Apsara’s smell had sunk deep into his blood. He could not be rid of it. Still his nose remembered the smell of woodfire, the taste of sweet things, the dirt of the city. It was nothing like the clean and clear scent of a wild flower wood. He disliked the smell and yet… why would it not leave him? That smell was unfinished business upon a forest boy’s palette. It tasted awful and yet, he wanted to see the origin of all the things he smelled upon Aspara’s body.
His curiosity brought him to Denocte. For many nights he did not venture out from the woods that wrap around the city like loving arms. For many nights he watched the way the mountain slumbered and torches ascended up the trails like ants. Even where he stayed, amidst the quietude of the slumbering wood, he could hear the terrible sounds of the city. So loud. So piercing. Never silent. A wild wood boy needs silence.
He wandered between the edge of the wood and the great lake at its other end. He bathed when the moon was just over its peak and all the revellers had turned for their beds. Leonidas never stopped to ever wonder why the slept inside. For him the stars, the leaves, the roots and the flowers were beds and pillows and protection enough for him.
Finally too many days had passed for a boy with little patience and besides, this night is so very different than all the others he has spent here in Denocte. This night a festival pours herself out in colour and light and frivolity all through the cobbled, moonstone streets. The denizens dance in masks and from his woodland kingdom the boy-king finally steps out. He skirts the city until he finds the shortest path in to the busy markets. (It would also stand as his fastest escape when the smell, the noise, the terrible city clamour becomes too much for his senses).
Out of his comfort and in amidst a wood of stone and brick and slaughtered wood, the boy begins to creep, slow and careful. He moves silently, silently, nimble and spry, even with his brace of gilded tines atop his brow. It is his crown, he wears it proudly, even when autumn and winter come to try and pluck it from him. The crowd is thick and deep and so terribly loud. He hears the laugh of children and watches with leonine eyes as they run and dance past where he hides. Soon a child’s curiosity is too much and he steps out from his dark hiding place. A girl streaks past in ribbons of gold and crimson. A firebird she is and yet she nearly collides with him, but Leonidas is fast and returns to his hiding place as if she has run only through shadow.
I run as fast as I can through the streets, weaving through the crowd and doing my best not to run into anyone. There are some who don't appreciate me rushing by, but I don't pay attention. Tonight, I'm not a horse- I'm a phoenix.
The Shadow Man said I was the very first phoenix he had ever met. It made me feel proud and special and rare. I'm an unstoppable force with the flame colored ribbons flying through the air behind me as I move, almost like long tail feathers. I pretend that I have wings spread out so far that I could cover the entire crowd with them. If only I actually had wings so I could take flight and look down at everything like a bird does. I'd watch over everyone and make sure they were okay.
I'm deep in my imagination when something runs in front of me, almost knocking me over. It's so fast that I can't even get a good look at it. All I remember is that they were brown and I think I remember seeing wings. They were way too big to be a bird. I stop right in my tracks and my hooves make a screeching sound against the cobblestone. There's spaces between the buildings that are covered in shadow and I squint my eyes in the direction that the creature went. It must have gone into hiding because I know I hadn't imagined it.
"Hello?" I call out, wondering if it could understand me. "Is someone there?"
I step closer to the shadows, but not too close just in case they might be scared. "You can come out," I say softly. "I won't hurt you."
His wing aches from where they collided, but the boy barely feels it as he sinks into the dark shadows out of sight. It had been an error to come here. He has seen the vibrancy of the court but now he longs to return to his woodland. There the only noises are the call of the owls, the rustle of the leaves as a deer passes by. But now, now his ears are full of noise - singers singing, instruments playing, children laughing, flaggons chinking together in a toast..
...and a girl calling out into the darkness.
Leonidas presses back into his spot, until the tines of his antlers touch the panelled wood of the building beside him. He thinks it is the girl who crashed into him. Her ribbed are crinkled at her shoulder - was that him? The tumble about her hair, her face, her long slender throat. Dark lines across her face and up her throat are illuminated by the soft buttery lamplight that reaches into the darkness.
Is someone there? She asks and the wild wood boy remains silent. He has learned how to be so terribly still, until a predator passes, until prey steps a little too close and just within range. This night, he is the prey and he stands so utterly still.
As if she knows how he hides, the girl steps a little closer. She is smaller than him, as fine boned as a sparrow. He has seen her run and it is more like flying, especially with her ribbons. Sparrow. Her dark eyes blink and the moonlight glitters off them.
With a small, soft voice she beckons him out, says she will not hurt him. Leonidas does not think she will. There is not much he fears except for feral magic, all predators have a weakness, and he has endured a year alone, as a boy. Solitude and wilderness is all he has known. He is content to stand in his spot as silent as a tree until she leaves.
