I wanted to sleep tonight. I wanted to dream. It didn't have to be something beautiful... It could be mundane, or even ugly, and I would just be happy it was mine.
But magic had its own plan for me.
Between fistfuls of sleep, a story is taking shape. It starts as a tangle of shadows, brambled and barbed. Slick words flash out of the darkness like silver-bellied fish at the lake. They rise from below tonight, up through the dark, smooth floor. I can't make out the words yet, but I can grasp the hulking shape of it, and I know-- I know tonight's story has teeth.
Sister is sleeping beside me, her heavy breath tickling my withers. I slowly slip from our tangled embrace, careful careful not to wake her. Her lips are twitching with roiling dreams of the ocean. Not the ocean everyone knows, but our ocean. Mother's ocean. I imagine in her dream she's running, cutting through the lush air like an unwieldable blade, and as I softly-slowly leave the room I'm smiling for her and her wild dreams, and her wild heart.
I step into the streets, into the cool moonlight. Furfur is with me. I only know he's there for the bond between us, for he clings to the shadows and moves without a sound. We don't share words, as usual. He doesn't ask me where I'm going, I don't tell. The truth is, and I think he's aware of this, I don't know. We walk like this for some time, weaving through the alleys studded with moonlight and shadow.
When Furfur suddenly growls at something behind us, I whirl around and lower my head. Later I will be surprised at how quickly I moved, and maybe a little proud. I must look far older than I am, when I use my horn as a weapon and not a compass. It's all instinct, and adrenaline. I'm poised to kill, although I don't even know if I'm capable of such a thing-- but whoever approaches doesn't need to know that.
Furfur is hunched down in front of me, hackles bristled and teeth bared. "Who's there?" I call into the darkness, carefully hiding the tremor in my voice. But the tone of it curls up at the end, like a mutt's tail. I hear what it sounds like, all girlish uncertainty, and it makes me cringe. I decide not to say anything else, not yet.
The colt has abandoned his mother tonight in search for something, he just isn’t certain what that something is. He’s young and foolish, and believes that he doesn’t need the protection of his mother now that he’s just barely a weanling. His mother lays curled in a bed of grass in their small little hut on the edge of the court. Her bonded looks over at Kibou with a knowing glare, but the colt ignores him completely as he brings himself to a stand.
Making sure Saki is settled on his back (where he prefers her to be), Kibou looks to his mother’s bonded and with a silent glance, he tells the bird that he’s leaving, but he’ll return later. No doubt the second he leaves the hut Finnick will awake his mother and soon, he will have to deal with her fury. But for the moment, he’s going to enjoy this tiny bit of freedom.
Sleep didn’t come to him tonight, for some unknown reason. Normally he’s one of those individuals that can sleep anywhere…and sleep hard at that. But tonight, his mind was restless and so thus were his legs. By now he’s meandering through the cobblestone streets of the court, going somewhere and yet nowhere all the same. He is unafraid of the darkness, the glowing orb given to him by his late father glowing brightly and lighting his path. He walks in silence mostly, thinking about his dad and how much he wished he were here. His momma says his daddy was brave, that he gave the ultimate sacrifice. Kibou does not yet understand what that means, but perhaps in time he might.
There a sound off in the distance and it startles Kibou. He halts rather abruptly, Saki having to struggle to grip into what little mane the colt had. He can hear someone approaching, but his bravery stops there. He knows he shouldn’t be out by himself so late at night, but he cannot help his curiosity. Now he understands this was probably a bad idea. Perhaps it was only his mother coming to find him.
But when the voice asks ‘who’s there?’, Kibou knows that is not his mother. It sounds much younger that his mother, younger than her and yet older than he. He remembered his momma telling him that there were other youngsters, just a wee bit older than he was. She had never properly introduced them, though, because his momma said she had to keep him in the hut to protect him. But now he was practically grown. It was time to meet others.
