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.
The boy has always come here. This is the place of his birth, of his greatest loss. He hears the whispers of the Island in his most fitful sleeping. He feels as if the magic of the island is twisted into the tapestry of his being. It is so deeply intertwined with the threads that bind him together.
It is with fear and love that he walks the island in her new strange identity. He taps his golden tines upon the diamonds and hears the voice of the island singing. Leonidas listens, he does not look. So, he does not see when the mirrors reflect a strange world back at him, or when they show him his death, maybe soon, maybe far away. It is difficult to know. Immortality winds her way through his bones and sinew and makes him eternal. It lets him age, for now. But he feels her creeping magic whispering to his body, slower, slower. Soon he will stop ageing, but he hopes he might become a man before then.
The chimes of the mirrors reverberates into his ears. He wanders alone, as he always has - until so very recently. There are no leaves here, no verdant grasses to make his bed upon. The Island does not wish to be claimed by him, he can feel it in the way she always changes, insistent, never held down to one form for long. Ah, this changeling land. He feels her fire, her spirit in the way its fae-song sings out from his tines. An eerie song, full of peril. Leonidas listens like a bird. He has no answering call, excent the thrumming of his heart, beating out that ancient magic.
Sharpened glass bites at his knees, a warning, a move to grab his attention. The wild boy stops and, as if he is metal drawn to a magnet, he turns his head towards a girl. She stands within a mirror, as if she is in another world. He gazes at her and feels the strange twist of fate turning over in his belly. He reaches forward and breathes upon the glass. She smudges away, lost beneath the silver of his breath.
But when it clears, she is still there. He taps a tine upon the glass and it sings a different tune, one of old promises and old belongings, of dust gathered memories. The girl in the mirror is not looking at him, so he takes his time to look at her, Gold where he is gold, light where he is dark, her antlers a gilded crown to match his atop her head.
Never does a boy think that the mirror might be weaving no magic, but simply showing him a girl as a lake shows him his reflection. He sighs and thinks that the girl should be called Aster. He does not stop to think why, but turns, and feels how a dark and long, empty part of him, suddenly feels alive. It blooms as gently to life as a heartbeat within a womb.
@Aster
