Twisted Dreams

Horns

One of the pair of boys glanced up at the other.

"What?"

"...Nothing."

He looked back down at his book, but he was too busy thinking about the other one's eyes to focus on it. They're a strange color, he thought. They were the orange-brown-copper color of rusty gears. They were dark and rich and oh, how he wished he could look at them once more.

The other was thinking about purple. It was a beautiful color. And it was definitely a coincidence that the first boy's horns were a dusty lavender.

Of course, the first didn't know that he could see his horns.

"Of course I can see them!" he wanted to say. "For I have a pair as well!"

Behind the layer of exasperation, he had to reason that the first most likely had no idea the other had any horns at all. They were quite small, and his curly hair covered them up fairly well.

The first's horns were, in contrast, curved, wide, and ridged, like a ram's. They curved around his ears to just beside his eyes, hovering at the corner his peripheral vision.

The other couldn't think of a situation in which he could talk about the horns with the first. His parents knew, of course, and they both have horns as well. In fact, everyone he's ever met has them.

His parents have reminded him enough to not talk about his or anyone else's horns that the rule is nearly always at the forefront of his mind. He obeys, because he has no good reason for doing otherwise. Though it has made him wonder.