Alethea’s eyes took their frustrating time adjusting to the abrupt lack of light. She stood, taught as a bow-string, willing her pupils to dilate, trying and failing to snap some light into her fingers as the details of the dark world slowly solidified. At her feet was a cat, of indeterminate, splashy color. “Oh. Hello there,” she greeted, the tension easing out of her limbs. There was a person, too, although the shape of him was still indistinct. His voice, though, was immediately familiar to her.
Or at least, she thought it was. “Torram!” she exclaimed brightly, darting forward and throwing her arms around the blotchy outline of him. But this…man was too tall, too broad in the chest – she eased herself slowly away from him, took a step back. But he’d said “long time, no see,” hadn’t he? Who else had that voice? She peered up at him, his features slowly resolving in the moonlight, realization working over her flabbergasted face. “Torram…? Is that really you?”
Thea had heard boys could have dramatic growth-spurts, transforming practically overnight into young men, but this? This was ridiculous. He was younger than her. They’d been of a height, what, six months ago? Did facial hair grow that fast? Did…pectoral muscles?
She blushed, suddenly self-conscious. Her skirt was still soaked from the lake, clinging to her legs transparently, though that was hard to see in the very dim light. Her hair hung in wet curls, like seaweed strung along the sand. He’d been cute, before. She’d flirted with him, confident in her slight advantage of age and experience. Now, he was…well. And she was still seventeen, totally inexperienced talking to young men, with whom flirting felt more dangerous. But Torram wasn’t dangerous! Was he?
“I didn’t think it’d been that long,” she said finally, obviously flummoxed. It felt odd not to be controlling the conversation. That was how you used to talk to people, you know. Like they were people, she reminded herself, a little bitterly. But that was before her beauty had become a kind of person, unto itself. And since everyone seemed most interested in the Beauty part of her, she’d let the Beauty do the talking.
“Well…Welcome back?” she ventured, smiling shyly and tucking one sopping strand behind her ear. Leto was watching the cat skeptically, her tail twitching experimentally, before the boy swept in to retrieve his familiar. “Where…or um, when? How long? Uh. What have you been up to?”
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