Chapter Text
Yellow is woken by the light filtering through the sheer canvas covering of their lean-to.
For a second, he can only lie there, feeling the weak sunlight warm his sore body. On any other day he would rise with the sun, restless unless he was moving. Sleeping in had never held much appeal to him when there was justice to be done in the waking world.
Right now, however, just for a moment, he lies there, feeling each knob of his spine as it presses into the thin bedroll under his back, and thinks about last night.
Now, without the hazy, unreal light of the moon blurring the edges of every dark corner, it’s hard for Yellow to justify to himself that any of it had been… real. A dancer who was sometimes a swan, who walked on water like it was sturdier than solid ground. Who wants Yellow to see him again.
None of it feels possible. And yet, though his hair was no longer wet, when he sits up he can feel a cowlick at the nape of his neck, from where it had dried flattened between his body and the floor.
Yellow has always been a man of emotion more than reason. His solution is simple; he will go back to the lake in the evening, and whatever happens from there is outside of his control.
The simplicity of it is buoying, and he’s content to roll out of bed and duck out of the tent into their camp.
This day, like the last, is shaping up to be hot and humid, and once again the flowers are reticent to take much action in these conditions. For once, it suits Yellow well, mindful of the old ache in his thighs, and the few shallow scratches littering his arms from his losing battle against the forest.
They’re all clustered around the firepit, which currently houses no fire but rather a tray with a single breakfast muffin; Green’s creation. As Yellow steps gingerly over, Flowery raises his head.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” he says, and for a moment his lilting tone gives Yellow pause; it’s almost like Blue’s had been, both sounding like they’re on the edge of breaking into laughter. But with Flowery, it always feels as if he’s laughing at you. Even when he ate lakewater, Blue had only ever seemed as if he was laughing with Yellow.
Yellow wonders if that difference actually means anything.
“Nice of you to finally get up,” Orange chimes in, in her usual brusque way. “You were asleep for ages.”
Though her words don’t betray it, her keen eye roams over his face with an intensity that shows how she’d been concerned.
“We saved you a muffin,” Seth says without looking up from a book. Grateful for something to delay answering the group’s implied questions, Yellow grabs it and takes a large bite.
Green waves at him and tilts their head questioningly. He gives them a thumbs up. It’s a good muffin.
The momentary silence as he chews makes Yellow aware of the dull ache in his stomach. He had missed the evening meal the night before, with the group eating later and later to avoid melting under the combined heat of their campfire and the misery of the summer sun. The hunger was yet another thing he didn’t notice under the intensity of the previous evening. And speaking of–
“So, did you have a nice night?” Flowery asks, smiling his signature smile, reclined languidly against the log seat. “We missed you back here.”
“Uuu, I stayed up to wait for you!” Aqua says excitedly.
Seth rolls their eyes. “No, you didn’t. You stayed up because you wanted to see if you could turn his bedroll into ribbons if he didn’t come back. I stopped her, by the way.” They address this last part to Yellow.
“Uuu, yeah,” Aqua says. “But I still stayed up.”
“Good work Aqua,” Yellow says, patting her on the head. “Yeah, I guess I was out late.”
“Find anything?” Seth asks.
“Did you get beat up by killer geese?” Orange interrupts. Seth frowns at her.
“Swans, not geese,” they correct, “but swans can be dangerous. According to my research they have big teeth in their beaks.”
“No killer geese,” Yellow confirms, “and hey, wait, you was making fun of me for bein’ scared of ‘em! You said they wasn’t gonna tear up our camp or nothin’.”
“No I didn’t,” Seth says quickly. “Pretty sure I wouldn’t say something like that.”
“Oh,” Yellow frowns. That doesn’t quite sound true, but well…
Flowery cuts in before the conversation can devolve further. “Find any clues about the Petal Feather?”
Yellow freezes. With– everything that had happened, any thoughts of the Petal Feather had fallen completely from his mind. He hangs his head in shame, slumping forward.
