[P] don't let those butterflies out

[Aeneas]

   

    
   

I will, she promises. The promise, to a boy already so intimately tied to the current that flows between all things, between the positive and negative energies, to a boy already heartbroken—the promise means the world. And just as she will one day question the gesture of his wing over her shoulder, Aeneas will one day question what she means when she says, I think I was always meant to be the path. 

Even now, he glances at her, sidelong. Just long enough to see the way the luminescence of the butterflies has cast a brilliant glow on her face. Their colors here are muted, subdued, and yet still bright. Her eyes, especially, capture that light and reflect it. “I would want no one else besides me,” Aeneas whispers, and it is true. There is already so much between them; so much hope; so much potential; so much silence. It occurs to him that this place is their secret, and because of that, it belongs to them. He thinks, briefly, of how many secrets there are left for them to share, and to find. 

We need to go back, she says. 

 “I know,” Aeneas agrees. And then: “But maybe just a moment longer.” And this time, Aeneas closes his eyes. He closes his eyes and feels instead of sees. He feels the way the stars are bright above them, and powerful, and the gods of many distant things. But mostly, he feels the butterflies and Elliana and how the two things, in this moment, do not feel so different. They are light to hold in his heart, to have pass through him, and it is when she presses her shoulder into him that he opens his eyes and turns away.

But Aeneas will not forget that feeling. 

That feeling of lightness. That feeling like flight.

When they return to Terrastella and she goes to her home by the cliffside and he to the citadel, Aeneas lays his head down to sleep and for once, does not dream. 

@Elliana

   

   

      Aeneas
      you long to be just honeyed skin and soft curls, but beneath it all, your blood boils fiercely; you were born with heaven and hell already in you, holy fire, hell fire