I am not like any ordinary world
Apsara’s smell had sunk deep into his blood. He could not be rid of it. Still his nose remembered the smell of woodfire, the taste of sweet things, the dirt of the city. It was nothing like the clean and clear scent of a wild flower wood. He disliked the smell and yet… why would it not leave him? That smell was unfinished business upon a forest boy’s palette. It tasted awful and yet, he wanted to see the origin of all the things he smelled upon Aspara’s body.
His curiosity brought him to Denocte. For many nights he did not venture out from the woods that wrap around the city like loving arms. For many nights he watched the way the mountain slumbered and torches ascended up the trails like ants. Even where he stayed, amidst the quietude of the slumbering wood, he could hear the terrible sounds of the city. So loud. So piercing. Never silent. A wild wood boy needs silence.
He wandered between the edge of the wood and the great lake at its other end. He bathed when the moon was just over its peak and all the revellers had turned for their beds. Leonidas never stopped to ever wonder why the slept inside. For him the stars, the leaves, the roots and the flowers were beds and pillows and protection enough for him.
Finally too many days had passed for a boy with little patience and besides, this night is so very different than all the others he has spent here in Denocte. This night a festival pours herself out in colour and light and frivolity all through the cobbled, moonstone streets. The denizens dance in masks and from his woodland kingdom the boy-king finally steps out. He skirts the city until he finds the shortest path in to the busy markets. (It would also stand as his fastest escape when the smell, the noise, the terrible city clamour becomes too much for his senses).
Out of his comfort and in amidst a wood of stone and brick and slaughtered wood, the boy begins to creep, slow and careful. He moves silently, silently, nimble and spry, even with his brace of gilded tines atop his brow. It is his crown, he wears it proudly, even when autumn and winter come to try and pluck it from him. The crowd is thick and deep and so terribly loud. He hears the laugh of children and watches with leonine eyes as they run and dance past where he hides. Soon a child’s curiosity is too much and he steps out from his dark hiding place. A girl streaks past in ribbons of gold and crimson. A firebird she is and yet she nearly collides with him, but Leonidas is fast and returns to his hiding place as if she has run only through shadow.
@Maeve
