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High above and lightyears away, there existed a man who burned fire. Eyes of pure warmth, with planets stuck to his skin and whose freckles connected the constellations. Brilliant hair tossed brillant beams across every surface, and many gathered to bask in his splendor. Everyday the man smiled at his spectators, a flashing grin cutting through clouds.
But when his eyes grew dim in sleep, the crowds dispersed. Left to shine for nothing but the lifeless rock and ice around him, to spin with planets in his dreams. With each cycle, a different pair of eyes cracked open to watch his slumber, reflecting him in slits of fire.
Too far to reach, always falling under his own spell before the other could catch a glimpse.
Until things somehow, inexplicably, changed.
A flare of heat burned through the atmosphere when he jolted awake. Pulled into the silence of a time he wasn’t meant to experience, the air heavy around him. Wide eyes cut ochre and tangerine across Saturn’s surface. He never remembered his dreams, but this one streaked meteors through his mind. One that spoke of a different time. Possibly a different universe entirely.
“You’re awake.”
He jumped and scattered sunbeams. No one ever spoke to him directly before—at least no one remotely close enough to answer. Searching, he found no other.
“Hello?” His voice bursting but tremoring with disuse.
“Your eyes may be bright, yet you cannot understand what is right in front of you. How disappointing.”
“It is not easy to see past one’s own shine,” he admitted, and the other scoffed.
“Then cool your fire and look closer. It does one good to remember how to see.”
It may have been a millennia since he had done so, yet his curiosity flared brighter than his surface. Making him eager. Making his surroundings illuminate in fireworks of hot color. The voice made a noise of impatience.
“Have you no ears in which to listen? Already with one word you act a fool with your contrary nature—I should thus take my leave and allow you only the pleasure of your own company.”
“Wait! Will I not be given some allowance to remember what it means not to burn? You must understand the difficulty of going against one’s nature.”
A moment of consideration, then, “You make an adequate point, I confess. Then once more, and this time, try.”
Amused, he tempered his light and searched once more, squinting through the veil of a cycle of time unfamiliar.
And then, emerging from the mire:
Another man. A man with skin of silver and eyes that blazed. A man too far to reach and yet omnipresent. A man made of everything his own body was not.
A man with the stars in his hair.
Brilliant and cutting and smooth like velvet, and the man who burned fire cleared his throat to again remember how to speak.
“It seems I can, in fact, see once more. And yet I cannot recall sensing your presence here previously. Where have you come from?”
The other turned up his nose, sending ripples through onyx and making the stars shimmer.
“Ignorance betrays you. I have been here long before you. I watched you flare into existence, though by now we may as well have the same age.”
“Ah, then I apologize.” He closed his eyes in humble respect. “I have long forgotten those who I cannot cast my light on. You must be quite wise, to have lived so long.”
“One could say.” Upon opening his eyes, he found the other had averted his gaze, nebula bursts clustering pink on his cheeks. “But you need not apologize—we had yet to meet. It is only by the chance of your awakening that we speak now.”
“Well then I must admit, I am glad to have been roused from my slumber. Will you not come closer? I yearn to see you in the full light.”
“Unfortunately I cannot. For where you exist, I will cease to be.”
“Yet you are here now,” he argued, undeterred, “and so am I. So there is a flaw in your logic.”
“Do not take my words and twist them. You understand what I mean with perfect clarity. Are all others this insufferable?”
“Ah,” he answered, winking fire, “I wouldn’t know. You haven’t spoken with any before I? What about those?”
He reached out a hand, yearning to feel the silk strands slip through his fingers, the burn of starlight—but as he drew closer, it vanished from his sights.
“Fool,” the other hissed, drawing back, “do you not listen? Do not venture closer unless you wish for me to disappear.”
“Never.” He dropped the hand, disappointed. “But you have yet to answer my question. Why not speak to others?”
“Because they cannot speak. In all the expanse around us there are none who have. The voices I hear are distant, the same as those who admire you, and I cannot answer their calls. You are the first, and quite possibly… the only.”