But then, it is the look within her gaze. It is the delight that twisted his tummy when he was with Aspara and Nicnevin. He is fine with solitude of course, but the delights of companionship were like sweets he was not often allowed. How much damage can a firebird do a boy of the woods? This is what Leonidas wonders as he steps regally out from his hidden spot. With his nape arched and his body poised as if to fight or to flee, He looks into her golden eyes, dark and rich like his own, and murmurs, “My name is Leonidas.” The boy whispers, in the hopes she might say it. He still remembers how his name had sounded, spoken by Aspara for the first time in so long he had almost forgotten his own name. He wonders, if each time he hears it, he will live a little brighter a little longer and remember who he was, who he is
As time passes, it makes me start to wonder if I had imagined it all. I mean I really did just bump into something, so it had to be someone? Although if no one comes out, then they're probably way gone by now.
I'm about to give up when something stirs in the shadows after all. The something reveals themselves to be a boy with antlers like an elk and long flowing hair. I've never seen him before so I'm not sure if he lives here in Denocte. He still seems kind of unsure, even when he introduces himself.
"Leonidas," I repeat, finding the name kind of fun to say with my tongue. "I'm Maeve." I'm hoping now that we know each other's names, he'll feel a little less afraid of me.
As I look at him more closely, he looks so out of place here. He seems like a creature that would be in the depths of the woods with all the animals following him. I could also see him like a bird up in the sky with the great wings of his. Meanwhile the hustle and bustle of the markets surrounds us. Instead of trees there are buildings and instead of the earth beneath our hooves, it's the cobblestone pathways. Yet he's here for whatever reason. I know our sweetcakes are pretty good, so I don't blame him for coming in to sneak a few.
"Where are you from?" I ask, eager to know if my guesses are right.
Her ribbon feathers flutter in the contented sigh of the Autumn breeze. He watches as they sway, brushing against the porcelain lines of her body. He can see her in the woods, creeping stealthily beneath the deep dark of the umbrella overhead. “You are like a tiger.” He says lightly, watching her as she watches him. His eyes draw along her pallid lines. She is tribal, he thinks. Her body is painted by her genes as the Ilati are by their paints. But her colours come in the bright ribbons, so startling against the soft sand of her body. She is like a desert too - how many things does she make him think of? - her skin the colour of dunes beneath teh morning sun. Looking at her makes him thirsty, looking at her makes him feel warm as if the sun were upon his cheeks.
The wild-wood boy looks away, before she can remind him of anything more. A sparrow, a lion, a desert… “Your name is not big enough for you.” The boy says lightly, though his brow furrows with confusion. He cannot put to words what he wants to tell her. The thoughts of all the things she could be crowd into his mind. Leonidas is holding her in gold again, when did he look back at her? He is quite unable to look away. “What are you?” He whispers with wonder as he looks at the fire of her ribbons, the soft sand of her skin, the white snow of her tiger lines. He does not mean what she is dressed as. A woodland orphan knows nothing of dressing up, of pretending to be something he is not. No, there is something deeper in this girl and he stares at it as if she is a new star within his sky.
The way she says his name has him tipping his eyes up from the place he thinks her soul might rest. Up he looks into her eyes and at her lips, as if he might still see his name there, marking him, claiming him. It sounds different upon her lips than it did upon Aspara’s. He smiles for she makes it sound like a game, like a toy, something light and playful. His grin is wildling dark in the shadows of the alley, but the gold of him casts honey light across him. He grows more otherworldly, more feral.
She asks where he is from and the softness of her, the playful way his name played between teeth and tongue eases him. “The woods.” He answers and his head turns, to look back to the woodland that waits for its boy-king to return. Never once does he think she might mean, his origins or a place he spends each night. Every night is different, there is no place that he stays for long. All of Novus is his. He is from everywhere and nowhere at all.
A band suddenly starts as it passes the alley and the boy startles. He looks with wide-sun eyes to where the festival beats like an entity, a monster he has no name for. “It is so loud here.” He says, bemused, disgruntled. “Do you enjoy it?”
The more this boy talks, the stranger he seems to be. I crinkle my nose at him, not to be rude but because I'm very confused by the things he says. A tiger? I look nothing like Neerja. I also don't know how my name could be so small. How can names have sizes? Somehow, it looks like he's just as confused as me. What an odd day this is turning out to be.
"I'm named after my grandmother," I try to explain. "I don't know how big she was, but I guess I could ask Momma…" I trial off as he inspects my costume more closely. Perhaps like Shadow Man, he's never seen a phoenix before either.
"I'm a phoenix! At least for today, although it would be fun to be one all the time. They can fly like you, you know. Flying seems like a lot of fun," I say, finding myself looking curiously at his wings now. I really am so jealous of all the winged creatures. I could explore so much more of the world if I shared their ability.
He doesn't seem to want to give me many details about his home, which is surprising to me. When others ask me where I'm from, I'm so excited to tell them all about the Night Court and Momma. Yet, all he says is "the woods". Not where in the woods, or even what woods he's talking about since there are so many all over Novus. There is so much to a forest, how could he not want to tell me more? "Which woods? I've been to the ones in Deloo...Delly… uh… where Dawn Court lives. That place is really pretty. Oh, are you from Dawn Court then?"