“I forgot the feather,” he confesses. “I done failed your mission. There’s no justice in that at all.”
Flowery reaches over to pat him consolingly on the back. “It’s no trouble,” he says, still smiling. “I never thought you’d actually be able to find it, after all. But was there anything else out there that caught your eye?”
Yellow perks up, straightening out his posture. “Oh, well,” he says, “I guess there was somethin’ interesting.”
Interesting seems to fall miles short of the description Blue deserves, but Yellow doesn’t have the vocabulary of Seth– or of Blue himself– to express it adequately.
Flowery just tips his head to the side like an expectant dog. “Go on,” he encourages, smile wide.
“I found the swans,” Yellow says. “They weren’t killer-y or nothin’. They were in this big ol’ lake, and…”
And one of them turned into a man, he doesn’t finish. To say it out loud, now, in the light of day, sounds insane. It’s not strictly the strangest thing to happen in these parts– the knight covered in darkness and intent on causing harm, for example, is probably worse– but with every hour the reality of last night seems to slip between his fingers. He’s afraid that if he dares to say it out loud, the illusion might break.
“...yeah,” he finishes lamely, fiddling with the brim of his hat nervously.
Four pairs of eyes look back at him bemusedly– Aqua is using the conversation as a distraction to try and steal Seth’s book and is therefore not paying attention, and does she even have a pair of eyes under that fringe? Yellow’s never seen them– and he knows he wasn’t exactly subtle, but he also wasn’t willing to lie straight to the other flowers; there was no justice in lying.
Dancing around the truth, however, worked just fine.
“Yeah?” Flowery parrots. His gaze seems to bore into Yellow, even when his eyes are closed. “That’s fine. They were just birds. The chance they would have anything to do with the Petal Feather– or with anything else– was always small.”
Seth looks between Flowery and Yellow suspiciously. “Uh, ok?” they say. “Why’d you stay out so late if there was nothing there?”
“I got lost,” Yellow answers easily and truthfully.
“Of course you did,” Orange chimes in. She’s leant against Yellow’s side; he could barely feel her. “I can’t believe you didn’t take us with you. I never get lost.”
“Only because you never go anywhere,” Seth counters, and predictably, any semblance of polite conversation is drowned out by bickering.
Yellow just sits back, slowly turning his hat between his fingers, and wonders why he’d hid Blue from them. Orange is right; they could all go together to the lake, and it would probably be just as fast or faster, in spite of the flowers’ general disorganisation. Even if it did turn out that he’d had some sort of weird, impossible hallucination, he would get teased for it, but they wouldn’t be cruel about it.
And he likes spending time with the flowers. A lot.
So why does he want this… thing he has with Blue to be his alone?
He manages to slip away from camp shortly before the sun sets.
The other flowers are preoccupied trying to mediate Aqua’s knife obsession, and he slinks into the forest without notice or resistance. He had wanted to give some sort of explanation for where he was going, but to lie outright felt even more deceitful than his already dishonourable sneaking.
He settles for leaving a note on his bedroll. ‘Be back soon’ it reads, or so he hopes, what with writing never being at the top of his skillset. Seth will decipher it, probably, and besides it’s too late now.
Following his trail from the night before proves more difficult than he had hoped. He knows in which direction he had gone from camp, but once the forest is too thick to walk through straight in one direction, Yellow grows hesitant.
The trees seem to look the same, each looming over him in the early evening sun identically. He hadn’t taken the time to notice any landmarks as he had run through the first time chasing the birds, and as he was walking back it had been too dark to see anything at all.
Now, he slows to a stop in a small break between the trees’ canopy, craning up at the meagre sunlight filtering through, and wonders if this is the same clearing he’s already seen twice.
If he’s going in circles.
He wonders if he’ll find his way through at all before the moon has risen and fallen again, missing his chance and having to walk right back to camp with nothing to show for it.
