I am not like any ordinary world
His wing aches from where they collided, but the boy barely feels it as he sinks into the dark shadows out of sight. It had been an error to come here. He has seen the vibrancy of the court but now he longs to return to his woodland. There the only noises are the call of the owls, the rustle of the leaves as a deer passes by. But now, now his ears are full of noise - singers singing, instruments playing, children laughing, flaggons chinking together in a toast..
...and a girl calling out into the darkness.
Leonidas presses back into his spot, until the tines of his antlers touch the panelled wood of the building beside him. He thinks it is the girl who crashed into him. Her ribbed are crinkled at her shoulder - was that him? The tumble about her hair, her face, her long slender throat. Dark lines across her face and up her throat are illuminated by the soft buttery lamplight that reaches into the darkness.
Is someone there? She asks and the wild wood boy remains silent. He has learned how to be so terribly still, until a predator passes, until prey steps a little too close and just within range. This night, he is the prey and he stands so utterly still.
As if she knows how he hides, the girl steps a little closer. She is smaller than him, as fine boned as a sparrow. He has seen her run and it is more like flying, especially with her ribbons. Sparrow. Her dark eyes blink and the moonlight glitters off them.
With a small, soft voice she beckons him out, says she will not hurt him. Leonidas does not think she will. There is not much he fears except for feral magic, all predators have a weakness, and he has endured a year alone, as a boy. Solitude and wilderness is all he has known. He is content to stand in his spot as silent as a tree until she leaves.
But then, it is the look within her gaze. It is the delight that twisted his tummy when he was with Aspara and Nicnevin. He is fine with solitude of course, but the delights of companionship were like sweets he was not often allowed. How much damage can a firebird do a boy of the woods? This is what Leonidas wonders as he steps regally out from his hidden spot. With his nape arched and his body poised as if to fight or to flee, He looks into her golden eyes, dark and rich like his own, and murmurs, “My name is Leonidas.” The boy whispers, in the hopes she might say it. He still remembers how his name had sounded, spoken by Aspara for the first time in so long he had almost forgotten his own name. He wonders, if each time he hears it, he will live a little brighter a little longer and remember who he was, who he is
@Maeve