Though I wonder after I suggest it if he's from any Court at all. There is something off about him and then he makes a comment about how loud it is here. Aren't all the Court towns loud? I guess it is, but I've grown so used to all the noise. "I mean, this is my home, so I guess so? I kind of just tune it all out after a while," I reply, but then remember how it was back in the forest. It did seem quieter in comparison but still loud in its own way. It makes a little more sense now why it might be scary for him if he's not used to it.
"Over there is just a band that plays music. If you listen closely, you'll hear the beat of it and it's not just noise. There are music notes and stuff, it sounds really pretty." I don't know if my explanation would help him listen to the noise differently, but I hope it might. It's different from just listening to the crowd of voices and all the footsteps in the market. This is noise with a purpose and it can be really beautiful if you know how to hear it.
Her nose crinkles. The wildwood boy watches the way it does. Confusion etches itself across the girl’s features and Leonidas huffs, frustrated. “No.” He murmurs, yet smiles, bright like the sun as she talks of the size of her grandmother. “I mean…” The woods call his gaze, but has no answer for him. Next, the market calls him and he looks there and it seems to fit the brightness of Maeve, her smile, her lively voice. “Your name feels small but you… you are so much brighter, bolder, prettier… bigger.” The boy finishes, lamely. He looks away from her, blood rushing to warm his cheeks. If only Maret was here, she would have the words that he cannot find and does not know. “It is a good thing. I like that you don’t fit your name.” The boy whispers, the words glimmering their offering like gold dust in the autumnal air.
Then, then she comes alive as she speaks of being a phoenix and flying and yes, yes, this is what she means. SHe is too bright, too alive, so bold. The orphan boy is sure that there is nothing that could contain this child. His smile is bright and as feral as the woodland he roams. He remembers flying through the storm with the strangeling girl. The energy of lightning crackles through his veins. “I wish you had wings,” he breathes, “I would show you the sky and the wind.”
Maeve stumbles over her words as she presses on, pulling his thoughts out of the sky and down, down into the lovely deep magic of Delumine woods. “I have slept there.” Leonidas agrees. “But I have slept in many places beneath the stars…” He trails off, thinking of his uncle, the way he had watched him and asked if they can stay together, beneath the stars. “I go where I wish. I can show you some of the places I sleep, if you would like.” Leonidas grins, the invitation easing some of the loneliness that yawns dark and cold within him.
Obediently he listens to the music, how it rises and falls and just as he succumbs, just as he thinks he might turn toward it, a child lured toward the Pied Piper, there is a loud crash and laughter as a stand tips up. Wares from the tables scatter across the cobbles and down towards the ally. Dark figures step closer towards the mouth of the street and Leonidas’ ears fall toward his skull. He backs away, flighty as a deer. His gaze tips toward Maeve, briefly, “Will you teach me music another time?” he breathes framing her in gold for the briefest moment. “Come and find me if you like.” Is all the boy says before he flees for the welcoming dark of his woods. His gold is snuffed out as he flees down the street and into the trees.
I feel a little flattered, but also confused by the way he talks about my name. I guess I never really thought much about it before. I mean it's just… my name. It's always been my name and I've just known it for as long as I can remember. Being called anything else would be too weird. So I'm not really sure how else I could fit my name and I just look at the boy really confused. I guess at least he doesn't find this to be a bad thing? Also, I've never been described as brighter before, but I kind of like that.
My eyes light up when he tells me that he would take me flying. It makes my heart ache even more from the fact that I don't have wings. "Aw… that would be really cool. I would love that, but I guess I'll just have to stick to stories and paintings for now." I know it's not the same as the real thing. Unless I find a way to convince Fable to give me a ride or someone is strong enough to hold me from that high up... I'll just have to use my imagination. Boring.
When he talks about going wherever he wishes, it sounds really interesting to me. Sometimes I'm able to wander like I am today, but I don't go too far. I'd feel too bad and would be afraid of getting lost. Maybe… I can convince Momma to take me where Leonidas lives and then at least I could hang out with him again. "That would be fun, yeah!" is all I say. I don't want to stress him out more by mentioning Momma.
Now we are at the music and I can tell he's trying to listen, but then all of a sudden something crashes to the ground. I turn around to see the aftermath of one of the music stands tipping over and spilling someone's wares everywhere. They don't seem to be bothered over there, but I can just hear Leonidas speaking to me quietly and rushed.
Before I can say anything, he's gone and I'm alone again. I frown, but close my eyes. I want to remember what he looks and sounds like so maybe, hopefully, I can find him again.
For now, I open my eyes back up and trot over to the group to see if I can help them clean up at all. In the back of my mind, I'm hoping my new friend is okay and he won't be too afraid to visit again.
