lysander
Lysander knows about eagles.
He knows about lions, too, and even a little bit about unicorns - he has no shortage of experiences with monsters. But most of all Lysander knows gods, and it is a god he thinks of as he watches Veer, as he feels the burn of the man’s eyes on his back.
All gold and want and blood; no fear and no humility. Violence like a blade sheathed in embroidered leather, beautiful and deadly and made to cut. The antlered stallion did not think that the bay’s grace was only ornamental.
Yet he does not fear, to turn his eyes away from the stranger. This is as sacred a ground as he knows, and besides, Lysander has never been the kind to fight. It is how he survived so long among stronger gods, hungrier for brighter things.
He only glances up when the stranger speaks of blood. Still he says nothing, only smiles in a way that says then there will be no secrets between us today. Lysander has not come to the forest to spill more of his ruby-red blood -
only to make it sing.
Oh, and it does! It takes some time (as all the best things do), but slowly the magic of it begins to unfold. Every color, every sound, is magnified; the forest is a symphony again, as it had been in his godhood. Even when it is quiet it is a cacophony; he thinks he can hear new leaves unfurling.
When the stranger beds down in the grass, he does not do the same; he sees universes not only within himself but everywhere. His curiosity is a whetted blade, sharp as the dark man’s smile. A cobweb discovered reaching between two ferns suspends dew like diamonds and he thinks of Isra, and sighs only enough to make the web tremble.
Sunlight filters down through the new-green canopy like spilling coins, like Zeus in a column of gold. There are gods everywhere, he thinks, if you only know to look - and oh, he misses his divinity then, for the things he might build in this moment.
But his wonder cannot be sated on the forest alone; he knows so many of its secrets already (has won them through blood). At last he turns back to the other man, steps near him with his head low and his eyes far away. Lysander bends his head near enough to blow a breath that stirs the other man’s dark hair, and watches the gleaming chain wink back at him as it moves beneath the dappled light.
“Tell me a thing you know,” he says, and his voice is lazy enough with a wine-thick ease to hide any edge in it. "That cost you dearly to learn."
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