I am not like any ordinary world
Leonidas sees how her anger abates, swept off in the tide of his magic. Her hair curls its way down, down, down her shoulder down to her knees, each bend in the fine strands is like the silver folds of Time his magic commands. The boy feels the passing of time, skipping over itself in its haste.
This girl is unmoved by him or his sorrow. But wildling boys expect nothing less of unicorn girls like her and Isolt. Yes, already he has realised that they are twins. The taste of their magic is soft as death, the smell of it like rotting feted things, black as bruises. Danae fills herself up on thoughts of death and death and death. Maybe she thinks little of him for his magic. But his is not constrained only to destruction like these twin girls of death. His magic brings life as well as ends it. He does not realise it now, but when he does, Leonidas will see how his magic reaches deep into the fabric of existence. It extends beyond universes, beyond creation and life. All come yielding to him and his own twin. Together, when he finds her, when he remembers his own sister of ivory like Danae’s but gold where she is red, then he can bring their magic death to a halt. They could cease all around them if they ever so wished.
Oh, and if he knew too, hidden behind her lovely rose red, blood red eyes that she thinks him a prize for his sister, he would laugh - even in his sorrow. He would laugh for already he has given himself away to Isolt. Already the girl can carry his tines like a necklace about her throat. His death is hers, a death that surpasses immortality. Isolt comes for him, licking at his heels.
So the fea-boy turns to the sister of his Little Death (for that is what he calls Isolt now, as she shadows him with her darkly wanting eyes) and feels no ounce of fear when Danae laid her blade upon him. His death is not Danae’s to have, not even to give to Isolt. It is for Isolt alone.
She has created a wild flower meadow around them. They run their petals along his side like wings of decaying butterflies. Leonidas, for a moment, looks to the dark of the woods around him and expects her sister to peel out between the privet and the blackthorns. But Isolt does not come and Danae steps towards hit wildcat.
Not impervious to the effects of his own magic, his own despair, his own sorrow has turned into a fermenting, less acute thing. He feels it, like liquor in his veins, but it does not command him like it did before. He wishes to stop her still and yet, and yet, a part of him is grateful that she forces this, that not all of her lies in destruction. Within her, pressed in between her ribs, behind her unicorn eyes is a softer, thing, like the wild meadow flowers she grows about them.
He says nothing as she makes her herbal paste. He says nothing as she steps forward, though his magic is there before her, speeding up his cheetah’s wounds. The skin knits together, his body healing days in a matter of moments. But his magic alone is not enough. Not yet. Her herbs are needed and his cheetah reaches its muzzle toward the unicorn. Leonidas’ soul’s tether stands, meekly, carefully. It is a newborn lamb between them, weak enough to be slain. A chirp leaves its maw like a bleat.
“Would Isolt have saved her?” A wildling asks a unicorn.
@Danaë
