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The two friends hit the dirt hard, causing a small cloud of dust to rise up from beneath them as they skid slightly on the ground. The bartender turned and walked back inside, having just released the two clearly underage boys by the scruffs of their necks onto the ground outside.
Koschei stood up first, brushing the dirt and dust from his clothes indignantly and looking around him. The Red Fields were whispering behind them in the breeze, their long thin blades of grass swaying, as if to a song.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, feeling the cool night air on his face, the breeze stroking his hair. He opened his eyes and looked down, in turn offering out his hand for his friend.
Theta was still sitting in the dirt, his arms outstretched behind him, propping himself up. He didn’t accept his friend’s offer, but rather looked up at him, a small smirk sliding onto his lips. Koschei retracted his hand after a moment and looked at Theta in confusion before the latter leaped to his feet and began running towards the fields, his golden blonde hair whipping around his ears.
“Where are you going?” Koschei called after him.
Theta slowed and turned when his boots met the red grass, looking at Koschei with an uncontrollable grin on his face. He was now just a tall thin silhouette from the light of the two shining moons behind him.
“Come find out!” he called back
Koschei couldn’t help but let a similar grin appear on his face, and he jogged to catch up with his friend who had already gotten quite a headstart. When Koschei caught up, they matched each other’s pace, even while stumbling a little and leaning on each other from the still present effects of their abandoned drinks sitting in the Citadel-side bar.
The two of them walked and talked for as long as it took for their paths through the grass to be lit only by the moons up above. The night air grew cooler and fresher as they went and Koschei took several deep breaths, trying to straighten out his thoughts and his gait. Even as the breeze grew cooler, the night itself was warm.
The two kept walking, Theta beginning to skip beside him, both of them still deep in their conversation about really nothing much at all.
About twenty minutes passed before Koschei decided to tackle Theta playfully, although he was much stronger than his friend and overestimated Theta’s steadiness, causing him to fall over almost immediately.
The two of them went off rolling through the scarlet grass, both laughing as they attempted to fight the other off. Their play fighting lasted a few minutes before they both rolled onto their backs to look up at the deep blue night sky speckled with glorious silver.
Koschei smiled when he saw the appearance of the dancing stars in the sky, a quite rare occurrence around this time of year. Each shining silver speck leaped from one place to another every few seconds, sometimes emitting a loud crack much like a fireworks display, making the night even more perfect. They lay for some time in understood silence, merely happy to be in the company of the other.
After a moment Theta raised a hand up to the sky, stretching his arm as far as it would go without moving the rest of his body. Koschei watched his friend’s outstretched fingers, looking as if he were only just out of reach of the far away moving stars. Koschei wondered, as he knew Theta was wondering too, what it would be like to be up there with those stars, perhaps dancing around with them.
He lay with his hand outstretched to the stars for around a minute before he let it fall back to his side, kindly allowing the drunken moment of childlike imagining pass with the breeze. Koschei felt Theta’s fingers fall by his own hand, only just touching. He hardly noticed his hearts speed up ever so slightly at the warmth of his friend’s touch.
He turned his head to look at Theta lying next to him, his loose golden blonde curls framing his face perfectly in a contrast to the dark grass. His gaze was still fixed on the spectacular sky above as the stars continued to dance in rhythm to a song only they could hear.
But Koschei couldn't help but look at his friend. His best friend. His very best friend in the whole wide universe. Theta was smiling now as if he could feel Koschei’s stare, but he didn’t look away from the sky. He looked absolutely otherworldly, with his skin turned a ghostly pale blue in the moonlight, and his bright hazel eyes appearing almost green. Koschei was aware of his pounding hearts now, but not as much as he perhaps should’ve been.
He thought of speaking, but decided against it after a split second. The peace in their silence said far more than whatever he could have drunkenly mustered up. And, as if Theta had heard what he was thinking, he broke his gaze from the stars and turned his head to look at his friend.
Koschei couldn’t help but think once again that his shining eyes really did look green in the light. As Theta looked back at him with his soft smiling gaze, the stars cracked and shot up above them in time with Koschei’s own hearts, and he was overwhelmed with the feeling that his best friend was possibly the most beautiful person he had ever seen.
And for a second, just a second… he heard the song the stars were dancing to.