I wasn’t that loud.
I had spent just as much time in the mountains and by the sea as I had the court- enough time to learn the best (well okay... maybe not the very best) places to step and the way to shift my weight quietly. I knew the language of the woods, spoken in broken twigs, muddy trails, gently parted branches. Maybe I would always be a creature of halves- half city girl, half forest; half of a twin; half in love and loathing with every wild-eyed stranger I met- but I would always embrace the pieces of me and try to grow them into a whole.
So. I wasn’t that loud, and anyone who thought otherwise would be smart to never mention it to my face. Anyway... although I was no wildling child, fleet and silent of foot, at least I didn’t go around stealing from people just because I didn’t know better. Hmph.
“Leonidas.” It was not an exclamation or a question. I knew he was here, somewhere. A few paces back I had found a beautiful golden feather on the ground, unlike that of any bird that lived here. “Come out already, you’re being dumb.” A crowd of fireflies flew toward me, disturbed, and I leapt toward where they had come from. But there was no golden boy there, no feral child. I sighed, ears tilted back in clear expression of annoyance, and began to look around the area.
I should have brought Furfur with me, but in my great haste (and, admittedly, my confidence that I could track anything in these woods) I had not summoned him. I found the bond between us, stretched very thin with distance, and I tugged gently at it. I knew he may or may not heed my summons; we were aloof even with each other, in a way that I found without fault or blame. I would ignore myself, sometimes, if I could.
I returned to the clearing where the fireflies once nestled. Memories of another forest, different fireflies, filled me with an array of conflicting emotions I did not want to think about at that moment. I pressed away the memories and turned my attention to my magic. First I let it gather and build in me. It was a process that once felt like trying to catch smoke- impossible- but in just two years I had grown quite adept at it. The next step was what I still struggled with, especially in the forest. I needed specific information, and I needed to identify the thing(s) around me with that information, then extract it. Anything still alive was hard to talk to, but forests especially so. There were so many stories layered in the trees and moss and leaves, and a forest doesn’t notice things the way a stone, or a carpet, or a necklace does.
I pressed my horn gently into the soft bark of a stump. “Hello,” I said to it with my magic, because even in a rush it was good to greet an elder. “Did a… colt-stag-bird come through here? Do you know which way he went?” The answer came more quickly and clearly than ever before- it was surprising to me, and exciting. If it were any other day I would have laid down next to that old stump and let its stories fill me until I had no magic left.
I placed a kiss on the stump in thanks and farewell, then raised my head and turned it the exact direction in which I knew Leonidas had gone, not that long ago. I walked toward him with renewed confidence, quickly and… not silently, but remarkably quiet. For a half-city-girl.
LEFT US IN A SONG, WIDE-EYED HAZE
IT SHONE LINE GOLD
IT SHONE LIKE GOLD
@
