Keeping Up

A drop of ink: black against the blue. Or maybe a bullet — a weapon for which Seiji has no name. It glides in periphery until he turns: black lines reflected in dark eyes. Close; closer; close. Seiji knows three things: its name is Waker; it might kill him; he cannot move. Every muscle freezes under black skin, under the false (trembling) wing. Salt a rime on Seiji's flanks; mud a cast on his long, slim legs. He looks — Waker turns (over and over and over) and it's a burst of movement like fireworks going off, like the clench moment of a heart beat. Many heart beats. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. Seiji's thin mane lifts and flutters along his neck. And he breathes. It catches. It's more than a breath; it's a sudden, giddy explosion of silent laughter. He forgets the exhaustion beginning to burn in his muscles. He forgets loneliness; forgets anger. He's laughing, laughing as Waker soars up and safely away, a bird again. Distant. Seiji leaps after him at once, a great gallant leap, and those slender hind limbs lift up in a buck. Again, again. He is running under the blackbird and laughing, himself filthy and tired and exuberant. You can dance! he wants to shout. You can dance! You dance! Then, for a moment: still. Muscle trembles with effort all along his body, but he doesn't care. He isn't close to overtaxed, just yet. He's breathing, breathing, and the insides of his nostrils are a bright and vibrant red. His ears twitch; his eyes follow the progress of black wings with a sudden keen edge. The way a hawk watches sparrows play; the way a dog watches the rabbits talk. Seiji is himself hawk-like in profile, narrow and hooded, not a kind face until his eyes soften. Now, they are not soft. Now, they are thinking. A shadow of his old self pressing like a mirage over him now: stern, attentive, studious. Drawing all power toward the center of himself. He moves again. A long, springing movement; a looping arc. His head is up, eyes and ears on Waker but also away, also on the ground and the water and whatever ticks inside Seiji's heart. He cannot ask aloud — would not, even if he could. But silently, he asks the stranger to dance. Not like Vynter, at the party. Like something else. Something which recalls to him the smell of blood, the burst of feathers. Something which ignites in him a kind of focused energy, kinetic and fierce. Here is the creature someone far away once named the Swan Prince, here is the creature they called bone-speaker. Here he is tracing shapes in the sand, limbs skipping, body following a tempo he hasn't heard sung in what feels like a lifetime on the road. He dances now, as he used to dance. A dance for two.

img by Tildae @ flickr

@Waker
ooc // Seiji approves.