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.
Too many to count.
That is what Nicnevin said about the lives she had lived. Even for a boy who was sewn together by time magic, it seems like an awesome statement. He is, after all, only into his second year of life. A life that is endless, yes. Just one. Unlike his mother whose creation is a mystery and whose births and deaths are repeated throughout eternity.
Leonidas wonders quietly if Nicnevin has always been as she is now: coloured copper and bronze and made to dance in the storm hewn sky. Or was she different? Like his mother when she was reborn or changed in the passing between worlds. The boy muses over how he remembers so littel of his dam, yet he remembers those small things. How she is changeable and flighty. It is no wonder she left him, when all she was made for was changing worlds and new lives. Was he (and his disappeared twin) merely too constant for their mother of Time and Space?
They drift out onto the ice, slipping and sliding. For a boy adept to creeping undetected and stalking nimbly through the wood like a stag, there is nothing elegant to him now. The wild-wood boy is far from leaves and twigs and rocks underfoot. He clings to Nicnevin, his gold eyes wide, wide with anxiety and fear. But soon, soon the fear slips away like his feet from beneath his body. He falls, and rises and falls again until his fear is cast out and left spilled across the cold slick surface of the lake. In its place is laughter - that of a man and that of a boy. It is a growing sound, a rift in time, adolescence and adulthood combining, creating a ruckle in the span of his ageing.
Leonidas skates with her until his bruises are too much and too sore. He skates with her until exhaustion has him slipping and sliding his way off the ice. His laughter is that of a boy who has never known loneliness in a deep, dark wood. When he reaches the solid bank and his feet no longer slip, the orphan boy turns to his friend and smiles, “Hot chocolate?” He asks, too tempted by the smell. If she said yes, he would lead her to a stand and come alive with the taste of sugar and chocolate upon his tongue. If not, he would leave, no less content, for laughter from skating is already singing in his bones.
Leonidas thinks that dating girls is not as bad as he first thought it might be.
@
~~ Leo is out, I am finishing Leo’s replies here but I thought I would let you decide how their ending is! Thank you so much for yet another wonderful thread <3