More fancifully, he wonders if this whole sequence had been some elaborate setup, with the intention of leaving him lost and confused, deep in the woods. But by who– the cruel knight? It would be rather aimless.
So Yellow is lost. But the thought of Blue, setting down upon the lake, scanning its bank and finding himself all alone– proud arms drooping from their poise, by himself in the moonlight– he grits his teeth and straightens his hat.
He has no idea if this means as much to Blue as it does to him. He has no idea why it does mean so much to him. But it does, so he will pick a direction and carry on until he either finds the lake, or ends up back in camp.
He’s ready to do just that until a noise splits the forest. Again, his hand flies to his holster, and again he lets it drop down in relief as a shape flies overhead, briefly throwing the tiny clearing into shadow. The canopy is too thick to see it properly, but the flash of white he can make out is all he needs– he can tell which direction it was flying.
Direction decided, Yellow picks up his pace, invigorated.
The swan is only the first of many, early birds beating the moon to the lake’s surface. He wonders if one of them is Blue. He wonders, if Blue were to fly by right now, whether he would recognise him. He wonders how much Blue can even understand as a swan.
He wonders if any of those questions will find answers tonight. He finds wondering to be a great companion to wandering.
The sun has nearly finished setting as he makes it to the lake. The whole scene is splashed in hues of orange and red, colours dancing across the surface of the lake as swans intermittently touch down. Yellow almost blends into the trees.
There is no Blue yet, so Yellow stands and waits. He tries counting swans as they arrive, then when the number gets too big for him to work with tries to look for little differences between them instead. There’s a single large black bird, far on the other side of the lake, unlike any of the others, although it seems to fit in with the flock well enough. Most others are about the same.
Though it’s deep into summer, a few late signets still swim beside their mothers. Yellow tries not to get distracted by this and fails.
There are birds in the towns, and in the castle, of course, but all small and delicate and sweetly singing. It’s difficult to imagine that once, long ago– if Seth is to be believed– they had been the same creature, slowly diverging over time. Or something like that.
Red and orange wash out to blue and Yellow’s anticipation grows. He forgoes hiding, standing at the edge of the lake on his toes craning his neck to see higher into the sky. It’s nothing like the elegant poses which Blue had struck the night before, except in every way which it is.
The swans seem unperturbed by his presence this time, likely because he is no longer falling into the lake and splashing water onto them. Although, he imagines if he keeps tapping his foot against the ground impatiently, they might stop feeling so obliging.
The sound of a single pair of wingbeats echoes through the sky, and Yellow’s head snaps up.
The bird takes its graceful spiral out of the sky much the same as the night before, wheeling through the air on one wing in ever-shrinking circles until it lands, without sound or splash.
Feathers fly, and out of them forms Blue, uncurling like a morning glory to soak in the moonlight.
His dark eyes crack open, and he brings his head down to swivel across the bank of the lake. Yellow takes a small step forward, almost unconsciously, and Blue’s head snaps towards the movement.
His eyes widen, and a brilliant smile splits his elegant face for a moment before he reigns his expression back in. Surely Yellow’s face mirrors his with a grin of his own.
Blue wastes no time now, bringing his arms down and prancing across the water to meet Yellow at his edge. He still crosses the distance in a complicated sequence of twirls and leaps, but he makes no attempt at obscuring his destination in circles and loops like the night before.
Two steps before meeting Yellow head-on and Blue pulls himself up short, posed elegantly with his hands held loosely at his front. He dips down, curtseying low, before drawing himself up to look up through his lashes at Yellow.
“Hello, dear,” he says smoothly, and Yellow’s face is so hot he thinks he might have to take off his hat.
“Howdy,” he manages to say. “You’re back.”
Blue looks him up and down appraisingly. “As are you,” he replies. “I’m glad you came.”
“Aw, shucks,” Yellow says, twisting his hands together bashfully. “I was jus’ hopin’ to see you again.”
