So I am sometimes like a tree rustling over a gravesite and making real the dream of the one its living roots embrace:
A dream once lost among sorrows and songs
A dream once lost among sorrows and songs
Leonidas knows there is something about her. It is there in the way she holds her book, the way her eyes seem so far away, her body present but her spirit bigger than this world can contain. He is tempted to reach out, to touch her, to see if she is still here when her eyes lower to her book, her words and she falls into them. Gone. the pages of her notebook flutter, each leaf a wing, the words the butterfly pattern that paints them. The orphan boy stares at the art of the words, their curling shape. It is fitting, he thinks, that her words are as pretty as she.
She looks up to him, smiling. No longer is he watching the pages, but her and that small, sweet sweep of her lips. They tip up into a whimsical half-moon smile. Maret thinks her heart is a frostbitten thing. Leonidas thinks her heart is one of the warmest he knows. It is there in her gold, warm as a hazy, golden sunset.
But she tells him nothing of her sorrow and insecurities and he tells her nothing of himself, except for his adventures. Are they even secrets at all? Does Leonidas know what a secret truly is?
He watches her, he feels the cold of her dove white skin, the exotic dark of her black, the transcendent gold of her jewels, her feet. The wild wood boy is still looking at the yin and yang of her body and thinking of the stars at night and the spaces between them that reach in endless black, when she steps closer. He does not shy from her - though he wants to. It is still strange to be close to another, to leave himself exposed to touch. Until Aspara, the last touch he remembers was his mother and hers was merely a ghost, barely there, hardly remembered.
The boy breathes, out slowly, in time with her question. Will you tell me where you have been? “Everywhere.” He answers instantly. But that response is not enough for the look in her eyes, that bright glow, an emotion he cannot name. Maret is watching him, she gazes only at the flecks of gold, but he feels her searching deeper. Does she long for something more? The boy blinks his long black lashes and when he opens his eyes there is something fervent within him. Of course I have, I could not forget them if I tried. His answer is not enough. He could tell her of the monster that tried to kill him and the man who saved him. He could tell her of sleeping beneath the stars. Oh he could describe for her the remotest parts of Novus. But it is not enough, it is not a secret. They are not worthy of the beauty of her words.
“I went back to our lake, but you weren’t there.” He says at last. The wild wood boy still stands proud and brave as a stag, but his words are small, timid as a rabbit before her. His confession exposes his loneliness. It lies open for her to see. No longer does he dare to look at her eyes, but instead he looks to the page and wonders what shape his loneliness will make across her notebook. Will it be a beautiful thing as all her words are? Or will it be as ugly as it feels within his breast?
@Maret <3
