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.
Maeve closes her eyes and he thinks that it is easier to concentrate when she is not watching him. That nervous twist in his belly, a serpent twining itself into a tight coil, eases when her lashes press together and the girl no longer arrests him in the wide and dark pool of her gaze.
Leonidas marvels at the easiness with which he turns her eyelashes from black to deep, sea blue. He changes her before his eyes, turning the girl from a phoenix into a sea dragon with steel blue scales and golden eyes. The boy is no art talent, he has never picked up a brush before and so skill gives way to the joy of the medium. He paints life, he thinks. Changing her as readily as the leave turn to gold around him. Leonidas feels like a season acting upon the Maeve, as if she were a tree.
If he frowns with the thought, he does not know it. But continues, his work slow, learning the shape of her face, the curve of her cheeks and the dips of her small nose.
Do you ever get lonely? She asks him. His brush falls still, just for a moment, before it follows its slow, slow pass, brushing cool paint down the direction of her hair. For the second time Leonidas is glad her eyes are shut. He runs the paint over her eyes again, as if to make sure she does not open them when he whispers, “Yes.”
Wounded, vulnerable, like a lamb. That was how his reply sounded when it stumbled from his lips, barely more than a whisper. The wild-wood boy almost does not wish to hear it, but he also does too, as if he hopes that she might be able to change his fortunes. But she is only a child, what pressure is it to put his happiness upon her slim shoulders. At once he feels so much older than her and yet, not much older at all.
When the boy is done, he steps back and frowns ever deeper as he looks upon her. She looks nothing like Maeve, nothing like the phoenix in her blood. This girl who stands before him is adorned in long streaks of supple blue, like waves. The gold of her eyes is sunlight peeling through water. Darker paints draw shadows down her fine nose, turning her from horse into a draconic child.
“You don’t breathe fire now...” He says and it is a lament, though he thinks she might like to hear it. “Now you can swim in the sea and extinguish all the fire.” His voice is boyish in that moment, it does not break, as if it knows how they need to remain children, if only for a moment longer. “You are a sea dragon.” Leonidas names her as he gazes with wide gold eyes. He does not think for a moment if his art is good or bad, he simply knows that she is no longer Meave, no longer a thing born of fire, but a creature made to sink to the bottom of the sea.
@Maeve
