CERYNEIAN HIND (greek mythology)
an enormous hind sacred to Artemis, it was said that it could outrun an arrow in flight.


Sybil had never considered it, but Eirene moved like she were part of a dream. The houses below them were unreachable like the stars above. The neighbourhood transformed into toys. Sybil closed one eye and pretended to grab the little houses, move them around, place one where there was another. She would then focus on the stars and do the same, though it was harder with them. Moving stars around was confusing, especially when they were so many.

It was easier to count the moons.

An arc of seven, eight if you counted the one you couldn't see tonight. It wouldn't be until next month that it would be full, and the one on the opposite end would disappear.

Sometimes, the moons looked like the seven (eight) eyes of a creature. This creature had the night sky and the stars for body and face. Similar to how Eirene's fur was peppered with white spots over a sweet tawny.

Sybil had to remember to hear the hooves on the asphalt, the swoosh of the wires of the street lightning when Einere passed over them. Mum didn't like when they stayed out so late, but Eirene could take Sybil to the ocean (even across it) and back before dawn if only she measured well her long steps. Or if she ran, if she jumped that way deer do above tall grass.

Daylight was harsh for a dream like Eirene, and the dream that was Sybil with her dæmon underneath the stars and seven moons.

"Eirene?"

"Yeah?"

A deer tall like the vault of the sky shouldn't match the childish pitch of the girl that was her human, but she did. There was no triple echo to her words, like most gods had, or a sense that her voice was more felt than heard. No, Eirene was just Sybil's dæmon.

"Do you think that, if we went to the tallest mountain and you stood on your hind legs and I stood on the top of your antlers… that maybe I could reach the full moon tonight?"

Sybil grabbed the fur of her dæmon, pulling herself up to Eirene's head and then up her antlers like climbing a tree. Plastic thread flowers from the garlands earlier still hung from the branches of Eirene's antlers. Swinging, swinging, swinging with her step.

Eirene turned to look at the tallest mountain, and the full moon that arched towards the top. Sybil sat on a branch of the antlers.

"Wanna try it?"

Sybil looked over her shoulder, the way home.

"Yeah, let's go."