and reminisce over his crooked simper.

Ivory points shone against Cupid’s bow lips, the smile she hastily painted upon her blank visage being a cynical lift. Liquid grace gathered coltish legs and urged her to stand, limber muscle causing her to sway like a tattered willow wand in the growing gale. Molars ground fitfully against one another as she recited her brother-shifter’s musings.

‘The fury of Fate never turns a blind eye. Karma balances out of pity and regret. The wicked get their just deserts…but you are not wicked. If I was a holy man, I’d forgive your sins.’

Baited, the ochre stained shifter was more than apt to display a curve of porcelain eyeteeth, poised to snap. Frustration crippled and cracked the transparent grimace, though she sheathed her fangs from him. Quivering muscles snapped her joints to attention, the faintly acrid scent of the Bakkai nuts giving her frayed conscious something to focus upon. Flat palmed Serna accepted the offering.

“If I believed that, the Stars would have taken pity on me long before now. Paint me a blasphemer, if you must.” Serna’s words dripped vitriol, masked only by the thin thread of jubilance she had sewn to halfheartedly keep her cracking voice together. Petulant as a neglected child, her tone echoed dully.

Pinned triumphantly between her tongue and palate, the bitter nut meats made an offering to sate and still her ragged nerves. Fingertips hovered over the curve of her mouth while she chewed dutifully, watching Taiaka through panes of crystal glass. The first burnt pod left a sour taste to ferment along her tongue and gullet. By the second it had gone, leaving only the sweet savor of honey in the windfalls. A tentative, sticky tongue ventured out, lapping at the viscous, golden sweat that beaded upon her lips.

“Enlighten me, Gazer. Tell me of these sins.” Seconds ticked on, Serna passing the moment only by turning her glacial slate gaze between Taiaka and the winking, knavish stars. “I could be cursed…If I am, my crime must have been monstrous for the Stars to protect my mind from what I have done.”

A smarting snicker jostled the woman’s shoulders, the hushed laughter visible more than it was audible, the stormy patter working to disguise it. The heavens were baiting her. Fate had dropped the instrument of her vindication before her, knowing full well that she could do little but humble herself, begging and scraping at the man to revel her past. Punishing the impious child.

Night coated her eyes a mottled gray as she met Taiaka’s sapphire feline tilts, tongue working against her Bakkai stained palm. Like a mullet washing her whelps, Serna padded her tongue along ‘till all but scent was gone. Sardonically a slick shoulder jolted Taiaka’s.

“Paws and claws.” Amiably, her tone rang close about them, buffeted by the rain.

Skeptic simper drawn perfectly in place she cast her view upon the sizzling whimper of fire light. She had been tossed a chance in which she no longer believed; ironic. Time and circumstance may have erased Taiaka’s features and person from her deadpan brain, but there was an uncanny eagerness to her step despite her forlorn anger. Two steps had all but gone, clear tears having already filled feather light impressions in the strand. Dancer lithe, Serna turned on bare toes. Chin rested atop her scapula, smoky topaz silvers blinking expectantly.

“I’d see your pelt first.”

“Enlighten me, Gazer. Tell me of these sins…I could be cursed…If I am, my crime must have been monstrous for the Stars to protect my mind from what I have done.”

He was bright with mocking humor and the sensation, in stark contrast to the Bakki nuts, was pleasant if not disappointingly sweet. Taiaka wouldn’t have thought it possible to sate Serna’s patience; the cold rain could make any creature ornery, but the dark man knew how that lighting a long fuse was risking the ring with a bull. And the girl was a visage of tawny stubbornness, painted with beads and feathers (no doubt from beautiful and exotic birds that met terrible, jarring fates), getting soaked in the middle of the night. Now no fires burned but the ones that shined in both their eyes and the boom of angry waves became the only unfortunate witness.

Yet Taiaka did not counter her words, he didn’t even bite his tongue, admitting to blasphemy was the least of both their crimes.

“Blood on one’s hand can be transferred by a handshake.” He shrugged, never looking at her, his hands too busy peeling the chitin from his remaining Bakki nuts. The rain made them as slippery as sections of mango, and he stood as he popped the last one into his mouth, chewing it casually.

But she had agreed to change her skin, a pact that left a bitter aftertaste; her memory of him was gone but she would trust him. Odd, he thought, it must be my charming personality. The idea of Fate playing with the irony of it all, the storybook coincidence that boasted unrealistic morals, made Taiaka’s skin crawl. Under different circumstances, the pair had been complimentary in each other’s company; he could pretend to be whomever he wished. It frightened him to think she would be able to see through any disguise he hid behind, she had no right. The tender duality of the dark man’s angry rationale was muted behind the gentle numbing that was radiating from his belly.

From beyond the curve of her shoulder, Taiaka heard her issue the latent challenge. He arched his back with a lazy stretch and slapped out the rainwater that had found its way into his ear. Marble sands set the stage, soft and dry beneath a thickening skin, lonely stalks of driftwood like an old man’s whiskers. Lightning lashed out in purple ribbons over the ocean and heartbeats later the thunder would slide along the beach, cockeyed and jumbled as it echoed through the tall brown rocks. The wind was flat, drops falling heavy and straight into the parts woven into his hair; the air carried no scents from the surrounding forest, Taiaka and Serna shared the same cage.

