some memories never leave your bones.
like the salt in the sea; they become a part of you
- you carry them.
like the salt in the sea; they become a part of you
- you carry them.
As he wandered to the girl, Leo did not know how his safety was debated. When he cast his eyes upon that strange stag, who faded into the dark loam (except for his antlers that were as uncovered bone reborn into light), Leonidas did not immediately think of malevolence with which the beast watched him. Yet the feral boy has come to learn how to live amidst the perils of the wilds. So he watched the stag, gold upon white, until the woodland broke their stare and Leonidas ambled slowly on. He did not see the ominous berry juice that dripped, dripped like blood from the bonded’s lips.
When he reaches the girl and looks upon her slim figure, her delicate jaw and the bone mask that makes her large eyes secret, he still does not think that the stag might be hers. Even when he lifts his lips to breathe upon her hair and curiously watch how the dismembered butterfly wings beat, he still does not think how his safety is at all at risk.
I didn’t kill the kingfisher. It was already dead.
He lowers his lips from near her hair and tips his chin down, gazing at her beneath the heavy throw of his forelock. His skull tilts and he regards her as a stag might - no, as a normal stag might, not like hers who asks whether to kill him. The boy’s nose wrinkles, an echo of his mother who is little more than a ghost to him now, “Did you kill the butterflies then?” He asks low and curious, his eyes drifting to their wings, brighter than shards of stained glass in her hair. She is defensive and even though she is delicate as a flower, slim as a bird, she wears a mask atop her face. It is the most sinister part of her. The rest is beautiful. He thinks of her a meadow, her skull a revealing of its myriad past. What secrets does she have? He wants to ask her for them all, to clutch them as close as Maret holds his. Leonidas thinks this fae girl will have so many intriguing secrets. He wants to start with her eyes.
She chastises him for standing close. He turns from her instantly, his head snaking, twisting as he shakes off her retort. The ivy and leaves tangled through his brace of tines rustle and float like woodland bunting with his moving. He looks back to her at her final comment and thinks that he has never met a girl like her, with hair so perfect, her body so still. Though she pushes him, commands him with words alone.
“And what of you?” Leonidas asks at last, his voice a flute, like the wind singing between the arms of trees. “Do you not like it when boys stand so close? You did not spook?” The wild-wood boy watches her, curious, confused. Apsara touched, he resisted. She made him bolder. He still remembers the fear clattering in his heart when her body turned to smoke and his touch passed through her. His body too, turned spirit pale and faded into nothing. He feared never touching again. It made him bolder. Yet this girl fine-boned as a bird chastens him, obediently he stands back and feels relief course through his blood like bliss.
@Maybird
