this brilliant light is brighter than we've known; fenris

[luster]

She is good at pretending she cannot see how the dark waits for her in the edges of her world when Merry is near. How, for him, it will stay at bay. Allow itself to be pushed back by the radiance of her light when he is pressed to her side and she can hear the song of his little voice, the brightness in his laughter. Feel the warmth in his skin as though he is made of sunshine, impervious and safe from the shadows that have come so gradually, weaving in with her light until it is all that is left, cold and heavy in the quiet cage of her chest.

There isn’t a reason she can name, a moment where the balance inside her shifted. Not a point she can look back on and understand why the light seems tired, lost and faded and missing something -

Someone, but she doesn’t know that either.

They are beside her now, though. Like fingers in her mane, veins of black shot through the marrow of her fragile bones. It is because she is alone, because her Merry is with his friends, because her light withers when he is not there. And maybe the worst part of all is that she finds, less and less, that she minds them anymore. They have become familiar, old friends, rushing in to greet her when she slips soundlessly through the trees of the forest. They cling to the delicate angles of a faded blue face, pool in the hollows at her hips and shoulders, around her feet as she passes. And as always now, her light is quiet, flickering from her in puffs of bright and floating away into the evening.

Searching, but she doesn’t know that either.

— Luster —

so we let our shadows fall away like dust ;

@[laura]

[fenris]

well, you and me, we'd run away to be wherever our adventure awaits
and time would be a distant memory, nobody could tell us to stay

It has been years, and part of him is grateful for that.

He is grateful for the distance—in the same way that he is grateful for the open air and the rolling fields. He is grateful to have escaped, to have slithered away from the reaching fingers of her, sticky and intense as she had laid her head against his shoulder. Warning bells had sounded in his head. Alarms had gone off in his veins—a reminder that she was not his. She was not his to want, to hold, to need. He was just a stranger passing in the night, and she was magnetic, the gravity of her pulling him in before he knew it.

So, yes, selfishly, part of him is glad to have escaped that, glad to have escape.

But another—

Oh, another.

Another part of him writhes within him, hungry for a feast that was never his to have. He had grown angry at times and bitter and then apathetic. He had raged at a nameless enemy, furious at himself for getting attached to that doe-eyed girl so easily. It was easier to feel nothing and so he often did. He ignored the dreams that whispered around in the back of his mind, lost himself in long wanderings.

That is, at least, until his long wanderings brought him back here.

He should be surprised that he finds her so quickly, that she finds him, that their paths cross and bombs detonate on his chest. Sand begins to swirl up his legs, not touching him but lacing around his limbs and then climbing up his torso. The last time they had met, he had been powerless but he had dreamt of pouring sand down the throat of those who dared scar her; he had imagined ripping them apart from the inside—painting the world red in the color of them. He had dreamt of it but had been unable to do it.

Now he barely needs to reach to find the power, the desert rising within him like a phoenix.

But it has no target, no antagonist except the strange tightening of his throat.

“Luster,” her name escapes him, his voice strangely husky. He clears his throat and shakes his head, determined to remain stoic in the face of the battering emotion, so quickly flooding him again. “It has been a long time, little bird,” this time, his voice is more casual, his crooked smile charming as he takes a step toward her. The silver and cream of his mane frames a handsome face and he remains several feet from her if only because there is too large a part of him that wants to reach for her and pull her close.

well, I've been dreaming ever since I've seen your heaven when you came my way

[luster]

She does not think of him in the same way he thinks of her, does not remember what he does from that night together. She remembers him soft and kind - remembers how well he had tried to hide that from her right up until she had curled against his chest and he had held her so close. But there were no warning bells, no fireworks lighting her veins, no epiphanies to be undone by. She remembers warmth and safety and finding solace in the strong curve of his neck around her.

It is only fitting that she finds him again when it is what she craves most.

But he has changed, she thinks, as the sand rises like a tide up over his legs, further to hide the smooth dark of his body. He is almost so changed she does not recognize him, nearly pauses and turns to give this stranger room on their shared path. But he claims her with a word, a name - hers, and those dark, bruised eyes lift to a face she knows from a memory. "Fenris." She says, and the shadows writhe across her body, thin snakes abused by the light that swells in surprise to see him, in the soft half-smile that curves across her lips.

Remembering him is hard though, strikes an ache in her chest that she cannot understand, a pain that dims the light from her skin again.

Why put yourself in danger’s path?

Have I, are you dangerous?

I am, but not in the way you appear to know.

Dovev, she remembers, feels the sting of the wound he had torn into her neck. It was still fresh when Fenris found her that night in the forest, still new and frightening. If only he knew what she thought of Dovev now. Maybe it is best he does not. The scar is still there where he left it, healed pink and smooth, gray at the edges where the blue and white hairs thicken.

She blinks, winces at the way something writhes inside her, something dark and unnameable that traces a weariness in her brow that even sleep cannot touch. "Too long, I think." And her words are soft and silver, etched in the light she cannot seem to hold onto anymore. But she is smiling again at his nickname for her, little bird, he had called her. It didn't matter that it didn't suit her at all - no wings, no feathers, no beak to speak of. But it rings of a fondness, one he should have hidden deeper if he did not want her to see it, and she is quick to close the distance between them, touch her nose so softly to the side of his jaw in greeting.

