lysander
Lysander does not watch the way starlight scatters on the lake, shattered into pieces with their splashing; he does not watch clouds veil the lovely face of the moon. He has seen all tese things before.
It is Florentine he watches, even as his laugh dies away over the water, and even in the semi-dark he sees the way her face falls. As she lifts her wing from the water, running with freshwater tears and feathers of gold, the once-god falls still. By the time she nods he is stepping closer to her, heedless of the water’s bite or the dagger’s new weight against his chest.
But she turns away from him, leaving only muffled words to cross the water for his ears. For a few steps he lets her go, his smile faded and his green-eyed gaze no longer laughing as it watches her draw away, followed by her wake as though he is trailing a wedding-veil. Yet before she is at the shoreline (so dark now the sun has set) he is after her, sure-footed in the shallows.
Lysander has followed her before, and doubtless will again - it is no question to him but to do so now.
The antlered stallion is silent for a moment, first following her, then drawing alongside, sleek and dark as an otter with his dripping skin. Even this closer to summer the air has a bite to it in the mountains, but he does not shiver.
Only once he draws alongside of her again does he speak, and he matches her step for step as they make their way across the whispering grass.
“Florentine,” he says softly, his voice a bed of ferns, his eyes boughs of pines bending near. “Whatever is on your mind, I would hear it.”
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