Cursed with immortality, Mars goes on a journey with his lifelong more-than-friends partner Astral, a painfully average future-seeing mage, to find the root of magic, in an effort to ease the side effects of Astral's visions - and to finish their th...
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I whimpered and opened my eyes, but everything was far too bright for me to see.
"Sleep, Mars. You don't have to be awake yet," Astral murmured softly in my ear and I heeded his command. I did want more sleep. There was no point in trying to fight it when my body demanded more.
I awoke again but this time I felt marginally better. I was laying on something soft and the smell of nature filled my nostrils. Herbs, water, dirt, fresh air. It all attacked my nose and comforted me because those were the opposite smells of Venus' castle. Hers had smelled damp and clammed. But here, there was a smell of freedom and I revelled in it before opening my eyes.
When I did open my eyes, I was sure I was still dreaming. Bioluminescent plants shone from every corner of the world, as if the stars had descended from the sky and taken up residency here on earth.
"It is beautiful, yeah?" Astral said softly from beside me. "How are you feeling?" He helped me sit up and that's when I realised, we were not on the ground. We were far up in the trees, on platforms. Roofs made of massive leaves kept our heads dry from the drizzle outside of the platform.
"Where... Where are we?" I whispered.
"Keefe took us to his home." Astral helped me up to my feet, leading me to the small fence keeping us from falling right off the platform. We were so far up I was feeling faint just looking straight forward. I grabbed tighter around Astral's arm before I dared to look down. I couldn't even see the forest floor from all the leaves.
Even though it was in the middle of the night, it was still so bright. I had never seen this many bioluminescent plants before in my life. We had had some at the college in a greenhouse, but this was beyond my wildest dreams.
"It's beautiful," I said with a hoarse voice and looked back at Astral. One eye was back to its regular brown while the other stayed dark blue like the night sky.
"Like you," he murmured and softly kissed my cheek. "You scared me. I didn't know you could do such a thing."
"You didn't know I could scare you?" I asked as I motioned to going back to the soft pillows.
"No, that thing you did to Venus. You're no regular cursed human."
"I know." I laid back down with Astral's help and he let me snuggle up to him, putting my head on his chest.
"For how long have you known?"
"Not long. I think I subconsciously knew for longer than I'd care to admit. But I've always just wanted to be normal."
"It's hard to be normal when you're extraordinary." He ran his hand up in my hair, placing a kiss on my head.
I couldn't help but smile. "You flirt."
"All day, every day." He repositioned a little, getting more comfortable. I moved my leg up and realised neither of us were wearing trousers. And we were in nightshirts. It just meant so much that he had taken the time to get me ready for bed despite me being completely out. He knew my legs got uncomfortably hot when I slept, and that I hated sleeping in my regular clothes. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes.