And so, Kibou cautious steps from the shadows, his little orb of light trailing just behind him. Saki is the first to look at the unicorn, poised with her horn ready for battle. She taps her tail lightly on the back of Kibou, her silent way of telling him to watch out. But Kibou was fearless (or so he liked to tell himself). He continues forward, his eyes meeting hers. "Hi!" His tone is light and high pitched, his voice not yet having dropped into something far more masculine. He stands there, far shorter than she, but with his posture upright and engaged. "I’m Kibou!....and that is Saki." He throws a look over his shoulder to the vervet monkey, the female obvious a little embarrassed at how her bonded is somehow navigating this meeting. He was far too bold for her liking. His mother would not be proud of him talking to strangers.
It’s just a boy and in some ways I’m disappointed. I wish he was a monster. If he was, this interaction would be easier.
It’s just a boy named Kibou and a monkey named Saki. This feels like the start of one of mother’s stories, except this time I’m in it too, and it makes me uncomfortable. How would she describe me, if she were not my mother? Would an unbiased narrator reveal all my uncertainties, all the plain ugliness that lies at my core, beneath the magic and the wraith wolf and the angry twist of a horn? Would they mention how I search and search for words but don’t know what to say, or how to say it?
My breath feels caught in my throat, like it wants to be daggers but finds itself just warm, empty wind. “Aspara.” It takes me a little too long to share my name. Does it make the boy uncomfortable? I angle my head just slightly to the wolf who still stands hunched, bristled and growling. I think he wishes the boy was a monster too. “Furfur.”
The boy is so… so small. Smaller than me. Younger– and my whole entire life, to this moment, I’ve been the youngest character in my story. There was a sort of power to that, a power that you had to humble yourself to accept. I would never be the first in any way: the wisest, or the fastest, or the strongest. But I had more time than everyone else. If I was careful and cunning, I could watch the others and learn from their mistakes.
This boy ruined the illusion I clung to that I was special in some way. He took the one thing I felt was mine (the one thing I wanted that was not the magic or the wraith wolf or the angry twist of a horn).
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” It’s a petty thing to say, I know. It’s the first thing that comes out of my mouth and if I could, I would be blushing at my own hypocrisy. Maybe he can see how embarrassed I am, how quickly my face changes into a look of surprise. I realize I’m still poised to run my horn right through his small golden chest, and I straighten. I soften. Furfur, waiting for my cue, relaxes as well. He slinks off into the shadows, out of reach of the boy’s golden pool of light.
“I like your light,” I say quickly, to detract from my impulsive rudeness, and it is not entirely a lie.
Kibou is happy to have met someone who was almost his own age. For so long it had only been his mother, him, and their bondeds. The four of them had lived quietly and peacefully in a small little hut on the outskirts of the court. For so long, he had been kept there, locked away from the others for fear that something might happen to him. It was like his mother had protected him from his own court. He knew his papa had died, so he had to wonder if that was part of the reason his momma kept him locked away. He wished she understood that she didn’t have to keep him away, that she could let him out and explore like the rest of the court. He wouldn’t get into any trouble and he would promise to stay safe. But in the end, he disobeyed his mother anyway, putting his own life at risk. A risk he doesn’t yet understand.
He offers his own name and the name of the monkey that rides on his back. He finishes it off with a smile, hoping that maybe she might see that he’s really nothing to be scared of and she would put her horn down. It was making him a little bit nervous the way she was holding it. She looked like she wanted to push it through his flesh and make a giant hole in its wake. But Kibou was a good, gentle soul. He didn’t deserve to be murdered so young. God forbid that ever happened, his mother would have no other reason to keep on living.
Finally she tells him that her name is Aspara and her wolf’s name is Furfur. It seems fitting, a name implying that the wolf is indeed covered in fur. "It’s nice to meet you!" His voice is cheerful and full of wonder. He has never met anyone else before and he intends to make the most of this meeting, even if she still looks as though she wants to kill him.
When she asks him if he should be asleep, he looks at her curiously. Asleep? Shouldn’t she be asleep too? "My momma doesn’t tell me what to do. I’m big enough to go on a walk by myself." It doesn’t necessarily answer her question, but it’s more an answer to his own question - if he can be brave enough to be out here by himself. "Why aren’t you asleep?" She was young too, she should be asleep with her momma too. But alas, they are both awake…both far away from their mother’s protection.