“The only?” he echoed, surprised, in the space between them. “But how can that be?”
“I may be wise, but even I do not have all the answers.” The man blinked, eyes becoming hooded. “In any case, I fear it is time for me to depart.”
“Wait!” the man who burned fire blurted out, desperate.
He couldn’t bear to see the other leave, to be left alone again. Even with the stirrings of a new cycle, the attentions cast on him were cold and distant. Intangible. This was the first time anything had felt real.
“Can I see you again?”
“Mmm, perhaps,” the other yawned.
For one who had never conversed with another, he seemed annoyingly indifferent. Lashes fluttered shut; the air around them thinned as the other began to disperse into the ether.
How he already missed the reflection of himself in the other’s sharp gaze. Resisting the temptation to reach out once more, he called after him instead.
“Has anyone told you you’re beautiful?”
“Tch. You are far from the first,” his voice fading.
The other grinned sunrise. “I’ll come up with a word yet—one that speaks to your true essence.”
“I will await it… if we have the chance to meet again.”
“We will,” the man who burned fire promised, “we must.”
He was only met with the silence of a new day.
★
He did not know how many moons had passed before that day arrived. Too long, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. But ages of sleeping and awakening at specific hours made habits hard to break, and it was only after countless failed attempts that he managed it.
“You’re a fool,” the other huffed when he sensed the dangerous warmth near his skin.
“Only for you,” he countered.
The other was just as stunning as he remembered, if not moreso, the remnants of supernova staining the tips of his hair in flashes of magenta and azure.
“More importantly, I have been musing endlessly over our last discussion. May I grace you with another attempt at flattery?”
The other sighed, reclining gracefully to drape his body around Pluto’s chill. “I fear me refusing will only encourage you. Say what you must.”
“Ah,” he chimed, delighted, “it seems you have me parsed out. Should I be afraid, with how easily you can see through me?”
The man with the stars in his hair only graced him with the hint of a smirk, toying with a meteorite in his palm. Emboldened, he risked leaning ever so slightly forward.
“What if I were to soliloquy to your stars, recite how quickly you have robbed me of my breath and left me wanting?”
The meteorite was tossed, lodging gently into a rock-freckled shoulder. “You wound me if you believe I have yet to hear such a word as ‘breathtaking.’”
The man who burned fire burst into laughter, sending solar flares skittering through the air.
“You keep me on my toes, I allow you that. Let me think more, then, once we depart. It pains me to believe I may have offended the only acquaintance I have been gifted.”
“I hold little faith in your ability, but I will not deny you your chances to try. I am bored, and at least the present company entertains me.”
“Well, I am touched to hear I can stave your languor—though it sounds to me that you may be enjoying watching my shortcomings.”
“As I have stated—entertainment is a rarity. Now slumber, for your light wanes.”
“Only if you continue your vigil over my sleeping form.”
“As if I have anywhere else to be,” the other huffed, though his eyes reflected a deeper truth.
★
“Alluring,” he prompted their next meeting, streaking comets through the air for the other to catch.
The other’s mouth sloped into a delicate frown.
“Exceptionally unoriginal.”
★
“Unique?” he offered, nudging a new white dwarf to curl its way through obsidian strands.
“Getting warmer,” he relented, “but I believe you can come up with better.”
The man who burned fire beamed as he examined his own recent gift, left to be discovered once he’d awakened, the star slotted to burn bright at the end of Gemini. The admittance that he may have a knack for adulation after all was not lost on him, but he didn’t dare voice it aloud, lest he rouse the other’s ire.
“I’d been searching for a way to complete this constellation, and I could imagine none better,” he said instead, and the other’s faint smile wisped moonbeam silver across his face.
“Maybe you should let me find them from now on. I do have a greater arsenal to choose from.”
“Your honor me,” he bowed, and found his words to be honest, “thus I wouldn’t dare refuse such an offer.”
“Good,” the man with stars in his hair said simply, and left to find his dawning rest.
