Joy

My people have always been a race of warriors. I feel I am no different; my blood is peppered with battle spice and hungry pride. The wind sings to me of chance, of change, of danger and of joy. My lips burn in a flashing smile. I feel that primal power swelling in my chest, rushing in a tingle from fingertips to feet, kindling the fire behind my eyes.

I can smell it coming to me. I taste it in the air, and I itch to join the fury, the fierce pleasure of movement and sweat and living fear. I tango on a gleaming edge. I spin and burn, flash and churn. I fall.

Oh, joy of sensation! Feeling, exquisite, divine! Burning coil, I feel your strength like a dancing fire beneath my skin. I feel you rising like the sun in my chest, and I do not run from your rays. I bask in your warmth, and, dancing, weave the light into myself.

For a moment, the golden lion is given free reign over my self. He roars and bellows, he runs, he soars! A great flying leap, and he settles firm and warm into the space behind my heart. Sated with success, he is content to make a home in my will. He rests, and I am bathed in the waves of his purring slumber.

I live. I feel.

Glorious.

His Concerns

Hers is a terrifying beauty.

He can see it now:

She smiles at me as I reach forward. My fingers brush against her cheek, and her skin shatters into a million fragments, each blinding flash catching in my eyes. Her molten core rushes free from the broken boundaries of her eyes, a coursing, bubbling stream, a crushing force battering me against the edges of myself, drowning me in her awful shining tempest until I am completely overwhelmed.

He does not reach.

As boy and girl, they sit together. They do not touch, though she watches him closely. He pretends he does not see. She does not understand the way he wraps himself in his fears, and he is sure it is better to leave such things unsaid.

Late Afternoon

She twirls in the sun, hair a fiery halo of dancing light.

Her laughter spins around me, warming the air as it falls through the honey glow. It tip-toes across my shoulders before leaping catlike into that humming space in my chest.

From across the room, her eyes continue dancing in their joyous, silent song, and the icy weights across my back, shoulders, and ankles melt into the floor.

Sudden light.

She spins again, waltzing with the sunbeams streaming through the windows.

Her feet don’t touch the ground, and I suddenly wish my steel-toed boots could for once leave heavy gravity behind. I catch a glimpse of my reflection. I am whole, intact, and unchanged. I am afraid, and I am alone.

I take her hand as she floats by, and she pulls me up with a grin.

The Beach

He has left his shoes on a rock near the shore. In bare feet, he negotiates his way down to the water.

She closes the distance between them from behind, brushing the darkness dancing through her hair from her shoulders like an old shawl. She feels her way through the night; the sand is soft and wet as it cradles the soles of their feet.

His eyes flash blue in the bitter dark that stands between him and the water. The air is thick, and it bites his bare skin with a stinging chill. A purring warmth beneath his heart pulls him forward until finds himself at the world’s end. The cool waters bathe his toes and draw him further from solid land.

Her breath fogs in waves, condensing in the chilled air. She trembles and hugs her warmth tighter to her skin, but will not turn away.

He treads farther into the ocean; imagines himself submerged as his head dips beneath, imagines he is consumed as his form melts away, imagines himself a burst of radiance and life beneath veiled and crushing depths.

Instead, he opens his eyes to find her at his side. Though she shivers in the water, she will offer him her hand. He will take it, though he shies from the light. They will dance in the space between the sand and the waves in steps they could never have found alone. The companions will walk the night, and together they will enter the sea.