lysander
Lysander does not miss the winter.
He walks now beneath the summer boughs, bending low their arms to caress him with dark leaves veined in silver. The stream tumbles alongside him, laughing over the sound of birdsong, the sound of wind in the branches. His coat is sleek and copper-gold and if it were not for one of his antlers, snapped just after the first tine, or the thin scar just behind his ribs, he would look as at home as a god in the shadows of the trees.
Oh, but Lysander knows by now how far from immortal he is. It is not a lesson he will forget. It is not a lesson he will forgive.
But there is nothing in him now that suggests such mortal thoughts as vengeance. His eyes are bright and green as leaves just unfurled and the breeze combs its fingers through his unruly mane, tugging him forward, further into Amare.
It is not love he seeks at the creek, where the willows make small sanctuaries and the stream conceals small sounds. Love has not been kind to him here, where the courts and festivals are more savage than the wilds. He is not sure, in fact, that he seeks anything at all – but he listens nonetheless, his ears turning, his eyes watchful as a raven’s.
When the birds fall quiet, when there is the whisper of feet moving through underbrush thick with vines, when the small waterfall seems to warn him hush, Lysander lifts his head and waits. Something flickers in his eyes, too quick to read – but it isn’t love. It is nothing kind at all.
He walks now beneath the summer boughs, bending low their arms to caress him with dark leaves veined in silver. The stream tumbles alongside him, laughing over the sound of birdsong, the sound of wind in the branches. His coat is sleek and copper-gold and if it were not for one of his antlers, snapped just after the first tine, or the thin scar just behind his ribs, he would look as at home as a god in the shadows of the trees.
Oh, but Lysander knows by now how far from immortal he is. It is not a lesson he will forget. It is not a lesson he will forgive.
But there is nothing in him now that suggests such mortal thoughts as vengeance. His eyes are bright and green as leaves just unfurled and the breeze combs its fingers through his unruly mane, tugging him forward, further into Amare.
It is not love he seeks at the creek, where the willows make small sanctuaries and the stream conceals small sounds. Love has not been kind to him here, where the courts and festivals are more savage than the wilds. He is not sure, in fact, that he seeks anything at all – but he listens nonetheless, his ears turning, his eyes watchful as a raven’s.
When the birds fall quiet, when there is the whisper of feet moving through underbrush thick with vines, when the small waterfall seems to warn him hush, Lysander lifts his head and waits. Something flickers in his eyes, too quick to read – but it isn’t love. It is nothing kind at all.