★
“Mysterious.”
The other couldn’t hide his scoff. “You are getting worse.”
“Ah, but this is not a comment regarding your beauty—though no less true. It is a comment about you, my sweetest one.”
“You know me naught at all, if you think me sweet.”
“That is where we must disagree,” the man who burned fire laughed, and the other couldn’t hide the way he preened at the words.
“So enlighten me,” he said, color dust sprinkling his visage, “what is it about me that is so mysterious?”
“Well for one: it has been what feels like an age since we’ve met, and I have yet to even know your name.”
“You’ve had yet to inquire,” the other countered, primly adjusting the newest ornament procured in his hair.
“Mmm. It suits you.” He yearned to tuck the stray locks behind the other’s ear, to trace the sharp planes of his jaw and set his skin aflame. It was getting harder and harder to resist. “And may I point out that you as well chose not to ask, and it felt strange to offer.”
“Well, now that you’ve brought it to light. I’m listening.”
“Oh, am I to go first? That hardly seems fair when I was inquiring it of you.”
The other only crossed slender arms, quirked an eyebrow to collapse cloud fragments into the birth of something new. Too quickly did it make him relent, yet he could not pretend to feel any disappointment in his concession.
“As always, it seems I am caught helpless in my enamour. Since you wish it, I shall give you my name.”
Eyes locked in a moment’s pause, anticipation hanging between them. The word breathed out on a sigh.
“Sylvain.”
It was the first time he’d spoken it aloud since he’d chosen it, so long ago he couldn’t remember being without it.
“Sylvain,” the other repeated, slowly, testing the word slipping foreign on his tongue.
For the few times he had heard it echoed by those far away, never had it sounded so perfect than when the other spoke it into being. Settling deep into a part of him never known before. Once again wishing to reach out, to intertwine their celestial bodies until gravity refused to allow them to part.
“How did you come to know it?”
“It was chosen, based on words I’d heard spoken long ago. There is, way below us, a beautiful wood. And those who yearn to travel through its trees, to hear the call of different species and the way wind weaves whispers through willow branches. It is a place of great beauty, and a place I yearn to know. But as much as I have tried, I cannot penetrate its canopy.”
He spared a glance the other’s way, eyes dimming in melancholy.
“But I have known firsthand the destruction I can bring. For wood and leaf and beings and even the whispers… can burn. So I satisfy my yearning with a name. I like to imagine there was another place, or another time where I’d been able to live among them, to enjoy both cycles we are chained to as a free observer instead of a prisoner.”
At that the other tossed his head. “It benefits not to think of what one could have. You exist now, as you are, as a great benefit. Your duty holds much weight. Pick up the mantle of your destiny.”
Sylvain flicked at the rings of Saturn, sending them spiraling. “But I asked not for it. What a cruel fate it is, to be sure, to have it thrust upon me.”
“Enough.” The other turned, gaze burning star cores through his violent eyes. “Enough. I insist to hear no more of it, Sylvain of the forest.”
“You are ignorant then,” he pressed, childlike, “it is only because of your own luck that you cannot understand.” Because of that luck, able to feel the wind and touch the ground.
The man with the stars in his hair tilted his head, silent. Assessing. Making Sylvain feel smaller than the tiniest speck in the sky. He waited for his admonishment, but to his surprise, the other only hummed to himself.
Sylvain’s burning curiosity won over his self-restraint. “I apologize. I mean no offense or discordance, forgive my outburst. Please, will you share what you are thinking, or am I always to guess what is behind the neutrality of your gaze?”
The other’s hum flowed gently into a sigh. “You can be quite rash, but in this instance I shall acquiesce in order to keep our exchange fair. I was caught amused, for it seems you have already guessed my name.”
“Your name?” Sylvain repeated, quirking a quizzical brow.
“Correct. You have already stated thus aloud, albeit in common meaning and not by name in its own right.”
