leonidas
holy places are dark places.
it is life and strength,
not knowledge and words,
that we get in them.
it is life and strength,
not knowledge and words,
that we get in them.
The wild wood listens to a boy who runs like a hunter through its midst. The wild wood howls the echo of a boy who crows as he races. He is the boy of a once forest god and the trees adorn him so. Ivy links about his throat like a sash, a verdant necklace of leaves like tiny daggers. Twigs cling in his hair and mud splatters up his limbs. He is cut from where branches reach curious of this little feral boy who runs like he owns them, who laughs like he breathes them.
With a shout the boy-child shatters the peace of the meadow as he peels from the trees. His breath is hot in his lungs and he is so wrong here, in a world that does not move, so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, until he leaps atop a rock and stops.
His chin lifts and his nostrils flare and grasps at the air again and again and again. He drinks the air madly, like a drunkard their final sip. But oh, the boy knows nothing of alcohol, he knows nothing of the troubles of adults. His gold eyes reflect the too-still sun above his head and he laughs for a sister he has lost so far back. He laughs for the shadow he raced that never leaves him. It clings to him, anchors itself and never moves.
He is a boy born into a still world and he thinks nothing of the birds above him that do not fly. He thinks nothing of a sea that rises in a wave that never falls. He thinks nothing of a world that sounds so silent. Were worlds not made just for horses?
He looks where he perches atop his rock, crouched like a boy-hunter. Twigs hang in the gold of his hair, leaves tangle in the roots of his mane where it is dark as soil, before it fades to glowing gold. Thoughtfully his tail flips against his rump, its gilded end gleaming. Suddenly the boy falls still and he leans forward, his muzzle extending as he scents the air.
A figure stands upon the edge of the world. She gazes down at the unmoving sea and the boy’s head tilts. He crouches atop his rock, considering, before suddenly he is leaping down. Suddenly he is running again and the world just watches him pass. The grasses whip against his knobbly knees, they reach for his sash of ivy and roots and twigs. If he loses a rock from that woven necklace he does not stop to collect it. Not when there is a world full of trinkets a boy could collect!
He reaches the girl who looks down into a sea and begs not to fall into the past. He slows as he reaches her. He gilds her in gold as those wild-sun eyes trail over the moonlight of her. She is the silver to his gold and the boy wonders what it is like to touch a girl like her. Where she gazes out at the end of the world, her head hung low, Leonidas presses his small muzzle to her cheek, as he has seen his father do to his mother.
“Hullo.” He murmurs hot against her cheek, breathless with running. Then he draws back and gazes up beneath his black lashes, up past the wild-wood tangle of hair atop his brow. “Why do you look so sad?”
With a shout the boy-child shatters the peace of the meadow as he peels from the trees. His breath is hot in his lungs and he is so wrong here, in a world that does not move, so wrong, so wrong, so wrong, until he leaps atop a rock and stops.
His chin lifts and his nostrils flare and grasps at the air again and again and again. He drinks the air madly, like a drunkard their final sip. But oh, the boy knows nothing of alcohol, he knows nothing of the troubles of adults. His gold eyes reflect the too-still sun above his head and he laughs for a sister he has lost so far back. He laughs for the shadow he raced that never leaves him. It clings to him, anchors itself and never moves.
He is a boy born into a still world and he thinks nothing of the birds above him that do not fly. He thinks nothing of a sea that rises in a wave that never falls. He thinks nothing of a world that sounds so silent. Were worlds not made just for horses?
He looks where he perches atop his rock, crouched like a boy-hunter. Twigs hang in the gold of his hair, leaves tangle in the roots of his mane where it is dark as soil, before it fades to glowing gold. Thoughtfully his tail flips against his rump, its gilded end gleaming. Suddenly the boy falls still and he leans forward, his muzzle extending as he scents the air.
A figure stands upon the edge of the world. She gazes down at the unmoving sea and the boy’s head tilts. He crouches atop his rock, considering, before suddenly he is leaping down. Suddenly he is running again and the world just watches him pass. The grasses whip against his knobbly knees, they reach for his sash of ivy and roots and twigs. If he loses a rock from that woven necklace he does not stop to collect it. Not when there is a world full of trinkets a boy could collect!
He reaches the girl who looks down into a sea and begs not to fall into the past. He slows as he reaches her. He gilds her in gold as those wild-sun eyes trail over the moonlight of her. She is the silver to his gold and the boy wonders what it is like to touch a girl like her. Where she gazes out at the end of the world, her head hung low, Leonidas presses his small muzzle to her cheek, as he has seen his father do to his mother.
“Hullo.” He murmurs hot against her cheek, breathless with running. Then he draws back and gazes up beneath his black lashes, up past the wild-wood tangle of hair atop his brow. “Why do you look so sad?”
@Maerys | "speaks" | notes: thank you for threading with him! Please bear with me whilst i work out how to write him and who he is!