“Are you still someone worth trusting, Fenris?” Just a whisper, nothing more.

— Luster —

so we let our shadows fall away like dust ;

@[laura]

[fenris]

well, you and me, we'd run away to be wherever our adventure awaits
and time would be a distant memory, nobody could tell us to stay

He wants to keep her at arm’s length. He wants to make this a meaningless moment that does not leave imprints on either of them. And there is part of him that is almost successful in this. There is part of him that is able to keep the emotion from his face, his dark eyes inscrutable underneath the mess of his cream forelock. That is until she reaches for him, pressing the velvet of his nose underneath the hard angles of his jaw. A shadow passes over his features, not unalike the shadows that she so easily manipulates around the curves of her body, and he fights to gain that casual composure. He does. Of course, he does.

But it takes more effort than he cares to admit.

At her question, he just laughs, the sound smoke and ash in his mouth and he shakes his head.

“I could be,” he replies with a roll of shoulders, turning his head to briefly touch his lips to her forehead. “Then again, there are plenty who have found me completely untrustworthy, little bird.” The nickname sticks, finding root in his mouth and easily called upon when needed. She does not bear the physical attributes of a bird, but there is something about her that reminds him regardless. Something that is constantly perched on the edges of his palm, feathers ruffled as if ready to take flight.

(Little bird, little bird.)

He shifts just slightly so that he can get a better look at her, studying her quietly. She is so similar to the last time they had met and yet different, some of the fragility having hardened and replaced with a strength he’s sure she was surprised to find. But he wouldn’t be. Even then, he had always known just how strong she could be. “Have you been keeping yourself out of danger?” The question is breathed out softly, and he cannot help the way that his eyes slide to her neck, to where her flesh had hung so loosely.

If something in him shifts, if something in the angle of his mouth hardens, he says nothing about it.

well, I've been dreaming ever since I've seen your heaven when you came my way

[luster]

Except no moment is truly meaningless. They are all important and individual, formative in some way, and this one will be no different for either one of them. Another piece of an important past, someday. She knows this even if he does not, that even the most unremarkable moments gather to mean something.

She smiles at the sound of his laugh, one side of that smooth white mouth catching to produce something crooked and imperfect. “Then I suppose this is a gamble, isn’t it.” That smile only grows when he touches his lips to her forehead and she closes her dark, tired eyes, lifts her chin to lean into it. It isn’t as brief as he means for it to be, not when she steps into him, keeps him close.

But when he pulls away to study her, she doesn’t protest. She stands still, waiting, opens her eyes again and lets them settle so dark and heavy against his beautiful face. There is a part of her that understands, a part of her that examines him in the same way he examines her. Traces the lines in his face for secret tensions, checks his eyes for shadows, his body for scars and signs of weariness. But he is so very unchanged, so very much as she remembers him from that night with his neck wrapped tight around her withers.

She wants to ask him what he found, what secrets he managed to pull from her skin with such dedicated scrutiny. But his lips part before hers can and she finds herself answering instead. “Mmm.” She acknowledges with eyes that grow just a shade darker, a shade duller. He does remember that night, her neck. She inhales deeply, looks away for a moment because remembering wakes an ache in her chest that she doesn’t want him to see, doesn’t think he’ll have any way to understand. “I’m well, Fenris.” She says so soft, the smile on her mouth nearly smooth and faded now despite the gentleness in those wild brown eyes when they return to his face. Then so much softer, her brow furrowing beneath the currents of a dark and forelock, “He isn’t what I thought, Fenris. He isn’t what he thinks he is, either.”

— Luster —

so we let our shadows fall away like dust ;

@[laura]

[fenris]

well, you and me, we'd run away to be wherever our adventure awaits
and time would be a distant memory, nobody could tell us to stay

Part of him wants to bottle this moment—hold it forever.

He wants to cradle it into his chest, hoarding it for the lonely moments he knows are to come. It’s nothing that he doesn’t deserve. This life of alone. This life of quiet. It’s exactly what he has carved it out to be. It is exactly what he has molded for himself, rejecting the company of others for his own. He can hardly be upset that he has no friends, no family, when he has done nothing to create them—in fact, done everything that he can to chase them away whenever that was even a hint of it in his life.

But something about the way she looks makes him regret it.

He is surprised by the sharpness of the pain in his chest when she talks about him and it takes all of the practice at acting like he doesn’t care to keep up the charade. His eyes remain neutral, the gaze light, and he merely looks at her contemplatively, tracing the edges that make up her tired face. “You love him,” he says simply and hates the way that it tastes like bile in the back of his throat.

He has no right to be angry for it.

He has not right to her—to this.

Still, it takes more effort than he cares to admit to cock a back leg, relaxing in the stance. He reminds himself that it’s been years since he saw her last. A fact that he can only blame on himself. He was the one who had woken up wild-eyed the next morning, running as fast and far away as he could. He was the one who had stayed that distance, making trails that took him anywhere back here.

He has no claim to her heart.

He has no claim to her.

But he burns for it, his insides scorched with everything he swallows, and he just gives her a bitter smile.

“You truly have horrible taste, little bird.”

well, I've been dreaming ever since I've seen your heaven when you came my way