“You tease, surely,” Sylvain lamented, “to think I will understand so easily. For there are many words I have stated, and many still that have gone unsaid.”
The other only smirked. “Surely one so confident as yourself can deduce the word from previous declarations?”
“Please,” Sylvain begged, desperation evident and taking them both by surprise, “let me hear you say it, let me know you as you now know me. For what is more intimate than knowing one’s name, when there is no other way I can know you?”
At his words the other glanced away, cheeks coloring with spacedust, and Sylvain grinned bright.
“Please?” he risked once more.
The other closed his eyes, almost disappearing into darkness. Breaths held, waiting. Time slowing to a crawl.
“Luck.” Whispered on the wisp of a comet’s tail to wrap around Sylvain’s form. “The word you spoke was luck. The name of the one you address is of its ancient form: Felicis. But you, Sylvain of the Forest… may call me Felix.”
“Felix.”
It glowed like starlight over Sylvain’s tongue. He repeated it once more, reveling in the way it made the other thrown off-kilter. Sylvain never wanted it out of his reach.
“So tell me, my sweetest Felix—” he chuckled as the other pelted him with a meteor, “did one choose his name such as I, or was it given?”
The other scowled at the nickname. “It has always been known. Unformed until the words were spoken by those far away, long ago. But while you, Sylvain, believe I have luck… the name is more a curse.”
“A curse? But surely—”
“Hush and you will receive the explanation you are too impatient to wait for.” He seemed to shrink away, the air becoming heavy. “For so long I was surrounded by darkness. For it is in its nature to be all-consuming, endless in its void. The day you came to be, Sylvain… It was the day I was granted light. For you, for a time, were the only brightness I could see when lost in my own grip of night. You may not feel the ground of the forest or the whispers of trees, but you pull many from an endless mire of emptiness. So you see now, why it is wasted effort to shirk one’s duty.”
Speechless, Sylvain could only burn gently, yearning more than ever to surround the other in the warmth he deserved—a warmth he is ever denied. A warmth that would forever be given.
“Then this will be my main purpose from here forth,” he declared, tangerine flaring through the space between them, “I will shine bright for all who need me, but first and foremost, for you. I will not leave you in darkness for as long as I shall exist. This I promise.”
“You are a fool,” the other whispered. There was no weight to his words, only eyes shimmering with the melted ice of comets.
“A fool to be sure,” he easily acquiesced, “and this fool is lucky to know you, Felix.
He was rewarded with the softest of silver smiles.
★
When Sylvain next awoke, it was a day like few others. An occurrence he barely had memory of, one from before he’d known words in his speech and the existence of another.
The air was thrumming with cold. As though the tendrils of darkness were no longer affected by his presence, sneaking in close to wrap him in their hold, threatening to snuff out his light. But Sylvain knew no fear—not with the presence of Felix all around him, wisps of midnight creeping towards his surfaces.
It was calming, making him settle. It was silent, and Sylvain knew it to be a tease.
“You’re here,” he spoke, confident, and two pinprick cores sparked into life amongst the velvety black and the halo of gentle starlight.
“You noticed,” the other sniffed, and Sylvain chuckled lowly.
“As though I could not notice one such as yourself.”
He risked an outstretched hand, nerves alight. Felix did not draw back. The caress of a lock of hair slips salaciously through his fingers, shifting and morphing in his loose hold. Sylvain dared not move further.
“So let me hear it.” Felix fixes him with a Venus stare. “What word have you chosen today to grace me with?”
“I worry… I have failed you. Try as I might, there is no description which comes close to what I see when I look at you. Extraordinary, otherworldly, enrapturing, they’re all empty words. Save for one: your name, Felicis. Felix. There is nothing else.”
It seemed as though for the first time, he had managed to catch the other in complete surprise. No scathing retort nor denial, just moving close enough for Sylvain to feel more fingers of darkness slip against his skin, cloaking him in the gentle burn of new starlight. It was pure rapture, and Sylvain dimmer further. Welcoming. Needing more.
