"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
The winds blow to and fro, hither and thither, through her willow-strand mane until she seems not a horse at all, but a tree. The sun beams down upon her, sliding across her body like a lover, like lips finding each tiny spot which make her knees weak. The sand scrape across her, fingernails crawling across her bare back until her skin is raw, but oh god don't let it stop.
The Deserts.
Too long has it been since Noori returned to her acrid home, as long as the new crowns have risen, in fact. No regret fills her at the thought of her failure, for truly she had entered solely to please Yael and ease her grievances. And perhaps to say goodbye to Vanquish, too. Se would always hold him in her heart.
As her eyes open to the iridescent world of the Deserts, a smile splits across her eloquent face. The Spring Goddess momentarily thinks of her third son, and fourth child. He, a replica of herself and Trekk, unaltered by Eight's devastatingly erotic magic. Guilt clenches her stomach for but a moment, for in these years of owning a thrice-split heart, she has learned to ignore the stigma against polygamy and to simply live the way she would.
And today, she will live with Sinder.
Their last encounter had been one of utter failure. When the sun shines high on this day, she makes sure that she is not followed, and that no scent of her other lovers is upon the acrid wind. When finally she is sure, Noori creeps towards the fruit garden she had created for Vanquish, the one who few knew of, save those who wandered to the brinks of the kingdom. Noori knew Sinder to be one of those creatures.
When at last she is amongst the lilies and the vines, the strawberries and the raspberries, the blackberries and the dragonfruit, and especially the cactus fruit, she raises her head and calls for him.
Communication is so vital here, in this outspoken world. It would be much simpler if he had been born female so that he could cradle his body into the embraces of others and press words into their skin. It would have been a more intimate thing, but Sinder is a male and refuses to attach himself so strongly to anyone.
Except Noori.
(Yes, except Noori)
He had made himself vulnerable by allowing her to twist vines through his blackened heart but they have since shriveled and rotted. There are others in her life, other fathers and other lovers and other children. It would never - could never - just be them.
Love does not exist.
The statement rings in the deep corridors of his mind, reminding him of his mistakes. Had she enraptured him so much that it blinded him from what he was raised to believe? Mother, father, sister. They are all gone because they fell prey to the perils of adoration and love; it was their demise and their weak link. Sinder refuses to be them. The downward spiral began but has since ended when Noori found him in the Tundra with another stallion in tow. That instant shattered everything and burned any hope he may have once had. It was then that he understood.
But she's still in his mind, rooted and indestructible.
Lately, his thoughts have slipped to brief memories but they seem to come to life when her voice reaches him and drowns his musings. Sinder turns slowly, hesitating, before curiosity draws him from the familiar oasis to Noori.
She's back.
(She'll fuck you over again)
She might.
(Don't be weak)
Love does not exist.
The hardened shell that Noori had cracked has since been rebuilt. A returned darkness shadows his face as he slowly approaches and drinks in the sight of her. It has been years. They may have had a child (or it could have been the other man's) but he has never seen him or her. They are back to where they began, the mute boy and fiery girl. With hollowed eyes, Sinder stares in unbroken silence.
My poor Sinder, though the vines around your blackened heart are shrivelled and dead, you forget that when the Spring returns, new life comes. Vulnerable though you may be and may not admit to be, Noori does not take pleasure in the recapturing of your most vital organ, the one which beats slowly, a stone in all rights. The Goddess has never felt pleased with her accomplishments. Three suitors had never been her dream as a small girl, growing alongside Kaida, nestled against her twin as the wrath of their mother burned through their tough skin until nothing but bones remained.
Perhaps that is why she now wears her alabaster armour.
He comes to her hardened, resentful, silent. The fruit - her fruit - curl towards him, grow moister as he nears, swell with infatuation (but never love, oh no). His red-and-white coat conceals all that Noori once knew intimately; yet for all his secrecy, all his silence, Noori perhaps knows Sinder better than all others. Smolder has not been seen in years, and their parents are nonexistent. Despite their estrangement, Noori understands the stallion intimately. Perhaps it comes with their child, this inner-sight.
Her exhale sounds like the last leaf falling from the mother tree.
Her inhale reminds you that Spring always comes back.
The shadow of his face conceals his emotions; Noori simply must change the angle. Like a brook running into a creek and finally to the river, Noori approaches him slowly. Memories replay in her mind (oh, how fragile had the sun-speckled redhead been, entranced by the vacancy of his being, enthralled by the way his lips felt like dripping blood as he tasted her). Their dynamic changes with the waning and waxing of the moon (had he not forced himself on her, had he not tasted the wrath of Mother Spring, had he not wrought destruction in her life by beginning a new one). And yet in this way, they are steady. For the moon comes just as the Spring does. The cycle continues, on and on and and on.
I'm so sorry.
The words are pressed into the dip between his shoulder and neck, the hollow where words feel like kisses. She does not speak them; does not break the silence which stands between them, holding them apart and together all at once.
I... Still want you.
He tastes like agony and sex, like resent and love. The words she'd almost said fall from her eyes in the shape of a single tear, one rolling down each side of her face. Her lips close around his skin, a careful kiss, an erotic reminder of how their closeness had once been their drive, their fire. She holds the position for a moment, white bark digging into his fragile skin, Goddess caressing the mortal. Oh, how sin tastes glorious.
They part like the eagle from the cliffside, all too quickly. Her cheeks have dried, though her eyes glow almost too brightly. The fruits around them have stilled, as though the scene before them has frozen their magic. Beneath Sinder's hooves, Nightlock begins growing, the small plant's berries a deadly metaphor for what they have made between themselves.
Perhaps this will speak more than words ever have.
