Time has never had much meaning for the two of them, but here it ceases completely; there is a hush in the forest, no sound but the sigh of raindrops on leaves as the storm dies away and the way Florentine breathes, in pain, through her teeth.
Lysander forgets that he once meant to hunt a king as though he were nothing more than a silver hind. He forgets that they are on a magic-made island, populated by creatures that should not be, off the coast of a world both of them arrived in by accident. There is only the shudder of her skin, the ripple of her muscles, the touch of their mouths as they tell each other I’m here, I’m here. There are no ferns and fertile soil in the dark, hollow places of an old god’s heart - there is just wonder, and waiting, and a worry more foreign to him than anything.
When she cries out like a struck animal he is there, nose against her golden cheek, her damp curve of neck, his dappled shoulder against her own. The stallion is murmuring something but not even he knows the words, but he knows - oh he knows! - that this is older than language, as old as time itself. New life, the first miracle of creation.
Yet it is over as soon as he can stand back, as soon as Florentine lies in a bed of cool dark grass. His eyes are wide with wonder and his jaw tight with concern. It surprises him, how steady his heart still is, a slower beat than the throb of crimson berries. Before he can think to himself how strange it is, all the things he has made, and how none are as vital as this -
there is their son.
It smells like blood and life and rain on soil. The storm has died away, and all the gold of gilded clouds has gathered here, in the eyes of the boy in the grass. Lysander makes a soft sound (still there are no words) and before it dies the boy is rising, rocking on unsteady legs, even as his Anthousai rises too. Her shoulder against his is slick comfort; the way he leans his chin over the arch of her neck is habit. His tongue has still gone silent; when she speaks he can only shake his head, mute against her sweet-smelling garden of golden hair.
Name him, she says, and he knows better than to question her though he wants to. Instead he watches through secret-green eyes as she touches the colt, as she marks him as her own, as she ghosts her lips across each perfect, tiny part. There is gold there, and rich dappled brown, and the fold of wings that hide more brilliant treasure. When those brand-new golden eyes meet him, liquid-bright and steady, Lysander’s breath stops in his throat. Here is eternity, and the beginning. Here is where time has condensed to the point of losing meaning.
“Leonidas,” he says, and thinks of a lion with those same golden eyes.
He reaches out to touch his son, a kiss upon his slick wet brow, and misses the ripple that shudders across Florentine.
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