It was Felix who made contact first, tempting Sylvain into leaving rock trails along the cool skin of his arm, his collarbones, his jaw, displacing nebulae into the ether.
“It is a cruel fate,” Sylvain whispered as he marveled in the perfect bridge of his nose, “to be denied of you for so long.”
“Crueler still, to waste our time lamenting,” Felix countered, lips of silk coming to brush along the constellations of Sylvain’s cheeks.
Their foreheads softly collided, and Sylvain’s eyes slipped shut, light all but going out, more content than he’d ever known in his waking world.
“I have a surprise for you, Sylvain of the forest,” he heard, so faintly it may have not even been said.
But when his eyes opened once more, he found Felix awaiting him.
They drifted together towards the planets, Felix stretching their hands ever downwards. Breaking through atmosphere and ruffling the tops of trees until for the first time, Sylvain rested on the solid, hidden earth. Stared at the shapes of loam and midnight creatures, took in the leaf-trodden paths and the surrounding quiet.
The forest.
It took him precious time to find words, spreading out under the trees, breathing in the scent of pine and oak.
“Thank you,” he whispered, as the other found a home against his chest, “it is more beautiful than I could’ve imagined—though, not so beautiful as you.”
The sentiment seemed too shallow to express the truth of it, cutting through his molten core. Today, however, Felix seemed content with it, only letting out a soft hum as he basked in the unnatural darkness.
But time was a curse none can shake, even for those who seem to extend beyond it. When Sylvain withdrew it was with reluctance, lingering to memorize the texture of cool soil and the muted rustle of leaves. But he must go. It was folly to waste but a second longer, the threat of light returning.
Felix understood. He wrapped himself around Sylvain— close enough that, for a brief moment, Sylvain could imagine them as one entity, inexorably intertwined.
“I would wait for eternity to feel this once more.” He laid a revenant kiss on an icy nose. “To have you held safe within my grasp.”
“And wait you must,” Felix answered without bite, a tinge of sorrow poorly concealed. “We have but mere moments now. Will you not claim your prize?”
“Prize?”
Felix laughed, the stars in his hair twinkling bright. “Even now, you are still a fool. One kiss I offer, for the originality of using my own name as your best attempt at flattery. I will admit, I was… impressed.”
“Ah, impressed or entirely bewitched?” Sylvain couldn’t help but answer, only grinning wide when the other huffed.
“Your callousness will render your efforts moot, I hope you know. Take what is being given, or be destined to suffer without.”
“I am not so foolish as to deny what thou desires, my dearest one.”
Hands found the sharp planes of Felix’s face, bursting pinks and purples and sending up clouds of stardust. The moment spanned centuries as he closed the negligible distance between their lips.
It was like dipping into pure silver, cool liquid velvet, the only warmth from breaths escaping as sighs. Fueling the flames buried in his body. He could live in these seconds for thousands of years; in another life, they could consume each other and create something new with both of their bodies. Many thoughts passed fleeting through his mind, all going unsaid in favor of slotting ever closer.
Yet one stayed to repeat, over and over until it was all he knew.
I love him. It was more consuming than the entire existence of the universe.
And time was up.
He knew it to be true before he felt it, and he couldn’t bear to look. Clung tighter even as the pressure of Felix’s body receded, as a cut of heat burned his face, as the cold of darkness splintered away.
“When will I see you next?” he whispered, the tips of his fingers barely discerning the delicacy beneath them. A breath of laughter grazed his ear.
“When the next evening you manage to awaken comes to pass, as it is always meant to be—mayhaps by then you will have learned not to ask trite questions.” Even with a kiss, Felix was as blunt as ever. It made the parting bittersweet. “Now wake from your slumber, Sylvain of the Forest. It is time for you to shine.”
Firelight eyes greeted the day. Rays of light burst once more through atmospheres, and pieces of starlight winked out of existence to find their rest, nestled safely in strands of midnight hair.
Sylvain wept, and he smiled, and he burned. For his duty. For his promise.
For Felix.