leonidas
holy places are dark places.
it is life and strength,
not knowledge and words,
that we get in them.
it is life and strength,
not knowledge and words,
that we get in them.
The boy tips up his chin to peer at the light that splits and falls between the wild wood leaves. It lands upon his skin, bejewelling him in gold, brightening the golden fawn markings upon his back. Above him, far, far above him, the sunlight skips across weathered stone that arches high and graceful across the forest’s ceiling. It is a stone walkway, its steps decrepit and loose that spiral up and up to meet it. The walkway branches a cavern that plunges down, deep beyond the forest floor and down, down into a deep maw and throat that leads into the earth’s core.
He peers into that dark, deep chasm and imagines the monsters that writhe there. He imagines the soldiers that once stood atop the battlements (to which the bridge reaches across the chasm) and pointed their weapons down into the menacing dark. He stands like his uncle might once have and imagines filling that chasm up with water that rises spitting and roaring up to its brim. He imagines being the fabled queen who carries her bow and in his mind he loosens a whole quiver full arrows. They whistle their way down into the deep.
Leonidas rears with the might of a forest king and plunges for the edge. His small, muddied hooves land upon the stone lip of the chasm. Rocks and soil fall loose, tumbling like bells into the dark. He listens until their rattle is swallowed up, he crow calls into the chasm. A victor’s shout that have all the trees turning to behold their forest boy. A thousand boys shout back at him from the deep-dark. And suddenly shadows fly up from the black maw. They spiral up in claw and feathers, bursting out past the boy and into the light.
He shouts, he laughs like reeds and chases the bats that flee the dark. Up and up the spiraling, ruinous stairs Leo climbs. Up and up as nimble as a deer, as fast as a boy who makes his bed in the woodland and knows little else. The stone steps crumble, great gouges forming in the steps as he leaps from one to the next until the bridge opens up before him. At the top, high as a mountain, the colt rears, feet slashing at the air as the bats flee past him and away into the veil of leaves. He shouts after them, a mighty victor and a child’s growl joins him. Leaping, stumbling, scrambling, his cheetah cub has bounded out from the cover of brushes and clambers after her familiar. Her pin-claws grip into the stone as she pulls herself up and runs along to his side to peer over the crumbling bridge and down into the black below.
Leaves rustle, a twig snaps and the boy startles, he turns, his necklace of vines and twigs and golden thread swinging about his throat. He watches the forest floor, suddenly as sharp eyed as the memory of the ancient soldiers stood around him. He waits still and silent until a figure emerges from the brush. She steps into the golden light and is the pale dark of the moon. Secrets lie in the silver shadow whispers of deep dapples across her torso and limbs. A boy blinks slow as he wonders what piece of the moon this girl might be. At once dreams of war are gone as swiftly as the final vestiges of night are swallowed by the day. In every place that he is molten gold, she is silverlight and oh how his eyes darken like night to behold her. Upon her skin he can draw a thousand pictures of the woodland at night, painted by the colours that draw across her skin.
He studies every inch of her, silent, watchful, as she moves further out into the glen. As she steps into the shadow of the bridge, only then does Leonidas rouse from his awe. His ears fall to his skull, his nape lowering in challenge as he leans toward the edge and down to where the little girl stands. “Stop right there!” He shouts and the trees groan around them. He holds her in his gaze, imagining it was not just a look but an arrow pointed straight down towards her. Though he thinks, to truly shoot her might be to pull the moon out of the sky and he likes the moon and her light just how they are: silver and beautiful.
At his side the cheetah cub’s hackles rise as she lets out a low warning that peels from her like a moan. She lies down at his side, her paws curled over the edge as she peers down at the strange girl below. Her lips part, a baby hiss ripping past her small teeth.
@Avesta <3 | "speaks" | notes: Yay! In an actual thread! <3