He watches in curious wonder as she softens her posture and her wolf seems to do the same. The wolf slinks back into the shadows, the ball of light that hovers over him unable to bathe him in golden light. It is the filly’s words that bring his attention back to her. He offers her a smile, a genuine smile. "It’s from my dad!" The orb of light had been left to him by his father, the father he wished he could have met but never will. The orb had flickered to life the moment he was born and now never left his side. His mother said it had done the same to his father and perhaps the orb saw his father in him and that’s why it followed him. It seemed fitting enough and Kibou never asked any more questions about it.
I feel feral. Wild. Like the night is not just above and around me but inside, too, deep where no one can take it away. I want to howl at the moon with Furfur. I want to dash up the mountain or down to the ocean where Avesta will pace at the shoreline like a tiger at the end of a too-short leash.
I feel like I’m constantly moving. But I’m not. I’m drawn taut and still, eager as a weapon that wants to be buried to the hilt. “It’s just a pup.” Furfur murmurs to me with a gentleness that makes me angry. I KNOW it’s just a pup but I want to hold on to this savage version of me, I want to be this girl with razor eyes forever.
I can’t hold on forever. I soften, fold. Hide all the parts of me too sharp and strange to share with strangers. Kibou says “it’s nice to meet you.” and I say “you too,” even though I still don’t know what to make of him. All I know of boys I’ve heard second-hand. Most of it has been from my parents, who I obviously cannot trust on the matter.
He says he’s big enough to go for a walk by himself, and I am careful not to roll my eyes. My guess is he snuck out, just like I did, except instead of bringing a wraith wolf with him he brought… a monkey. Maybe part of my scorn comes from a secret admiration. Maybe.
He asks why I’m not asleep and I snort. “I’m bigger than you.” I don’t think I need to explain much more. If he is big enough to go for a walk by himself at this hour, so am I. And even if I wasn’t– with Furfur here, as far as I’m concerned, I am untouchable.
Of course, I evade the real answer to his question. I’m not asleep because the walls couldn’t stop talking tonight, and I couldn’t stop listening, even though I know too well how some stories are better left untouched. I’m not asleep because my heart needed the open sky and my head needed the fresh night air and my soul needed the moonlight. And even though the cobblestone streets try to catch my attention with scandalous whispers, as long as I keep moving they can’t overwhelm me with story.
The boy is so… smiley. I try to mirror his expression, soft and eager and happy. But I’m sure he can see that I’m faking it, my smile an uncertain mockery of his. “It’s nice.” I say, attention caught on that warm golden glow. Something about it fills me with certainty, like the way I know the sun will always rise at the end of the night.
Without realizing it I begin to shift from foot to foot. Magic is making me restless. Whispers are gathering in the shadows; I begin to hear snippets of sentences, stories weaving together in the darkness where Kibou’s light does not reach. I need to move, or to keep listening to the boy talk. “How come I’ve never seen you before?”
“I’m bigger than you.” It’s a simple statement that seems to resonate within the colt. It validates everything his mother has ever told him and it makes him angry. His mother always told him he was too young to wander, too young to go out at night alone, too small to leave Denocte. It was always about what he can’t do and frankly, the young colt was tired of all the “you can’t do thats” that his mother seemed to always point out. He just wanted to be normal and accepted and loved. He wanted to be like everyone else. When would he be big enough to do things on his own, to find friends, to just be himself? When would any of that be enough? He had a feeling it had something to do with his dad and his why his dad wasn’t here to see him grow up, but his mother didn’t like to talk about him much. She would share stories from time to time, but she seemed too sad most of the time. Why couldn’t he make her happy? So many questions, so few answers.
He watches her, his smile light and genuine. He’s secretly hoping that maybe his smile will make her smile. He sees her trying, but he can tell that she’s just doing it because he is. Perhaps she is sad too, like his mother. He is too young to understand that this world is made up of mostly sadness, of darkness, of desire. He’s too young to truly understand just how cruel this life can be and just how insignificant his life truly is. Perhaps one day he will understand all the things that the world is trying to teach him. But for tonight, he is just a boy…walking in the moonlight.
He is at a loss for what to say, not sure he can elaborate on his little ball of light any more than he already has. He wants to hear the stories of his this light came to be his, what it had done to his father, but his mother has been relatively silent on the matter. Perhaps she would tell him in time, but for now, he just has to listen to what she does tell him and hope that it will be enough.
