Silverlight Terrace it rattles the bones of our fathers, carries whispers from the dead

Maybe it was a bit melodramatic, the whole wandering in a moonlit field at night bit, but truly, Lullaren could not sum up how much he didn’t care. Drama was his brand, his metaphorical shackles, the reason he cried crocodile tears to the moon who he knew could hear him (it could not, it was a rock, he knew this and yet he, once again, did not care for more than a moment).

With the moon as his only witness, so he believed, the moonspun grasses tickled his underbelly, his black coat soaking in the softer touch of the colder sister to the cheerful sun. But, Lullaren didn’t scorn her the lack of brightness. He didn’t truthfully care much, content to wander forward with little bobs of his head, tipping from side to side to side, ears bouncing, doing a smooth jig in a slow circle. A dance without a partner, a song without its refrain. A beautiful, broken thing, and he was an expert on those in particular. Why, it’s what he saw every time he looked into the water, the face of someone he did not know. He wondered who he looked like. He truthfully wondered if he should care.

As soon as the thought occurred to him, he shucked it. The bard had no cause to care for, nothing to show up on his CV when he smacked it on the desk. Lullaren was whoever he was for the night, and nobody else. That was how his cookie had crumbled.

So, the voidtouched troubadour continued his moonlit waltz beneath the cratered moon, the light his only partner.

a shadow under the moonlight; vantablack, a void carved out of the scenery with such resolute conformity of color, the rest seems two dimensional. an optical illusion unlike any garland has ever seen. from a distance, at least.
drawing nearer out of curiosity, the gilded wanderer's eyes catch on a streak of sterling starfire, a slash of brilliant silver through impenetrable shadow. at this proximity, the oddity of the stranger's movements become apparent, too. the wayward mayfair halts, bewildered and perhaps a bit beguiled. for now, he only watches in silence, unable to think of any other course of action he might take.

It takes only a moment for his situational awareness to kick in and slow him to a halt, the troubadour’s eyes searching for the flash of another color in the dim. Lullaren’s tongue flicked out to curve, salmon pink, over the quivering black of his nose, once his eyes found what had caught his attention so readily.

Gilded golden, the sun had set their paws upon the earth, and the night found himself summarily awestruck. Lullaren blinked, and then blinked once more, before tipping his head to one side, an ear following gravity’s command to turn towards the earth below his paws. He moved, a flickering shadow, a scar in the silver light of the moon, to watch. Wait, breath held a tremble in his breast, for what was to come next.

At the very least, he could write a very good song about this moment.

the longer he stares, the clearer the scene becomes. a familiar ache grips his chest as he registers the truth of the scene; another handsome starlit stranger, another poisoned chalice set before him. though, perhaps it is arrogant to assume this stranger will want anything to do with him. after all, garland is nothing special...
he swallows those thoughts, chiding himself. too self-centered, as always; thinking too much of himself again, as if anyone in the world cares.
oh, shit. they noticed him. oh fuck. his cheeks flush. this is so dumb, i look so weird right now —
hi, he forces out, if only to shut out the chaos of his thoughts. he hates how fragile it sounds; timid, like a child. uh... sorry. did i interrupt something?

Maybe it’s the fact he’s starved for connection in this new land, maybe it was the fact he was always struck dumb by a pretty face, but his tongue was failing him today. He wished he’d smoothed out his fur before this, maybe tried to hide the scars across his white chin. Nobody liked cracked porcelain.

The stranger’s words startled him out of the plan he’d been forming in his mind to see if he could fix himself up a bit, but he’d been perceived. This was his worst nightmare. Lullaren swallowed, throat clicking around the sudden dryness of his mouth, before he took in a breath, using the time to calm his raging thoughts.

“No, no I cannot say you have.” He flashed an awkward smile, the showman in his head screaming at the motion. He was stuck between the romanticism of the moment, and his want to turn on the dramatics like one might turn on a kitchen sink. 

“Hello. It is a wonderful night for a stroll, no?”

! —

and just like that, his reservations flit away, windswept on gossamer wings, footloose and fancy-free.
he nearly chokes on words unformed, throat thrumming with frantic flutters of fitful, fearful heart, so easily caught on pretty diamond-sharp edges of a simple flash of a smile. his own mouth curves to a shy mirror of the expression, feathery ear flicking in a show of nerves. garland hardly registers what the stranger has said to him, but he feels he might just agree with anything the other says.
foolish boy, never learning his lesson.
yes, he agrees idly, wits cut adrift and wandering. the sunshine mayfair steps closer, sensing an invitation in half-heard words. my name is garland. voice lowered, a breathy near-whisper in reverent respect of the magic he suddenly sees in the moment. stormy gaze catches on moonbright rifts in the shadowy down of the stranger's fur, places where starlight bleeds through the ink. silvered forepaws, star-kissed chin. their eyes, sunburst and lazuline; mornings spent overlooking the sea. like home. belatedly he sees the faded spectre of wounds, plum-hued scars faint in the silver-and-slate cast of night, but he thinks little of them. trivial little blemishes when set into a face of heart-gripping beauty.

Under the moonlight did the sun wrapped come, and Lullaren became readily familiar with the reason Icarus climbed so high. In that moment, he too would have climbed to the skies in search, and he would have fallen laughing, screaming the joy of flying and falling and nothing.

The bard gave himself a sharp nip on the inside of his cheek, the pain bringing him back to the present. Garland, a name he had never heard before and doubted he would again. He offered a friendly dip of his head, before dipping his head low into a bow, one leg stretched to the front, forehead tapping the ground.

“Salut et bonne rencontre, belle.” He said, lifting his body back up to his normal height.

“I am the traveling bard, Lullaren Dubois. I must admit, I did not expect to find anyone out here so late.” The stranger was a gorgeous one, wrapped in the brightness of sunshine, with two fluffy, floppy ears, and bright eyes. There was a way to say entranced, and Lullaby waltzed his way towards it with grace.