“I must admit I feel rather the same. It has been quite some time since I last danced a duet.”
With that, Blue holds out a hand, reaching for Yellow’s own. Before it can connect, Yellow jerks back.
“W-wait, we can’t be dancin’ jus’ yet,” he stammers. “I got questions to ask.”
Blue’s face creases, elegant expression collapsing into something like disappointment.
The sight sends a bolt of– something– through Yellow’s chest, and he hurriedly adds, “not that I don’t wanna dance! I do. It’s jus’... I don’t think I can without knowin’ a couple more things first.”
Blue looks down, expression unreadable, before he sighs, drawing himself up to a more casual pose, still en pointe.
“Yes, of course,” he says, “you are entirely correct. While I must admit it is not my favourite topic of conversation, dance is the most open and honest form of connection between two souls. With no understanding, there can be no connection. Ask whatever you see fit.”
Ask whatever? It’s almost too broad for Yellow, whose every thought had seemed to fly from his head the second Blue had approached. He looks down and asks the first question that comes to mind.
“How do you go about dancin’ all over the water?”
Blue blinks at him, once, and his loose smile curls back onto his face, turning plush lips upward.
“Look closely,” he prompts instead of answering, and takes several tiny steps closer to Yellow, each movement sure and steady on his toes.
At first, Yellow can’t see anything– excluding an extremely impressive display of leg strength– but as he narrows in on the point of connection between Blue and the water, the small amount of space where the flat toes of his shoes touch down, he starts to see something. It’s like a fine blue mist, or smoke, curling around his feet before vanishing into the light evening breeze.
“Oh,” Yellow breathes out.
“It’s this little trick of mine,” Blue says, kicking one foot backward and letting the smoke swirl in its wake– he doesn’t watch his own movement, eyes locked on Yellow’s, and he wonders if he can see his own reflection in his pupils. “What do you think?”
“S’real pretty,” Yellow answers. “Suits you real nice.”
Blue stays silent for a moment, dark eyes tracing Yellow’s face. “That’s…” he blinks, breaking eye contact, and turns his head away just slightly. “You’re quite the flatterer.”
“Ain’t no flatterery,” Yellow shakes his head vehemently. “I been having to straighten three nice folks out just this week after someone done flatterened them without no permission. I wouldn’t be doin’ that to you.”
Blue’s gaze swings back to meet Yellow’s, this time painted with total bemusement.
“I– excuse me?” he asks.
“Erm,” Yellow hedges, realising belatedly that a man who is a swan half the time probably isn’t attuned to the everyday incidents throughout the kingdom that required justice’s purview. “Sorry, nevermind. You should tell me more about yer smoke.”
Blue cocks a dubious eyebrow, but accepts the redirection. “My clouds,” he corrects. “Much as dance transcends all barriers of love and connection, these clouds allow me to float above whatever you might consider a barrier; the water, the air, the gentle forest. What beautiful happenstance they take form as clouds, for they are my silver lining– the blessing, to my…” he trails off, looking down at his joined hands.
“To yer what?” Yellow presses, bringing one hand forward in concern.
“To my curse,” Blue finishes, turning his face away. The moonlight illuminates the half facing away, throwing his features still facing Yellow into deeper shadow. He steps back; a single, normal step. “You should ask another question now, I think. The one you had wanted to ask from the start.”
Yellow frowns. “Blue…” he starts, but feels helpless to obey his direction. Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he asks quietly, “why was you a swan?”
The poise seems to drain out of Blue at the question, beginning as he drops his head, then his arms. He doesn’t quite drop to the flats of his feet, but it’s a near thing.
“That would be my curse,” he says slowly, looking anywhere but Yellow’s eyes. “To spend my days as a swan, only able to reclaim human form at night as I fly back to this pond. As a swan I know nothing. I am only myself for these precious few hours under the obliquity of night, left to wither without the sun’s warmth and chase its pale imitation in the moon.”
