lysander
His favorite thing about the forest has always been the moment it comes alive again.
Always, at first, it is silent as he passes beneath the boughs. Whether god or mortal his presence makes the birds fall silent and watchful, makes the foxes slink beneath tangled brush and the squirrels find their homes. He does not mind the feel of their eyes on him, creatures sly and small and watchful.
But after a time it stirs once more, like a strange beast of many parts that all rise as one from slumber.
The first thing is the sounds; the leaves rattle beneath small feet and claws, the wrens trill and warble. A flicker of motion, a flash of sunlight on a blue wing, and then everything is humming, every creature returning to the endless tasks of survival.
Lysander is at ease in this world now, his slim dark legs folded beneath him with sunlight dappling his back. His eyes are half-closed, lazy; when his head dips his antlers nod like bare branches in a breeze. He has come alone on a hunch - that he might find a fungus that is no remedy for a wound, for something far stranger.
Once he traveled worlds; now he could only pretend.
But before he does he dozes, half-lidded eyes and ears twisting like a wolf’s, aware despite his current peace. The wind sighs in the canopy above him, and Lysander sighs too, content.
And then he opens his eyes. For the world has fallen still again, no whippoorwill or quail or humming bee, and Lysander looks up when even the slanting sunlight vanishes. It is no cloud, no limb of thick green leaves, and his mortal heart shivers between its ribs like roots, for it is a mighty wingspan that has blotted out the sun, and his memory whispers to him monster.
Lysander rises to his cloven hooves, his throat curving like a buck’s as he looks up and up to where the pegasus circles and dips like a hunting eagle.
Like any other creature of the woods (predator and prey alike) he waits, fully still, to see what will come.
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