There are a hundred beginnings to any story, even this one.
Lysander’s was this: Once upon a time, there was a festival not so different than this one, only it was midwinter and not the heart of summer. Only there was snow falling like Death’s blanket and not a dozen wonders borne of a storyteller’s heart. In that story he was walking alone beneath the pines, and from the shadows of the trees broke another set of shadows. They belonged to a murder of crows, to a crooked king of Night, and although Lysander does not think often of that day (not anymore, when it used to consume him) he remembers it oh, so well.
He remembers Reichenbach, the tumble and curl of his hair, the bright mark of his star. He remembers the girl, and her wicked knife’s smile. And he remembers the other two, the buckskin too bright to forget and the other one, silver and silent, whose dagger shattered between his ribs. Oh how intimately he recalls it, how it had nestled in its new home against his muscle and bone, grinning its killing grin.
They had meant to leave. He had been about to take Florentine home, home to the blue ocean and the olive trees and all the grapes sweet and heavy on the vine - home to the forests of laurel and salt and home to the nymphs who lived there. But she had to answer the bells.
Lysander could not blame her. They begged to be answered.
And so they joined the others, him with his nose to Florentine’s hip, green eyes watchful but nothing more until -
Isra has been taken. It is then the bell first tolls in his heart. -taken by Raum. Oh! How the bells echo and roll then, a teeming wailing rallying cry, and each one he answers with rage and fury. He had not known he could contain so much; his skin shivers with it, his dark lips lift from his bright teeth; he seethes.
The once-god does not listen as the others pledge their fealty, to fight and to search. He feels like a storm far above the surface of a thrashing sea; not since losing his magic has he longed for it so. When he looks at Florentine there is little recognizable in his eyes, and each sharp tine of his antlers begs for blood.
Oh, Calliope had been right - he should have cut out his revenge two years ago. It is not a mistake he will make again.
you fester in the daytime hours
boy, you never sleep at night
namely for @
