[open] and you will see me

[Isilya]

Isilya

yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the scene
her purest of crystal and brightest of green

The flowers on the vines that lace Isilya’s spine shift and change into plump, drooping wisteria clumps that fall down her neck and back. She turns briefly to smile fondly at the soft-purple blooms, enjoying the familiar brush of their petals against her skin. “These are my favourites, because they’re what I’m born with.” Her gaze turns back to Crowns, delighted by his curiosity. “I can talk to them, but it’s not a language like what we’re speaking. It’s a little more like reading their minds - I can tell if they’re happy, and if they aren’t then what they need to become happy. Whether it’s more sunlight, more water, or comforting them after a deer has eaten most of their leaves.” Isilya knows that animals must eat - she eats plants as well after all - but she always replenishes that which she has taken and sometimes with a wink she’ll do the same for any such grazer-touched plants she sees.

“I even lived as a tree for a few years too. They talk with their roots.” One of the vines that is damming the river reaches out to tickle at Crowns’ leg as she says this and the gold-touched mare laughs gently.

There are more questions and Isilya does not mind one bit. It feels as though he is sorting out her thoughts with them - forcing her to put words to the emotions she has felt over the last several years of calling Tephra home. “I like to think of it as my family, yes. I’ve never felt more at home and at peace somewhere than I do this jungle, it’s so alive. Sometimes it feels like my heart beats along side all those that live here.” Isilya’s grin turns a little sheepish, thinking those words sound silly when spoken aloud. But it’s what she feels. Tephra is a part of her now, and she a part of it, so she knows her fate is tied with this jungle’s, one way or another.

’twas not her soft magic of streamlet or rill
oh! no, it was something more exquisite still

@[crowns]