BUT I BITE AT IT AS AT A MYSTERY
nostalgia for the impending present / and I'll never catch hold of it.
He dances away from me quickly, like most wild things do – it is in their nature to never linger too long. His gaze when he mirrors me and looks to the ice is more disgusted than it is infatuated, but I barely notice it; I am too taken with the wonderful newness of this place, the lights and the sounds and the scents and the bodies drifting about the frozen lake like shadows, their features shielded by the moonlight. Unlike the boy, I am not particularly worried at all. (If I were troubled by the unfamiliar, I would have been very troubled for quite some time, now.) I can’t say that I’m comfortable, exactly, but the tremble of nerves and anticipation about my frame comes from excitement, not any kind of discomfort.
When I ask him if he is here on a date, he affirms my suspicions rather morosely. I haven’t the faintest idea of why; if he didn’t want to attend, I can’t imagine why he would. Perhaps, I think, he is simply nervous. I suppose that most people would be, if they were sent on a blind date, especially in their youth.
(I suppose that this is meant to be some kind of playdate, though, not a date in the sense that I am more familiar with. They are two rather different things.)
I lean in to look at the dainty, swirled writing on the note, a mirror in most every way of the one that I was sent. (I wonder again how and why we received them; surely no one signed the forest creature before me up for something like this, and I certainly never signed up for this myself. Someone must have arranged it, but I haven’t the faintest idea of who.) As I read the name written on the card, I realize abruptly that it is my own – so he is my partner. Although it could have been quite exciting to meet someone new, I am rather excited with this result. (Perhaps we can go and join the people who are out on the ice! I’d certainly like to, now that I’ve found the person that I’m looking for – or, well, he’s found me.) I grin at him, possessed by a sudden sense of mischief. My head tilts; a chestnut curl of my forelock falls over my eyes, almost coyly. “So,” I say, “you’re Leonidas?”
Hopefully he can guess what I’m implying – I’d like to think that he’s quick enough for that.
@
"Speech!"
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
