Two moons(Ayush Kumar) Two moons
By Ayush

The mare galloped through the woods, as the arrows swayed in the quiver strapped across the brawny man’s chest, mounting the chestnut equine. Moonlight glinted on his bulging muscles as shafts of it penetrated the pine trees around. Carrying a curvaceous bow, the barbaric man had been travelling for a week now. Once he'd get through the dense pine woods, he’d see two moons, a glimpse of one would make the man immortal while the other would curse him for life.
As the sinewy mare raged towards the egress from the woods, the barbarian tied a blindfold with a threadlike texture, so that he might not look at the moons with bare eyes but had a peek at both the moons through the fine fabric. Once he’d decided on one, he’d unfasten his blindfold to look at the chosen moon with naked eyes.
The two moons were embedded in the night sky like precious stones; one red as freshly shed gore, the other a chilling indigo.
The Barbarian dismounted and stared at both the moons from behind the blindfold. He then removed his blindfold.
About three hundred years from then, a farmer would hear a heart-piercing moan from somewhere amidst the pine woods. When he’d go to take a look, he’d find a man’s rotting body quite subsumed in the surrounding greenery…cursed, the man would ask for a drop of water.

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