Silence falls for a moment.
“No,” Yellow breathes out, horrified. “Blue, that’s just awful. Ain’t nothing right ‘bout someone so wonderful trapped in the dark jus’ like that. Who coulda done this? And why– to you?”
Blue brings his hands together, one wrapping around the other like an embrace. “I bid you to ask any question you desired, but I fear I fall short of your answers. My curse was wrought by dark, cruel magic, the sort of chaos born from a creature who knows only fear and agony, and whose only way to let its pain be known is to share it. I know not if this curse had a purpose, or a catalyst– although it’s my suspicion that there is none, only suffering reflected upon an unseeing world.”
“Well,” Yellow says, “but, there’s gotta be somethin’. Someone to bring to justice. If there ain’t, then– what’s the cure?”
Blue closes his eyes. “Another thing I am not privy to, I’m afraid,” he says quietly. “The source of the curse was not so kind as to leave me with knowledge of its intricacies. All I know is what I have understood through my experience.”
“Blue,” Yellow says, like repeating his name enough might be all that it took to bring the logic of reality down upon whatever cruel fantasy had borne Blue’s sorrows. Nothing about any of this made sense, and yet here it all was, real enough to touch– the curse’s source sounds plenty familiar, but there’s nothing for him to do with that, unable to catch up to the elusive knight. He worries anything else he has to say might be inadequate in the face of Blue’s misery, but it doesn’t stop him from trying. “If there’s some sort of solution, I’ll find it, I know I will. Ain’t no justice in this fiendishness, I know that better ‘n anyone.”
Blue doesn’t respond at first, perfectly still, closed eyes not giving away a hint of the thoughts behind them.
At once, he brings himself up and throws himself into a spin, halting only inches in front of Yellow. He holds both hands out to bracket Yellow’s clasped hands, hovering above as if waiting for permission.
“Enough of this,” he states, eyes burning into Yellows. “Now we dance.”
Unable to look away, Yellow says, “OK,” and then, “or, wait, but–” and has no chance to finish before Blue takes hold of his hands and tugs them both into a twirl over the water.
Yellow yelps, undignified, long legs moving wildly as he scrambles to find purchase before being plunged into the lake. The icy cold of the water does not greet him, however– it’s only Blue’s sweet smile that fills his vision. Yellow looks down and sees blue swirling around his ankles.
A loud laugh peals out through the air across the still water; it’s echoed by the sound of some startled swans taking flight.
When Yellow looks back up, Blue has a hand over his mouth, but it can’t cover the crinkle at the corner of his eyes.
“Oh, dear,” he says, lowering his hand to rest over Yellow’s again, and the motion reveals the gap between his two front teeth that peeks out when he smiles widely. “Bluhuhu. Rest assured, you’re safe up here with me.
“Okay,” Yellow says simply, thinking that he would much prefer if it was Blue who was safe with him, instead of being trapped in a vindictive piece of magic.
Maybe the melancholy the thought brings blooms across his face, because Blue narrows his eyes and tugs Yellow another step further out onto the lake.
“To dance,” Blue begins, voice ringing out confidently, “is to reach out a hand to the universe and let it lead you through the path walked by love.” To demonstrate, he brings a pair of their hands, clasped together, to reach up towards the moon; even though Blue is shorter, his better posture lets him bring their arms up almost higher than what Yellow can reach, and to compensate Blue shuffles forward, bringing them closer together.
“Much the same as love,” he continues, “it is not the difficulty of moves, or the intricacy of a dance, by which its beauty can be defined. It is the relationship, brought about by movement harmonised, and given life.”
He tilts his head towards Yellow. “You didn’t ask, but I could feel your curiosity at my invitation to dance. You must have wondered why.” Bringing his leg forward, one of his solid, well-defined thighs nudges Yellow’s foot backwards behind his other. “As it is, there is no pas de deux with only one dancer.”
He lets the words hang in the air, gazing intensely at Yellow’s face, who feels compelled to fill the silence.
