Those words. The tone of them rung through his ears like the finest silver bells that man could forge. Hot metal seared his flesh and he moved his back half, pivoting his body so he could see her standing in front of him. How she had caught him unaware, he was not quite sure. But the butter that rolled off her flanks suggested that she was as sweet as she was slippery – it was a taste and a smell that he was only slightly familiar with.
A blinking memory, a lapse in judgment before he had hidden himself away from the world – the vision of jack o’lanterns and haunted treats infecting his mind like a sticky sweet cavity.
And then in his mind he knew this girl was his.
But he would not for the life of him say it. Who in a generation would guess that the one person who could come upon him and be the first to greet him in years would be one of his own? Indeed, his only. He was greater than the need that burned his loins. The need for experience and survival, to run from the magic, to be normal, like the rest of them. This magician’s son, looking upon the mare with a distant regard, flecks of remembrance of her mother, gone just as fast as they appeared. Did she know? Was that why she had appeared out of the myst? Were the traits embedded in his blood present inside this one as well, hence why she was able to entrance him so?
These questions plagued and bothered him. Manhattan was always so sure of himself, and never questioned his motivations, even if he afterwards found that he regretted them. It was the magic. It had to be. It was infecting him.
He tilted his head, and tossed his ginger hair aside as to give her a view of his eyes, serious and steady. Would she recognize him? Would she even care? He backed up a step, kicking up dust, before blowing out his frustrations to the wind. If he was going to have company, he’d rather it be someone he sort of recognized, rather than a perfect stranger. He had no time for making friends.
“Hello.”
Simple and off putting. It did not further the conversation, but rather, put the ball in her court. What was her reason for approaching him?
Was it the magic?
MANHATTAN
Baby, I'm from New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of;
there's nothing you can't do.
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of;
there's nothing you can't do.