I am not like any ordinary world
The ring of their horns touching is the sound of their lives binding. He feels the song of it through his body replacing the places where her look of sorrow etched itself across his bones and twined with the fibers of his muscles. The boy has never seen a look like the one that darkened Aspara’s lovely eyes (in the same way the sea does beneath a mournful fog). Except… except for once. The way Aspara looked back at him was an echo of his mother’s agony as her magic broke and locked parents in one world and offspring in another.
Maybe that is why he called after the child when she runs from him (with that darkening hurt in her eyes). Maybe a part of him remembers that dreadful day that made him an orphan and then, eventually, just a boy without his twin. And maybe he fears it. Leonidas, wild boy of the woodland, empty of love, fears hurt for he has been cut deep. Sometimes he looks to the trees and thinks he knows how deep his pain runs. It is as deep as their great roots. He digs down within himself and has remained alive by the nutrients of his own soul.
So maybe that is why he cries after her, ehr name upon his tongue as if her leaving into the brush is as indefinite as forever. And maybe that is why he does not flinch when their meeting of antler tine and twisted horn resonates its song deep into their bound bones. Maybe it feels something like belonging for a boy who has not belonged in so very long.
Apsara crashes through the forest and Leonidas has never heard such a racket. Yet he does not care as he runs swift as a stag beside the unicorn girl. His golden eyes are lit by the butter-bright glow of the guiding fireflies. He swings his head as the small swarm slows. The boy’s gilded antlers cut a twisting arc through the air. Exhilaration courses through him, he is high upon it. Their mixed breaths puff into the air, alive, together, alive, together the clearing seems to echo with the rasp of their lungs.
But all turns so strange and so eerie. The smile slips from Aspara’s lips, stolen by a firefly girl with a band about her throat. Leonidas has a name for her Avesta. But it is not Avesta that he sees, not like Aspara. The fireflies make him see someone entirely different. A mirrored image of himself but finer, slim as his sister once was. He knows it is her, he knows who the fireflies sculpt for him.
Leonidas.
His name trembles in the air and for a moment it sounded like the firefly girl spoke. Until Aspara’s shoulder touches his. Warm, pleading, desperate is her touch; like a cat curling into his body. He flinches, on instinct and yet, he knows Aspara sees something different yet equally strange and unnerving. His name is still sung by the woodland. It reminds him of when he has been a boy called Leonidas, when he has heard his name spoken many times in just a day. It has been months, his name a strange thing upon another’s tongue. It barely feels like he owns it anymore. His name could be just an overgrown garden, once loved, now changed beyond recognition. But he knows its location, he is reminded of what he once was. A boy loved by parents and a sister.
Slim and silver Aspara trembles against his side. He wants to step away, he wants to get back to the comfort of knowing only the touch of the wood and the wild breeze and hot sun. But he doesn’t, he turns in a way he used to, before, when he was a boy loved, and presses his lips to her cheek. It is a lingering press, as he had seen his shadow parents do so many times before.
When he pulls away the boy turns to look upon the fireflies. His lips twist like a lion and he growls soft as a cat, “It is a trick.” His sister is not here and has not been for a very long time. The wild wood boy stares at the strange magic and knows that he should never trust a firefly again. Leonidas steps forward brave as any forest king should be. He lunges, his antlers twisting to cut into the fireflies.
“They mock us with shadows.” He snarls, darting back, his attempted blow delivered. Electric, he stands beside Aspara. Close, close until their touching is but a hair’s breadth away.
Apsara and Leonidas...their meeting has everything a life needs: magic, wilderness, beauty, mystery, hurt and laughter and fear and… love. It is where the fireflies lead them. To a clearing where if forges itself into two lost twins. But love hurts, Leonidas knows, he feels the ache in his bones and touches a tine to Aspara’s horn. The sound is something like a balm.
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