Louis is the Leader of a Steampunk street-gang and earns money as a male prostitute. Harry is a Dutch Gypsy with a prosthetic hand with a keen eye for all things beautiful.
They find each other perhaps by chance, but perhaps that the Gypsy-Boy knew...
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Harry's eyes fluttered open, the fading blaze of the stars casting deep shadows over his cheeks and jaw. He was cold, so very cold that he thought he might die. He sat up and looked around the large basket that still floated almost motionlessly in the sky. It was incredible, he thought, that something so big could stay up here for so long, but thank God it did. Around him were Louis' comrades, slumped together in a heap like a pack of dogs trying to keep warm through each other's body heat. Erin lay in the middle of them all. He'd been asleep for such a long time that everyone-despite not admitting it-was losing hope of him ever waking, yet still they stayed by his side, and they would continue to do so until the Heavens would take him back home.
Harry took his eyes off them, teeth chattering, and shivers running through his body like lightning. They couldn't fly at night, at least, not in a way that'd help them spot some kind of sign where Louis might be, but they were scared to land in case they'd never be able to take off again. They had nothing to do but to sleep and Harry was far too anxious for that.
Instead, he took a small wooden carving out of the pocket in his coat. He looked at it, observing the edges that still needed shaping, and the smooth curves that he'd already made. It was Louis, or at the very least, it was some mediocre and far less detailed form of him. With the same hand, Harry fumbled around in the dark and found his chip carving knife that he'd stolen from his father's toolbox years ago. He could remember time he'd taken it. He'd sat alone outside and watched it catch the light of the campfire while he'd listened to his father complain that he couldn't find his tool. That made him realise that he hadn't really changed that much since. He'd always been a thief, always been a quiet type, and he'd always been lacking emotion. It became clear to him that traumatic incidents didn't always change people, and by repressing his feelings towards the nightmare he'd seen, he'd eventually got over the worst part of it to live his life the same way he had when his family was alive.
Harry's knife slipped and pulled him out of his thoughts. It cut over Louis' right eye, creating a deep hole that made him appear as if his eye had been gouged out. Harry sighed deeply. It was all the same: the family he'd lost, the hand that he didn't want to put back on, the missing chip of wood that made Louis' eye- something once lost can never return.
Something drowning in tangled flames, fighting its way to get through the heat, burning up to feel the cold air. A beast suffocating among the light, struggling to scream in attempt to find help. He could no longer cry, he could no longer speak, he could no longer say a word because he knew that the flames of tangled flowers would eventually trap him forever. They'd overgrow, create a cage, a barrier, a thick wall that could never be trespassed. Those burning flowers would make a nice view to look at from the outside, but the people to stare would never know the horrors behind. Slowly, as the flowers would take over, as they'd open up and block the light, the beast trapped inside would forget the world outside. He'd finally give in, and he'd finally realise that something once lost..
