Silverlight Terrace I see you standing there, but you’re so far away

He had seen her dancing upon the terrace.

Seen her, watched her, until his cheeks had flushed and he’d turned away to conceal himself within the Weald again. Too bashful to watch her anymore and  feeling the weight that he shouldn’t have to begin with. Feeling as though he had stumbled upon something reverent, something holy, something too sacred for him to draw near.

And yet that levity she leapt with drew him to the fringe of the terrace again, and every night from then on. Dark eyes searching. Regretful he had not joined her. Hoping to catch a glimpse of her again. Longing that her dance might radiate through the deep shadows and spread out its wings of light to find, if it were possible, even him.

@Callyope if you have the time? <3

She danced with the moves of hunter.

Soon she would find her way towards the place of moonsong to speak once more, but for now she was untethered. Free. Roaming.

Nothing worthy of the spirit slept in the twilight, so her hunting became song. Her paws turned tracking into tracing. Fleet footed on long, willow tree legs. These were movements that had become practiced by now.

And although she had lived in a world of dreams following the ceremony, she saw the earth around her still.

That softly familiar scent that tinged the area of a hunter she would allow herself to miss.

She began a soft chase after his scent, humming as she went.

He remained as a sentry at his outpost. Quiet. Unmoving. Although life away from his parents had weathered Melaneus' baby fat away, he knew how he now towered. Tall, ungainly. Sprung up like ambrosia amidst fields of wildflowers.

And she was a wildflower - now taller than many - this Moongirl who danced towards him, dotting the winter hill like a late-blooming starflower. He caught sight of her between the patches of green peeking through the dusting of snow, and his breath, billowing in great wisps before him and framing her as though in a dream, stilled in the air.

That is how these meetings always went - like a dream, only this time, he felt strange in his own skin. The sight of her stirred a warmth in his chest that felt like the lightning of a summer storm.

The energy crackled beneath his sternum. So different, from the gentle way she approached. Did she feel the lightning, too?

Melaneus did not linger on the question, but found himself bowing low to her. Easing to his elbows. Asking, if he might join her winter's dance.

She saw him.

A giant beacon of her spirit.

Dying Sun, She cooed to him as he bowed. Mimicked his moves for a moment as she admired the way he had grown. Large and lean, not unlike herself.

She knew at once that she had missed him. Unlike she had missed any others.

She dove towards him and then veered. Cutting her path so she may bound past his side and off into the scattered trees.

Dying Sun.

Though time slowed, his heartbeat quickened. Even her voice had grown with her! And how the gentleness lined the name she had given him when they had first met here upon the terrace. He wished for her to say it again, and again, and though he still did not know the meaning, he knew he had been remembered.

She had remembered him.

And a strange feeling overwhelmed him. She had remembered him, and somehow, that was enough.

His body felt as though it filled with starlight as she leapt by him to enter their dance. The audience, the heavens, and their stage, the terrace and the trees that dotted the pathway towards the foggy Weald.

And Melaneus followed, running behind her, or weaving through adjacent trees to the path she chose, or risking to run alongside her, closer than he'd ever been. He risked this now, and he looked to her, and found himself with very few words to adequately describe the woman he saw in the girl he'd once known.

Where he was shadow, she was light; where he was darkness, she shone brighter.

Asterioú, he whispered to her, as though a secret he gave to her between his steady breaths. Starflower. A name more fitting than Moongirl now.

Asterioú.

She need not to understand, to feel. His word and voice rooted in her chest. Quickly bloomed with warmth that overshadowed any sadness she may have carried within her still.

Like a hunter, and him her grand hunt, she moved to take him down.

Both of them down, if she could manage it. So that they might turn, tumble and mingle in a grand heap.

She moved in on him, and he allowed himself to fall with her -

like the dying sun she had named him after -

like curtains closing on their ballet -

without applause, yet he did not live for the cheers of others.

He lived in the silence, in the solitude of thought, in the secret art of watching and knowing and feeling and seeing. As the fawn and doe walked together between the weeping willows, as the bullfrogs croaked in the overgrown marsh, as the birds moulted from fledgling to sparrow and flew in the radiant dawn.

- as they fell together and tumbled in the soft green grass, as he turned his gaze to catch sight of her every chance he get, as he allowed himself to fall go first, so as to break her fall, as a smile tempted the edge of his lips.

He couldn't remember a time he had ever wished to share careless words with another, but he wished so now. To speak with her, and hear her speak! And yet, he did not wish to break the silence, for the silence brought the knowing, the feeling, the seeing -

Agh! And so torn, his lips parted as though to speak, yet all he breathed out was the softest of laughs.

She found safety as they fell.

He was a net, the sun to her moon. Illuminating her so that she might shine before him. Died so that she might shine! How appropriate of a name she had given him, as if she had seen his spirit that night. Perhaps she had, for the way he had seemed so ghostly that night.

Now they were tangled.

Now he laughed and her heart fluttered.

She did not find it in herself to free them from this tangle. However she did struggle with the same feeling as him in the moments that passed after. She wondered what words she might say to make him stay, so that she might hold this moment with her forever in the way of his company. Then she wondered if any words were worth tainting the moment at all.

She risked it and exposed a selfish corridor of her heart in that moment.

Come. Stay, with me.

Then she laughed, soft and short. Breathless and overwhelmed. She wondered if he might be scared by her sudden boldness! Yet she smelled no others on him, not a trace that he remained somewhere permanently. She thought her spirit-talking soul might find safety with the wandering of his.

They came to rest upon the frosty grass, and his laughter dissipated into the night. You are beautiful, he thought, and while the words were so simple, he could not find any ones more fitting to sum up the things he saw in her tonight. He wondered about her thoughts in the silence they shared. What did she think of him?

Come. Stay, with me.

That gentle pause between her words. Her gentle laughter, so charged with the breathlessness that stole through his lungs, too.

Stay,
with me.


Electricity flashed through his chest again and he blinked at her, wide-eyed. She wished him to be with her. Him? She wished him to stay! For the night? Forever? Did that really change his answer? He hardly knew her, yet he wished to go to the ends of the world with her! And for once all thoughts of waiting for his family to return seemed to vanish like dew in the morning sun.

He studied her face, and his breath rushed out in a quiet promise.

Always.

I'm good to keep going or we can fade this and have another? :D ah the passion of the youths! xD

fading <3

Always.

She would not let him fade from her.

She would keep him close and they would dance, hunt, roam. As sun and as moon.

Her heart held no sadness, no fear. These things did not exist in the expanse of this place, here alongside this hunter.