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.
He has a thousand sisters and each stretch on for an eternity, held behind glass, entombed by magic. Yet none are like his sister of flesh and blood and beating heart.
They turn from the mirrors, their movement in unison, for time is neither fast, nor slow, nor uneven when they are close. He sees her and this sister is not made of glass nor deceptive magic. She is not a creature made of dreams and hopes. Her body is not woven from the vestiges of memories that try to paint themselves in a more vivid hue in the hopes he might still remember her a little longer.
No. His sister is brighter than the snow. She moves and the island responds. It sings as her small feet tap upon the glass, the wind blows and her hair stirs with its touch. He hears her breath, full of more sound than his imagination could make for her.
Oh, Leonidas stares and thinks of how she is nothing like his memories. It was easier to see that strange girl within those stranger mirrors. In those he could explain away her height and the way childhood seems like a ghost upon her now. He remembers a baby, but the sister that comes to him now is an adolescent girl.
This new sister of his moves until her brow presses upon his. The orphan boy’s eyes close as light and dark and endless gold meet and remember and reforge themselves in a moment. Leonidas leans into her, through the wall of emotions that gather around him. Joy, as bright and commanding as hers, shatters his emotions. It rules over everything in this reunion. There is time for pain and hurt and anger later. There is always later for these twins who can stop time with the smallest twist of desire.
“Aster.” The boy breathes his sister’s name and smells the strange magic, the feral herbs that cling to her skin. Then, then, sudden as lightning, he pulls himself from her, putting space between them. He looks back, wary as a stag and as ready as one to protect himself. “You are a ghost.” He says, sharply, dismissively. Leonidas knows that she is flesh and blood and oh so real. But every part of her within his life has been turned to little more than haunting memories when she stepped from his life as easy as if she stepped into death.
@Aster
