lysander
He finds her again in the forest.
This time there is no white winter storm, no monster behind a veil of clouds and lightning. This time there is no blood on birch-leaves, no ribs pressed against roots, no taste of copper and iron on his tongue or tight feel of pain in his lungs.
This time he knows he stands within one of Isra’s stories.
Oh, it is lovely and strange, and he welcomes these things into his heart with a feeling soft and heavy as sorrow. Against his breast rests a silver dagger, twined with vines; he knows he will not wear it much longer. It seems to know, too - the way it kisses cold against his skin like it remembers the taste of his blood, the way it seems almost to hum as though eager to be used again.
But not yet. It is early evening, the sun still bright across the plains below. Here in the mountains, it is not quite dark; the last rays of light are caught and tangled in the boughs of the trees. The pass looks nothing like what he remembers. Instead it has become a labyrinth.
Lysander makes his way beneath the summer branches and the murmur of green leaves. He strolls past gardens of gilt and gold, clearings where flowers nod their heads in a riot of color, past fountains and carvings and hedges. From somewhere out of sight there is the sound of music, the delicate soprano of a flute. He does not need to close his eyes to feel like he is caught in a memory of home; the smile that rises to his mouth is unbidden and true.
It is tucked into a quiet corner that he finds her, a bower of trailing vines and dusk-colored flowers. The summer sunlight is all golden, and it dapples her as it might the surface of the sea, glancing brightest at all off her horn.
“Queen Isra,” he says, and his smile curls into a grin. She looks far different than the flighty, fragile story-teller who had not wanted to meet his eye at a festival a year ago - different, even, than the unicorn who had bound his words and whispered him another story more recently still. Lysander does not hesitate when he closes the space between them, or touches his muzzle to her shoulder in greeting. When his glance passes over the chain wrapped around her leg, he is almost surprised - but perhaps more queens should wear reminders of what they had survived. “You have woven such a story tonight.”
@Isra
