The Academy: A clever quote comes here.

“They tried and failed, all of them?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “They tried and died.”

Stillstillstillstill…

Leto has dark eyes; but in the night they glow with lamplike clarity, mirror-like yellow rather than ordinary brown.

The darkness calms him. But even among the shades of the Academy, he is not at ease: exposed, visible, under the weight of many eyes – birds or bats or other small animals – oppressive in ways that he cannot quite fathom or understand. The weight that trembles in the very edges of perception when her attention turns on him, uncomfortably tight and nearly overwhelming – like a pall or a noose pulling at his neck.

She speaks and he hears, but if he listens, there is no sign.

For long moments there is only silence, the shadows, and the rustle of leaves.

“I was born in it.”

The words, when they come, are almost inaudible, and he makes no visible attempt to acknowledge her. It is, strangely, not out of rudeness – he can be no more rude than a stone wall can be rude, or the mountains, or any natural force. When his voice breaks the silence, it is monotonous and passionless like the chiming rustle of reeds – musical, but inherently meaningless. Standing there, so still that even his breath seems to stop – almost invisible – his eyes focused straight forward into the night, he is almost indistinguishable from the inanimate nature around them.

Almost.

“The desert is wild,” he explains in that not-voice, “and the desert is ruthless. Anything else, I cannot say.”

If he has fond memories or any memories at all, it doesn’t show. For one born of fire and passion – fire that even now smoulders, hesitant, into embers – he might as well be made of stone.

Leto has dark eyes, and they stare straight ahead of him, and not once look at Aian.

leto
of sandworms and fire;