“For sure,” he says lamely, letting his own eyes slide away from where they meet Blue’s. He can feel his ears heating up with the bluff and wonders if Blue can tell that he has no idea what those words mean; the answering indulgent smile he receives indicates yes.
“To start, third position,” Blue directs. Yellow blinks up at him uncomprehendingly, and Blue moves his own feet, one pointing forwards and the other to the side, connected at the heel, before tilting his head expectantly at Yellow.
He moves his own stance to mirror, trying to keep his long legs straightened. The position looks uncomfortable, unnatural, but when Yellow mimics it he finds it’s not so hard; he’s sure his feet aren’t exactly in position, and he has no idea what to do next, but this part is easy enough.
It helps that Blue looks completely delighted by his attempt, smiling brightly at him.
Holding his hands, Blue arranges him like so, with one arm straight out to his side and the other above his head– Blue has to drop his grip on Yellow’s hand and slide his arm down to hold his forearm instead when he’s not tall enough, even en pointe, to reach above Yellow’s head.
Nodding in approval, Blue moves back two long steps, straightens himself up and seems to reach for the stars with both elegant hands, and then begins to slide his leg back, slowly lowering himself towards the surface of the lake.
To match the motion, he begins to duck his head, but looks back up with a twinkle in his eyes and tells Yellow, “slowly move around to be beside me, dear.”
Yellow obliges, trying to move with the same slow, dignified grace, and immediately forgets to keep up the positioning of his arms, dropping them down. He has no idea how Blue, having lowered into a lunge and beginning to sweep his arms back, can remember every intricacy of his movements.
The dancer doesn’t seem to mind, though, rewarding Yellow with another pleased smile. He bends his back knee, straightening his front leg at the same time, and begins to fold in on himself. Yellow watches, transfixed, as the straight line of his spine casts dimpling shadows across his back in the soft moonlight. Blue’s arms wrap around to his front leg, encircling his form completely.
“Now,” Blue says, voice only slightly muffled by the way he’s speaking the words into the crook of his knee, “bend down and take a hold of my arms, if you will.”
“Erm,” Yellow says, “how? Like, should I be kneelin’ like you, or…”
“Oh, my dear,” Blue shakes his head slightly, his hair brushing against his arms. “In any way you’d like. There are no rules here.”
“But yer doin’ it so pretty-like,” Yellow frowns. “I don’t wanna be ruinin’ that.”
Blue is silent for a moment, before turning his head as far as he can in his position, one deep blue eye peeking out over the well-defined muscle of his bicep.
“My dear,” he says slowly, “you must believe when I tell you that you could never be ruining this. Even if you chose to leave right now, I would only be dancing as I was before, on my lonesome. Your involvement can only buoy my performance.”
“But more than that,” he continues, “you cannot ruin this dance because I want you here. It does not matter if you know not the steps, or if you mistake the chaînés for the chassé. I would never expect you to. I only wish that you move with me, in whatever way you feel right to, for as long as you are compelled to.”
“It is not how the dance looks which matters. We have no audience, unless you consider the swans. I only wish to feel the joy of finding a rhythm with you, here, if you would indulge me.”
“Oh,” Yellow says, face hot. “Awright.”
He bends down, attempting to copy Blue’s lunge, although he can’t quite keep his back leg pointing out straight. He leans over to take hold of Blue’s forearms, and can only feel grateful, when the movement brings him to be almost leaning against Blue’s strong back, that Blue had turned his face back down. Any eye contact right now might have been more than he could handle.
He can feel the skirt of Blue’s costume against his midriff as they crouch together, stiff and almost crunchy. It’s nothing like anything he’s seen worn before, other than in posters sometimes plastered across the city walls advertising ballets and shows. Every time Yellow saw one, he had considered going, but he would become busy or distracted and it would slip his mind. Yellow never went, and slowly the posters had stopped appearing.