Attention is drawn back to the filly as she asks him why she’s never seen him before. He can feel the way his feet begin to shuffle in the dirt gathered on the cobblestone walkway, the way his eyes dart to the floor. He doesn’t like this question, perhaps because he doesn’t like the answer. "My momma kept me in our hut. She says she is trying to protect me and doesn’t want anything bad to happen to me." He remembers her saying that what happened to his dad had been a terrible thing and that she didn’t want the same thing to happen to him. He wants so desperately to know why he has to stay locked up, to be kept a secret. Was she ashamed of him? Was she telling the truth at all? When he was still nursing, it was no surprise why she wanted to keep him close, after all, he had to eat. But he was weaned, eating food and grass like everyone else. He was growing taller by the day and building up strength and muscle while still maintaining his sleek, angled featured.
He sighs, knowing he doesn’t even like the answer he has given her. It makes him feel too young, too small to be out here by himself, even though he knows that Saki will always be there with him. She will protect him, he know she will.
Looking up to the filly, he finds his smile again, sweetly looking at her. "It’s nice to know there’s someone my age here. I like to play and run and chase butterflies." He has always loved going to the lake and running along the beach while his mother takes solace beneath the surface. He has always loved the feel the wind in his main and the taste of salt of the sea on his tongue. "Do you like to play?" His question is soft and hesitant, as if she might say she did not like to play or run or chase butterflies. He hoped she did. He hoped he could find a playmate in her.
The ball of light is calling to me. Things do that sometimes, when they have a story to tell. I can’t quite describe how it feels– it’s like describing color to a blind person, you need poetry to do so, and even then… it’s not the same, is it? This magic of mine, it starts with like, a gentle current of whispers. Like wind ruffling the plains, if that wind had words. I can’t make them out but I can feel the tug of the current, I can feel where the whispers are leading me and this time it is to that orb of light.
I step forward, closer to the warm glow. It paints my baby face in shades of gold. The sharp angle of my thoughtful brow casts long rich shadows down my face. (my father’s brow, everyone said, because I must constantly be compared to my parents) I gently place my horn against the orb and the current of whispers grows to a wave of shouting. Screaming. Crying. A molten-hot soup of words that arranges and rearranges phrases, then sentences, then paragraphs in my mind.
I don’t understand it all, but. It’s sad. And it’s personal, this story, it’s personal and important and I wish I could unhear it, unbind myself from all that sorrow.
I look at Kibou, pity and grief gleaming in my blue blue eyes. “I’m sure she’s just worried, because of what happened to your dad.” I bite my lip. Did I mess up by saying something? I scramble to change the subject. “But she doesn’t need to be! Fable can watch you.” I nod sagely. Fable was always following me and Avesta around, even though we didn’t need him to. It would be good to keep him occupied with another child.
Then, Kibou says he likes to chase butterflies. I smile then, a real smile finally, and I don’t even have to try.
He likes to chase butterflies.
I like to chase wolves.
I guess I do like to play, although I never thought of running as playing. Running, to me and sister, was as essential as eating, breathing, sleeping. “Yeah, I like to play” I say, after a blip of hesitation. And then I smile, again a real smile. I’ve decided I want to spend time with this boy, mostly because I feel bad for him because his dad is gone. But also because… I don’t know, he’s different. He’s a boy, but not (I think) like the foolish headstrong boys in mama’s stories. He’s soft and open as a book and makes me nostalgic for a lightness that I never had. Maybe I could teach him how to chase wolves, and he could teach me how to chase butterflies.
But I don’t want to talk to him. I’m interested in company, not words.
“Race you to the markets?!” Before he can answer I bolt down the street, not looking behind me but hoping, with a brightness that surprises me, he will follow.
a s p a r a
@Kibou I hope it's okay that she used her magic to glean a little bit of Kibou's backstory! I tried to keep it vague but let me know if you would like me to change anything <3
The little orb flickers lightly in the moonlight, Saki turning to look at its soft glow as Kibou’s attention is so fully on the filly. She’s stepping closer to him, her horn still pointed in his direction. He wants to take a step back, to make sure she won’t pierce him with her horn, but something tells him to just stop and wait. He can’t describe the feeling, only that it presses itself firmly into his mind and halts his feet before they even begin to wander.
