it is easy to go down into hell
It is his deftness that Aeneas is most shamed by. That is how a pegasus ought to fly; darlingly! Instead, Aeneas had fallen—a betrayal to his very nature, to what he is meant to be.
You don’t mean to be here, do you?
The comment results in a sudden flare of bright-red energy, sourcing at Aeneas’s tattoo-like markings. But the negativity; the aggressive, self-deprecating sensation in his own heart… it causes another small explosion to the side of them, in the air, not so dissimilar from a child’s flash-bang. Yet, his magic recognizes something in the other—and longs for it, with a desperation that shocks Aeneas. It is the magical equivalent of a hand tugging at the hem of a cloak; incessant, forceful, an irritant that becomes a pull—
More rocks slide from underfoot. Aeneas yelps, and presses closer to the solid edge of the cliff. “No,” he answers shakily, at last. He wishes his voice sounded brave—as brave as the older boy’s. He wishes he had something clever to say.
Are your legs strong?
“Y-yes,” Aeneas says, uncertainty. He thinks so. He takes Princely lessons—sparring, combatives; he and Hilde run, often and far.
Then, with abrupt displeasure, Aeneas accuses: “How are you smiling?” It is easier, Aeneas thinks, to look at him and find that he sees everything he wishes he was—the other boy is wild, and older, and the wind whips at his hair in a way that is becoming instead of disheveled, or tattered, as Aeneas feels.
It might be his pride, or the way that his magic is crying to touch, to devour (because is that not the fate of all suns, eventually?) that causes Aeneas to glance away from the other and begin to eye a treacherous path back up the cliffside. He takes the first step, and then another, his teeth clenched.
How can he be grinning? he finds himself asking, again, outraged. This isn’t a game.
But then:
What else could it be?
Raw, negative energy flits across his skin in small electric sparks. A rock tumbles from underfoot and Aeneas freezes. He cannot help the way he glances at Leonidas, wide-eyed and a little wild, hoping—
He doesn’t know for what, but it opens like a spring bud in his chest, before he takes one more upward step.
but to climb back up again
to retrace one's steps to the upper air
there's the rub
