BECAUSE I PROMISE I'LL LIGHT THE BEACONS
OF YOUR DIMMED AND HOLLOW SOUL
EVEN IF I HAVE TO STEAL THE FIRE
FROM A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
It is the first time Orestes realises his magic is the magic of consumption; the magic of acute violence, to which he is enthralled. There is a moment when her glow answers, when he stares into eyes that make him think, inexplicably, of exploding stars and colliding galaxies—yes, perhaps one day he will thank her—and in that moment Orestes thinks, this is what I was meant to be all along. Is this not his final, complete form? The one to which he is Bound, irrevocably? Is this moment not where the very Fates have led him?
Who is to say he is not godlike, who is to say that with light pouring from his eyes and his skin like ichor he is not, perhaps, divine? And in this divine comedy—or ought it be a tragedy?—Orestes finds everything he is irresistibly drawn to everything she is. Especially his magic. Especially the slight pull of gravity, the dancing of sand at his hooves, more, more, more—
because what is a star if not destined to become a black hole? The chaos in her calls to the sun in him. If Amaunet had not caught the king in such a mood that his star-bright blood turned end-over-end in discontent, their meeting may have been different. The encounter may have remained innocent, a Sovereign and a citizen. It is when he restrains his magic that she lowers her wings; it is when he restrains his magic that she closes the distance between them to brush noses, and Ariel snarls at his side. There is no undoing this, not when the touch makes his magic sing, and sing, and sing beneath the cool silver of his skin. Inside, he is burning.
You did not know you should have been looking for me.
“No, I did not,” and Orestes’s voice emerges darkly, huskily. It is the desert beneath a velveteen black sky.
Stop, Ariel thinks through their bond.
And for once, Orestes says no.
Her lips are at his brow. He says, “You already know my name. What is yours, girl-who-does-not-fear-burning?” It is in her eyes, that fearlessness, that thrill he recognises as… well, his memories are too fogged for Orestes to determine why or how he recognises it, but he does.
And that is enough, for tonight.
He steps forward and just as she had touched his brow, he touches the edge of her wing; his lips, a feather-soft brush. He almost says, introduce yourself, but his magic is still singing, and in the melodrama that belongs to poets and warrior-kings, Orestes thinks:
I already know her as my end.
Although, Orestes cannot not say why; only that in a minute of knowing her, she had taught him more of his magic than anyone or anything else. She has accepted its anger, and not flinched.
@Amaunet