Blue lets them hold that pose for a quiet moment, before slowly unraveling, bringing himself up onto both feet, and then further onto his toes, bringing one arm above his head and the other out at his side.
Yellow leans back initially to allow Blue’s movements upwards, and then as he keeps moving worries for a split second what exactly he is expected to do now.
But Blue had said he wanted Yellow to do whatever felt right to him. And Yellow had always been better at acting on instinct.
He follows Blue to standing, a little slower out of the lunge as his unprepared muscles protest it. He brings his hands up to mirror Blue’s, who in turn threads their fingers together, cool hands enveloping his.
“Good,” Blue says lowly, the word’s deep timbre rumbling through his chest, and Yellow finds his mouth going dry at the sound of it.
Gripping his hands tightly, Blue brings one leg up until it forms a triangle against his other leg, holds it for a moment, and then sweeps it outwards, letting go of the outstretched hand as he moves into a slow spin, leaving his balance in Yellow’s hand entwined with his above his head. It’s nothing like the energetic twirls Blue would do on his own, and the incremental movement brought small wobbles through his stance– proof to Yellow that his stabilising hand was helping.
As the spin brings them face to face, Blue instructs quietly, “move your hands now to my waist.”
Yellow feels his ears go red but obliges, feeling the ripple of muscle under Blue’s leotard as he finishes his spin and brings one arm up, other arm and leg stretched out behind him.
Suddenly, Blue dips forward, and Yellow’s grip around his waist squeezes in surprise, afraid the other man has lost his balance. The dancer’s leg is steady against the ground, not falling but folding himself forward to skim a hand against the lake’s surface; but his other leg, stretched out high enough to point to the moon with the movement, seems to waver just slightly at the new pressure around his midsection, a small jolt of surprise.
He maintains the pose while lowering himself down, foot briefly flat against the floor to bring him closer to the water in demi plié, before turning to the side and taking two elegant steps away. Yellow follows, trying to keep the same measured pace with his longer stride.
Blue mirrors the pose he had just been in, though with his head still up, and Yellow follows suit, bringing his hands back up to bracket the shorter man’s waist. Instead of leaning forward, however, Blue leans back, chest arching forward as his head tips back to lean against Yellow’s shoulder, leg kicked again out behind them both. He doesn’t make eye contact, looking steadfastly up at the stars while Yellow’s eyes trace his face.
The deep blues of his iris reflect the spattering of light from the skies above, seeming to hold the whole void in their depths, framed by pale blue lashes, the same shade as his hair, which flutter underneath Yellow’s scrutiny. The dancer’s hair is adorned by a feathered headpiece, wrapping around his head like a crown, and his ponytail is trapped between himself and Yellow’s shoulder, the thick locs pressing gently into Yellow’s collarbone.
In a feat of almost unbelievable flexibility, Blue lifts his leg higher and, bending it at the knee, it wraps around Yellow’s back, a soft pressure that makes Yellow feel entirely enveloped by Blue’s presence.
The feeling is matched by a fragrance, strongest around the crown of Blue’s head in his hair; something sweetly floral, like a bluebell. Unconsciously, Yellow ducks his head slightly to get closer, and his chin brushes against Blue’s temple. The dancer smiles, cheeks darkening to something like purple.
They stay like that for a minute, swallowed by the moment, before Blue finally closes his eyes to sever the moment, bringing himself down into a combined dip and twirl which forces Yellow to spin around behind him, the weight of Blue’s top half entrusted into his hands. Blue is not light, sculpted from well-worked muscle, but Yellow stands steady, keeping his shoulders tall to support the movement.
It’s not long before Yellow starts to lose himself in the rhythmic movement. A precession of dips and spins bring them in wide circles across the lake, and though for the most of them Yellow acts in Blue’s support, Blue will sometimes bring him forward, clasping their hands together to pull them into a twirl, or into a skating little run, or once, memorably, dipping Yellow down, grinning into his face as he flushed at the reversal.
