lysander
His gaze, dark green as thick undergrowth, watches without expression as the figure circles lower and lower, and something eases in his chest to see the darkness of that coat, the size of it. Does it make him a coward, his relief at not meeting the kelpie again? Perhaps he just wasn’t looking forward to upsetting the pattern of his day.
At any rate he only moves as the stallion prepares to land, taking first a step then two back to give the large male more room. Even so he can feel the little breeze from his wings, can almost taste sunlight and sand and gold on it. Lysander’s dark mouth shapes a smile.
It is no dagger to flash and match the edge of the stranger’s expression, but something sleepy and slow, curling and curious.
Lysander knows what it feels like, to have his veins sing with ichor. To bleed gold, so that each carved mark left a gilded line. And it is a want he shares now, in his way.
Slowly the forest relaxes again, slowly the rich green scents of it return, lapping up against the memory of heat and stone and sand. And Lysander’s gave never wavers from the stranger, so he sees when those languid amber eyes move briefly to the stalks and caps of the Panaeolus cinctulus, blooming like strange and unprepossessing flowers.
Because of this his smile does not waver at the stallion’s question, and he inclines the neat arch of his tines like branches dipping in the wind. “Apparently I was.” With a flick of his tail he at last turns away, stepping delicate as a doe to the patch of mushrooms, nosing at their caps as the birds sing again overhead.
“I thought this was a secret - which is only a good reminder about secrets, I suppose.” His gaze flicks again to the stranger’s, quick and bright as a fox’s, secretive and sharp.
“Shall we see if we can find where the gods have gone?” he says, with a strange and crooked grin, and eats of a mushroom, its cap cupped like offering hands.
@
