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I am not like any ordinary world


His brace of antlers still rise proud and impressive atop his poll, even as fall presses her fingers upon them, weakening their roots, turning their gilt-gold dark with well seasoned age. The tines hold the Ivy and flowers that loop through them. The woodland drapes the brace with leaves and woodland trinkets;; a forest crown. Even as emerald darkness blooms in the deep loveliness of the forest, the boy does not tremble but walks like a king amidst his kingdom.

He listens as Nature’s hand pushes him this way and that, directing her son closer and closer toward the new, strange magic and the moonlight child who stands amidst it. He listens to the woodland speak, but not in the way the Denocte girl does. To Leonidas, the woodland is rustling whispers and chirping song. The orphan boy moves as if he knows every inch of Delumine, and maybe he does... How long has he been a boy alone, lost and wandering the wilds of Novus? Loneliness has begun to fit snug across his growing body, he wears it as a wild fur, shot through with the bright of meadow flowers and the sharp weapons of sticks and stones.

Leonidas has become a wild boy, a feral king of woods and meadows. His kingdom knows no bounds. All of Novus is his.

This night, with the steadiness of creeping ivy, the woodland rustling slowly grows into voices calling. They speak and he turns to better hear them. Shyly, they quieten as he moves, like the timid fox that hides when spotted. Unperturbed, the boy meanders, following the trail of voices, until a glimpse of silver ahead has him gravitating faster toward the girl and a ghostly man with a golden sun and sunrise eyes.

The boy falls still as the great cathedral trees that stand around him. His nape arches as the man’s strange gaze settles upon him. His teeth part to reveal small, blunt teeth gleaming milk-white in the forest light. It is a snarl befitting a lion, not a stag. Leonidas is not just a woodland king but a boy of Time and a lion of sunlight. His feathers and mane drip gold like the ichor that once ran in his father’s veins.

The feral boy watches as the man disappears. He steps forward to follow and the woodland, surprisingly, betrays him. The snap of a twig cracks through the forest and the whispering voices suddenly fall silent. The girl turns and she seems so desperately familiar in Leonidas’ gaze. A ghostly memory blooms within his mind, but its colour, its scent is off, like a flower out of season, lost to the blizzarding trials of winter. The boy forgets a girl called Avesta and their fight for a fortress of ruins.

The unicorn child lowers her horn and it cuts the air with moonlight. Leonidas feels the itch of memory again as if is her horn carving moonlight into his sun-bright soul. The boy of sun and the girl of moon meet each other without a gram of fear within their souls. They neither have anything to fear - even in a wood of strange magic and lost spirits. Or so their young hearts think.

Her question, who is there? hangs in the air. Regal Leonidas steps out from where the deep dark veils the earthy tone of his skin. He moves toward her through moonlight and the gilding light of the sun. He does not lower his crown of antlers to meet the sword of her horn. Rather his tines point up at the star-strung sky. The emerald darkness breathes him in as he drinks in the silver of her body. Boldly, he moves to her side and tips his chin at the sun the stranger left behind.

“Leonidas,” he says his name as if it might be the only thing of himself he truly remembers. The orb bathes his face in sunlight, brightening his gold, leonine eyes. The scent of her skin is full of city scents and his lips wrinkle in distaste. Yet he will not hold it against her. The boy turns, elven and slim toward the orb, “The forest is different tonight.” He breathes and the magic is metallic across his tongue. “The voices said I was lost like them. But i do not know what they mean… Are you lost too?”