‘Do not go into those woods,’ They say.
“You can never be sure of your way.”
The snow’s so thick
And the ice so slick.
With your life you will surely pay.


-------


Through this sea of swaying grasses the swan boy steps. He is so far from the lake that whispers in his ears. It will not do, his soul does sing. It will not do and it is effort just to keep his wings closed and stop his flight back to that gleaming lake.
 
He is the dark between the stars. The black that stretches out for an eternity and as night races ever closer and the shadows begin to dance, he feels the icy cool begin to creep.
 
Grass stems tremble in his presence, bowing before his striding limbs. Their  rustling whispers of reproach tickle his ears and keep them pressed tight upon his skull. High above him, his great wings arch, jagged and wild and oh so beautiful. This boy is a hawk of the night with the grace of a swan. But it is the swan that threads aggression deep, deep into his chest - into his bones.
 
His slow pace wanes until it ceases, and he is stood. With eyes like embers in the fading light, he gazes east. It is darker still across the sea, but the cliffs burn lilac in the light of the setting sun. To cross that sea would be so easy and once there to find the girl to whom he pledged his vow. Yet selfishly, he turns his gaze away. He was a free man now, not bound by demon magic nor loyal pledge. He would live as a free man would, for now.
 
He is too greedy our Polunin; too savage, too hungry.
 
A movement lures his fire eyes north. There, in the shade of the trees is but a small, firefly light. It blinks and glimmers and dances in the twilight air. It dances her and there until more begin to glow. In a chain they dance and maybe Polunin is but a bird… maybe the frost demon’s magic was too perfect for he begins to wonder what gems the forest hides. The trees, they keep their secrets. Their shadows stretching, concealing what it is that truly dances before his eyes. Within that feral heart he wishes for fireflies or dancing fire embers.
Curious as to the flickering light, Polunin’s great wings unfurl. Broad and powerful they bear him up. Over trees he circles, once, twice, until the firefly glow begins to glimmer anew. Only then do his flame licked eyes descend upon a string of coins dangling from the throat of a girl.
 
She is only the second girl his swan eyes have seen here. The first was a damnable creature of ice that set his scars to burn with wild, biting frost. Yet this one is different... This creature is a sky split with lightning, a brush of windswept clouds and roiling seas. There is no frost upon her, she is nothing but electric dreams.
 
He lands before her, much heavier that he would in water and his lips curl with distaste. The lake begins to cry, a haunting song within his ears with bells of summer songs. Fierce fire meets electric light as his eyes settle upon hers before falling to her golden trinkets.
 
“Gypsy.” He says gravelly soft. That human soul, lying tattered within him, aches with memories: girls with layered skirts, dark hair and wild dances. He is no longer a human boy to be enamoured by the travelling girls - exotic creatures that they were. But here he stands, before a gypsy once more. But this time they both bear the body of a horse.
 
“Did you make a deal with a demon too?” He asks of her with a smile upon his lips and a savage arch to his long, swan neck. But that smile, oh it is an ugly thing. Even upon the elegant beauty of his face it drips with the poison of the mistakes he made. The swan knows her answer before she will even say it.
 
No. She will say, for never would a gypsy girl be foolish enough to make a deal with a demon, as gypsies keep their own magic…

@Aislinn