He has to fix his gaze on the gap between Blue’s smiling teeth to fight back the blush across his face. Blue’s tittering laugh tells him he fails.
It’s in the middle of another pose, Blue arched elegantly with a leg behind and an arm in front, the other arm brought up to the sky, and with Yellow a step behind mimicking the position of his arms smilingly, when Blue looks up at the sky and his balance falters. He wobbles, arm dropping slightly, and Yellow quickly steps up behind him, just in case.
Blue drops down from the pose and turns around to face Yellow, and his regretful expression sends alarm zapping through Yellow’s core.
“It’s getting late,” the shorter man says ruefully. He isn’t even on his toes anymore, standing with feet flat against the water.
“‘S not really,” Yellow says stubbornly. “An’ I was real enjoyin’ dancin’ with you.”
“As was I,” Blue’s head dips in a nod. “It is not by my choice the curtain draws on our time together.”
It takes a second, but Yellow brings his hand up to reach out in understanding.
“Yer curse,” he says, and Blue nods again, sighing heavily. His proud shoulders curl in on themselves.
“I must leave you,” he continues, “but if you would permit, I would be delighted to see you again tomorrow.”
“Of course,” Yellow says immediately. “‘Course I’ll see you again, Blue. I can even bring my group to meet you. They’re basically my family, an’ all together I think we could be figurin’ out a way to–”
“Your… family,” Blue interrupts, smiling faintly. “That does sound nice, doesn’t it?”
The expression fades back into one of deep sorrow. “But perhaps it would be better if you came alone again.”
“Oh,” Yellow says, feeling a beat of disappointment in his chest. Despite the short time spent together, Blue has carved out an important space in his chest, but if he doesn’t want to meet the other flowers… Yellow isn’t sure he could replace one with the other.
Blue hurries to continue. “Of course, I would love to meet your family. It is only that… I fear it would not be kind, to introduce us now.”
“What’s that s’posed to mean?” Yellow asks, concerned. “Blue, you said you was gonna tell me the important stuff, but it feels like yer hidin’ things from me still.”
“I suppose I am,” Blue muses. “Let me bring clarity, then. It is my fear that… tomorrow may be our final act, together.”
He brings an arm up, and Yellow follows its long lines up to his hand, where he’s pointing at the moon. It’s almost full.
“The curse only lasts so long,” Blue explains. “One year, more or less, measured in full moons. At dawn tomorrow, it expires.”
“Don’t that mean yer gonna be human again, then?”
Blue brings his arm back down to wrap his hand against his opposite bicep, a rare show of nervousness. “That is… not my destiny, my dear.”
Yellow frowns, and then it clicks. “You mean– you’ll be a swan?” he flinches back, voice loud enough to send some of the closer swans flapping away disgruntledly. “Like, eternal-style? No, Blue, that can’t be–”
“It is,” he confirms, expression carefully blank. “That is my finale, my curtain call.” Uncharacteristic urgency ripples across his face. “It is why you must come back to me tomorrow. Please.”
“Blue, no–” Yellow tries to interject, but Blue continues, overwhelming the objection.
“I know it is unfair to ask,” he says, and Yellow watches, horrified, as something glints at his lower lashes; tears, beading together. “But selfishly, I wish it to be so. Find me here again tomorrow night, and stay with me until the moon embarks upon its unerring descent.”
“We can find a way to fix this,” Yellow says, grabbing Blue’s hands. “We’ve gotta, Blue, please.”
“Come back,” Blue only says, dark eyes piercing Yellow’s own, and a storm of feathers envelops him. They push Yellow back, spitting out tiny white tufts as he watches, helplessly, as a swan reforms in the space in front of him.
The eyes the bird turns upon him are nothing like Blue’s endless depths, although the intensity they hold feels more familiar. He matches its gaze until he has to scramble away to the lake’s edge when the magic beneath his feet begins to falter.