Her Little Scholar
By the flames of the candelabra and the soft dusk of smoke, her brother reads. Poetry and literature -- her little scholar, she likes to think, the shadow flickering across his curls, the variable glow accenting his eyes, his nose, the way his lips are so perfectly taut, motionless as he reclines there before her.
He is in a world she cannot access.
"I'll be going to bed, then," she tells him, though she knows he doesn't care.
But he is an excellent actor and looks up. "Sister, it is still early."
"Well, it is late enough that you must light the candles. Goodnight, Octavian." He is looking at her still, his fingers loosely grasping the scroll. His eyes are the most lucid color by day, but now, though she peers and squints, she can find none of it. For a moment, brother and sister are caught in an unexpected tableau. "Will you not wish me goodnight?" she asks.
He lays aside the Virgil and stands up. He is no longer so little, she realizes, her little scholar. "Of course I will, Sister. Forgive me."
She looks away and presents her cheek for a farewell kiss, but his lips instead capture hers, holding them, holding them, and when she finally unclenches her eyes to look at his, they shudder with light and color.