He watches with bright eyes as her horn touches his orb of light and he is curious to what the orb will do. He’s never been able to touch it for it always keeps just out of reach. Even Saki cannot grasp it between her hands. It’s a mystery even to him. But it remains still for the filly to touch and for a moment, Kibou is jealous. Why can she touch the orb and he can’t?
Kibou wonders what she is learning from his orb. He can see the way her expressions change. She is using magic on him and he has no idea what she’s doing. All he can see is the way her eyes change from bright and happy, to sorrowful and unable to show him eye contact. He wants to ask her what she has seen, but he wonders for a moment if he really wants to know the answer to that very same question.
When she speaks, she is validating his mother’s intent to protect him, to keep him locked away as if he is some priceless jewel. She has seen something that makes her side with his mother and for a moment, he is angry she doesn’t side with him. "I wish she would tell me what happened to him. She only tells me that he isn’t coming back." But Kibou is not ready for that story. That story is filled with love and hate and hurt and anger. It is filled with emotions that the colt doesn’t understand and filled with memories that Kibou is far too young to understand. Even Aspara might be too young to fully understand and comprehend what she has seen. One day, Katniss would shed light on what happened to his father. One day he would know the truth, but today was not that day.
She tells him that his mother doesn’t need to be worried about him, and for once, Kibou agrees. He knows that she doesn’t need to worry about him and it’s nice to find someone else that feels the same way. This Fable she speaks of is a mystery to him, though, and he steps forward. "Who is Fable?" Is it another colt his age? Another kid to play with? Someone old man who only watches the children? He has so many questions but he supposes that the one he has asked is sufficient enough.
The conversation changes, leaving the darkness of his father’s history and shedding light onto far more pleasant topics. He asks her if she likes to play, mainly because he wants to play. It’s so nice to meet someone his own age, even if she was a few months older than he. She says she likes to play and he can feel the corners of his lips turn into grin.
He hears her telling him to race her to the markets and for a moment, he wonders if he can remember where the markets are. He’s been there a time or two with his momma, but never by himself and never at night. But before he can ask, she is taking off down the cobblestone streets, her feet making that echoing “clip clop” noise as she creates distance between them. It’s almost as if Saki knows what he’s about to do, because he can feel the way her hands grip his mane tighter, the way her legs squeeze his withers. And then he too is chasing after her, pumping his legs faster and faster as he closes the distance between them. He loves this feeling - the freeing feeling of the wind whipping through his mane. He loves the sound his feet make on the cobblestone streets. And perhaps most of all, he loves that he has found himself a friend.
@Aspara - you are always welcome to use your magic. I don't mind ;)
Do I tell him that his father is dead? Do I have the right? Do I have the desire?
I don’t know. I just don’t know. So I say nothing-- a skill of mine, and one I wish others cared to learn. I just smile, sad and understanding, one kid to another. Except I have a father, and a dragon, and a wolf, and a twin, and Kibou has neither of these things.
But he does have a glowing orb, and a monkey, and a kindness most don’t. I decide I want to be nice to him. Which is probably to say my heart decided the second I met him, but it took my brain that long to catch up.
“Fable is a dragon.” Plain and simpIe as an apple falling from a tree. I cannot even imagine a world where dragons are mythical creatures. It sounds like a horrible place to live. Fable is not just any dragon, he’s my dragon. He’s sister’s too, and mom’s, and in some ways my dad’s. Not that anyone can own a dragon, of course. Still-- he’s ours. “He lives in the water, mostly, and probably eats two hundred fish a day.” I nod sagely. The number was fictional, but what did that matter? It was a good number. It sounded right on my tongue, like laughter.
Then I’m off at a run, and Kibou is not very far behind. Somewhere along the way I howl at the night, “A-wooo!” As I have so many times before. As I will so many times again. Furfur is the first to pick up the call, then the other wolves beyond the court walls join us. My laughter streams behind me as Kibou and I tumble into the dark streets like water.
I did not think about whether or not I enjoyed having found a new friend. I did not think about the future, and where we might be in two, three, five years from tonight. I just ran, faster than my thoughts could flow, and hoped the boy could keep up.
