If Leonidas wasn’t there, if we didn’t talk about it later, comparing details, filling in the holes in each other’s memories, I would have chalked it all up to a strange dream or stranger magic. But it was real. It happened. The fireflies and the mist changed their shape and the voices grew louder but still not quite distinguishable-- trying to listen was like catching fog. The boy lunged at them but it didn’t have much effect at all- they scattered in an instant, and returned when the instant was past. He returned to me and once again my horn tapped the tine of his antlers, and just as I was about to speak--
The color began to drain from everything.
I looked at Leonidas, the brightest thing in this forest, brighter even than fireflies, and watched the color fade from his skin. Mist took its place, coming in close and clammy, indifferent to the stomp of my feet and the swing of my head to disrupt it. “Thank you,” the voices said, and only as the temperature dropped did it begin to sink in-- the extent of their treachery.
It was simple: The ghostly bodies became tangible flesh, and the opposite was happening to me.
I probably should not have believed the colt when he told us the waters of the Rapax could reverse the curse. The spirits had already tricked us once, why not again? Maybe if I knew how to hold onto my anger better, if I knew how to wield rage as a weapon, I would run down the ghosts-made-flesh and paint for them the full spectrum of corporeal suffering. The mist was rising from the bottom of my hooves so my horn, twisted and deadly, would be the last solid piece of my body. I knew without a doubt that I could catch him.
But where I should have felt anger, I only felt fear. And where violence wanted to spring from me, only compassion flowered. Those words kept ringing through my head: “It has been so long since we last felt the breeze upon our skin...”
If the spirit still held the form of Avesta, I would not have hesitated. There was no force in the world that would have kept me from leaping after her deeper and deeper into the night. But as the mist solidified into a grulla colt, I knew the truth for what it was. Avesta was not here. Avesta was across the sea, and she was going to come back to me. I felt so bad for the spirits. But I was not ready to give up my body. I still had so much to do with my life.
I did not know what Leonidas was thinking or feeling. But I knew what I had to do. We had to get to the Rapax before our bodies were completely gone to mist. “Come on!” I barrelled to the river as fast as my young legs could take me. It’s difficult to describe how exactly I knew where the river was... I guess from an early age I’ve been able to read the landscape like a book. I’ve always known where to find water, food, and shelter, even if the clues weren’t easy to see, or even visible at all. Maybe it was some element of my magic, talking to sticks and stones and underground rivers. Or maybe I just had a sense for it.
We took off in a more or less straight shot; I quickly picked up a deer trail that wove through the trees. It was soon pointless jumping small bushes and fallen logs, as our legs were almost entirely ethereal-- one small benefit, I suppose, to being cursed. I couldn’t tell you how long we ran. A few minutes? A few hours? I was beyond thinking at that point-- you had to be, to run like we did. Tails streaming like banners, shoulders nicked by sticks and brambles. No sound between us but the shared hymn of our panting, for our ghostly legs ate up the distance without actually touching the earth.
When we got to the river I plunged into the water recklessly-- better to have an injured body than none at all-- and I turned to look at Leonidas with wide-eyed fear, waiting for the beautiful, rich browns and golds to return to his skin. I was breathing too hard to speak, so for the first time I prayed, to whoever might be listening: “please work please work please work.”
THE REASON THEY CAN FLY
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