some memories never leave your bones.
like the salt in the sea; they become a part of you
- you carry them.
Mum.like the salt in the sea; they become a part of you
- you carry them.
At first it is a faint whisper in his ear, but it is enough to make him flinch and a dream to start. He is a boy again, so much younger than now, so much more naive. He cries out but beside him his sister is silent. Mum! his dream-child cries out, louder, more desperately hopeful. In his mahogany breast, beneath the bark-rough scars of loss, his sleeping heart beats faster. But this dream always ends the same. His mother never returned. The woods he and his twin search within always remains empty. Leonidas has not seen his mother since that fateful day.
His dream suddenly ends as the boy startles awake with the grating of stone upon stone. A statue wanders by him, the island suddenly so silent after his dream. But across the verdant grasses the wild-woods boy spots a girl stepping off the sea. She is a speck of blood with eyes, bright as the sun above them. He blinks and regards her with the steady gaze of a red stag.
A statue is stood before her. So similar. Older. A mother. Leonidas does not question how he knows. His waking dream was strange, his voice not his own. But the grief, the hope was the same. The boy looks to the girl and knows. The lines of the stranger’s lips, the way disappointment pulls them down. Her mouth is an upturned bow pouring its sorrow out.
Loenidas rises from his place, moved by the way his stomach twists and pulls. Longing draws him to the girl like a moth into a flame. The young stallion knows that sorrow anew will come from this meeting, but maybe a part of him hopes for something other too. Her skin reminds him of the woodland’s wine-red berries that stain his lips. Their memory is sweet upon his lips and tongue.
He arrives beside the young mare at the final echo of her bells. In the absence of their frantic tolling all is still and silent. It is as complete as night. He looks to the bells entwined in her curling hair as she looks to the statue. Both long to touch.
Still, nothing moves.
The vines and flowers in his gilded antlers sway with the sudden sight of the breeze. It rouses the island and suddenly all seems alive. The fae stallion moves and sets his golden eyes upon the girl’s. “She is pretty.” He murmurs, a frown, a blush upon his cheeks. The words come, rushed and cautious. Beneath the thick arch of his lashes Leonidas peers at the girl. He might have wanted to say beautiful, but he has since learned that calling girls beautiful lead only to awkwardness and embarrassment. "Is this statue of your mother?"
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