Shape shifting was an art, not just the sorted amalgamation of body parts and fur. Surely there was a secret discipline, though not very strict, that came from being able to show someone their own face on another creature. Certainly, Taiaka believed, there might also be a touch of pride involved in the whole affair, which would be completely justifiable.

He placed his hand on his hips, negotiating silently with his body to obey his will, and began thinking of the ‘pelt’ Serna demanded. With a resolved puff, Taiaka was no more. His middle widened as it covered itself in white feathers, hips coming up and bones shortening to bend him onto all fours. Hands were paws and they had grown thick, black and blonde striped fur that crawled up his arms and shoulders. His back legs had sprouted hooves where his toes used to be, joints at obscene angles, and his flanks were covered in huge sienna colored scales that sewed themselves flawlessly into the bright white feathers. He looked utterly ridiculous, and it didn’t help that his head was on a long furry neck and his face had never changed (except for the goat’s horns on either side of his forehead, above his smirk). Slowly, as if he purposely left it to be the last to grow, a long silky lion’s tail budded from his perfectly proper scaly behind, and he waved it proudly.

“Does this please you?” Taiaka was obviously trying to keep a straight face, and he held on to his determination until the bitter end.

“Am I not the most fearsome beast you have ever encountered?” He lifted his voice, hooves sliding in the sand, feathers drowning and wilting in the rain.

Amusement set the curve of her angled jaw, an indulgent sort of jubilance flashing a set of fishbone ivory teeth against Cupid’s bow lips. A jab at satire was unexpected. Perhaps Serna would have been better prepared for a wallop about her temple, or at the very least a good show of force. Humor was unfamiliar. The gestures, that simper, seemed hardly to fit the painted scowl that was ever present on her visage, in the kohl painted tilt of her callous gaze.

A clatter of bamboo reeds was the bedroom dark rumble of her laughter. Gazelle grace bent the length of her neck, bowing her head away from the mismatched farce Taiaka slipped from his pitch skin. Gravity fleeced platinum pinpricks of moisture from her chin as her shoulders jostled, sending rainwater to spatter against the darkening strand. Moments slipped into blackness before the bell soft sound was lost to the patter of heaven’s tears and Serna turned her heather dark slits back to Taiaka. Tiny pinched humor lines furrowed the corners of her eyes, pale shadow accenting fine age furrows.

Laughter left her throat dry and raw and she worked to swallow the burning grit, at once reveling in a lost passion, a forgotten sentiment. “Eye-catching.” The single word echoed against the thunder of waves lapping hungrily at the shore, tailing her last sliver of a chortle. “But hardly pleasing to look at.”

Jittery lips toiled to keep flat, wavering between beaming and scowling. Truly it had been seasons since Serna had been able to find humor in such a small gesture. Perhaps she had been too long from the company of her own. Tentative tongue strokes smoothed her fidgeting lips and poached cool droplets to sate her and rid her skin of the rancid lingering of Bakkai oils.

Due now was her pelt, the laying bare of her own marrow for him to descry. Fly bite flinches set her shoulders to rippling, a nervous gesture. Still, despite her inconvenient anxiety, flexing abilities was intoxicating. A finite skill, bred rather than schooled, set her form to eddying. It was a silent bartering that undertook replacing one limb for another, the trade of pallid, worm-like flesh for a woolly hide.

Rich sepia batting knit itself into a thick pelt, salt water straining to set burgundy stain against the guard hairs. Minute, ebony faceted gems broke the mottled sand and umber fuzz; a peppering of close-knit pin-feathers waterproofing the hatchling down softness of Serna’s under coat. A trick borrowed unwillingly from the apparition that loomed ahead of her in the growing storm. Taiaka had goaded her thoughts into hijacking his plumage. Dancer’s legs and thighs transformed into delicately angled paws, tiny pads sprouting bantam alabaster nails. A bobbing white lure was the tip of a prehensile-looking feline tail; the better to prevent kits from being lost to the wanton arms of night. Hairs sturdy as porcupine pins cavorted above her heavy shoulder blades, creating a heavy, crowning ruff that wriggled upwards about her gracefully bent neck. Crooked and only half erect, tufted triangular ears set atop a narrow, predatorily pointed skull; better to keep out the spill of rainwater, or perhaps to make the form seem all the more ridiculous, marking her own poor stab at humor. Ruddy dark, a lolling chow’s tongue rolled from the side of her pointed maw, framed by jagged ivory needles. Perhaps she could not bring herself to save her own visage on animal form, and the feral pantomime of human speech roiled from black lips as she kneaded willow thin forefeet into the damp beach.

“Form follows function, Taiaka. What good are hooves in this mire?” Another rumbling snicker escaped her throat, though it was less chittering and more a growl lost in the thunder of the gale.

Serna gave a start, slapping jeweled paws against the wet swill of glassy grit. Egging him, Serna feinted again, not bothering to pause and wonder at her actions. At the far recesses of her psyche, something had been untied, a sense of familiarity that had washed unease away with the tide. Thunder ran in the wake of her delicate steps as she began loping easily down the beach, spinning to a halt to toss that mismatched muzzle back over one scapula, cerulean gaze fixated on Taiaka.

What did she have to lose?