"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
They’ve always sustained one another since the dawn of their beginning in the dark of the womb. Might have gone their separate ways a time or two, but somehow - like planets in orbit - they gravitate back to one another. It is their bodies that they are most familiar with; this scar here and that scar there, the slope of spine or poke of rib, and how in the beginning it was just the two of them.
Before her —
She was some kind of strange beacon that beckoned the twins forth. Irresistible; neither could keep an inch of their bodies from touching up against hers. She was friend as much as she was something else for both of them. Something neither of them could say out loud.
But it is her scent and the knowledge of her return that sucks them back out of the wilderness to here, the land of the tall once-burnt trees. Spear is leading them, and his mane and tail are pure living flame. Spark follows, as she so often has, but her nose is to his hip and she is feeding off his magic and letting it make her mimicry fierce and hot until she has sprouted flames along the smaller parts of herself like her mane, tail, ears and hooves.
It has been a long time since they’ve seen her or she’s seen them. Change has caught up to them all but some things never change like how the twins find her and dim their flames to openly embrace her between them. Their mouths share the same murmured word, her name- “Lilitha.”
I watch the city burn, these dreams like ashes float away...
It has been so long. She spent most of her days without them alone, years stretching into eternity that only shifted into something new so recently. A small baby girl could almost always be found pressed up against her chest, hiding her face, wings tucked close around her for security more than for warmth. Singe was the first one to really need her, to really want her around all the time, and she’d stolen Lilitha’s heart with those big brown eyes.
Lilitha was happy to fuss over the girl she’d claimed as daughter, found in the wood lost in fire and fear. Singe was still lost in fear more often than not, clinging to her new momma’s chest just like she was now, with very little interest in making friends or exploring or frolicking like a child should. She still hadn’t spoken a word, so afraid her voice would burn the world down around her again.
Lilitha would make sure she came around.
Today though, the girl slept curled up against the base of one of Taiga’s towering trees while Lilitha grazed nearby, keeping a watchful eye on her until heartbreakingly familiar faces emerged from the trees, so known and yet so different. Just, she supposed, like her own. Scars marred her skin, a slash through her left eye and down her cheek, a wicked old burn across her chest, claw marks littering her sides and slashes along her hind quarters from the dark god’s wolflike monsters ravaging Taiga.
The twins, though, they were changed by fire in a different way, both burning in ways she’d never seen from them before. Flame flickered to life on her skin, mimicking the way it licked their necks, their tails. Her eyes widened and her heartbeat kicked up, nervous somehow at their approach. It had been years, and for a moment she wasn’t sure how to behave, whether it would be the same or awkward and uncomfortable and--oh.
They wrapped themselves around her just like always, and she melted into the pair of them with a soft sigh, trailing her lips along flame-licked skin each in turn. “Ohhh, I’ve missed you so.”
The twins had been so caught up in themselves. So selfish! That they hadn’t forgotten her but they hadn’t asked her to come with either one of them, or be the glue that held them altogether. It seems at once both merciful and cruel that they hadn’t and shame hangs heavy on their hearts, even shows in their faces as a look passed between them.
Naturally they had outlasted friends and lovers alike.
Except for her. She remained. Bright and strong in their minds. A beacon of friendship (sometimes, more) and faith that burned and brought them home to her. Hasn’t it always been like this? She comes, and they follow after. Drawn to whatever it is that animates her and makes her so strong and everlasting.
But she has more scars than either of them do.
Even has a burn-mark as if her fire has turned on her.
They share another look between them.
Twin sets of eyes catch the flame that ignites on her skin and their faces break into easy familiar smiles. It’s the sort of fire that engulfs but doesn’t burn them, leaping across their skins to one another. Her lips blaze trails across them and their lips do the same to her, sometimes nipping tenderly here and there as they familiarize themselves with every inch of her all over again.
“We’ve missed you too.” they say as one, something in their hearts settling that had always been rattling around. Spark is the first to murmur an apology and Spear’s follows wordlessly as his mouth moves over Lilitha’s flaming neck.
I watch the city burn, these dreams like ashes float away...
Somehow it was always so easy to fall back into their arms, to hold them close, let them wrap themselves around her and welcome her home again no matter how long it had been. No matter how much they’d all changed, no matter what they’d been through. She melted into their mirrored embrace, sighed softly as they touched her skin, lips not shying away from a thousand new scars that sprawled and slashed their way across her body.
She kept touching too, basking in the heat of their skin, reveling in the scent of them after all this time. “You’ve changed,” she murmured, letting her fire flicker back to life and touch them too, tracing fingers along their sides where she couldn’t reach, coaxing them closer still. “Seems we have a lot to catch up on.”
Later, though.
She drifted back and forth between them, lips touching one shoulder and then the other, trailing lines up each neck in turn, rubbing her cheek against their skin, burying her face in their manes and breathing them in, letting their mingled scents wash over her and ease something inside that had been searching for so long. She’d spent so much time alone, most of her life, and even the fierce joy of having a brand new baby daughter sleeping so nearby hadn’t diminished the ache in her chest, the quiet yearning to be wrapped up in love.
To be wrapped up in home.
Their familiar scent soothed that ache, though, and she murmured, “Tell me?”
Their mother had scars; a very nasty life-ending one in particular that triggered the mare’s immortal beginning. To them, scars are stories to be read by eyes and lips against the puckers of grown-together skin. Some of the best stories have begun with a scar. But neither of them asks her how she came by so many; how her flesh used to hold so few blemishes but blossoms now in tales of trials and tribulations that have left their mark on her.
Their half-red gazes meet over her back, above the smiles that find their mouths roaming over whatever inch of her they can and do touch. Each of them could have sighed at the flare of fire from her that began to touch them. It coaxed the fire-centric magic in Spear to life until he seemed to ignite from within, giving off small sparks that lingered in the air around them. Spark felt her mane and tail alight, the rest of it wanting to burn away her pale skin.
Both of them simper and smolder. It is true, there is a lot for them to catch up on but later. Now is lips and wordless murmurs and something that all three of them have been missing, but is always found once they’re all together. Spear and Spark let her move between them, anchoring herself with touches and small personal sniffs that ground their scents in her mind as much as she is grounded in theirs. Each of them had found love only to lose it, but there was always Lilitha - black and red, fire and shadow.
Neither of them could ever forget her. She stood out, even after all the time that has passed between them. Then, she asks and they share another look between them - who will begin? Spark does, it started with her after all. She lays her black-bonneted head upon that sable back, content despite the minimal traces of pain that underline her tone as she talks.
“It’s been so long, so much has happened - the Reckoning saw us joining our father in the founding of Tephra. Well, mostly me as Spear came and went.” He rolls his eyes at her, he’d been there enough then not and it was the not part that sickened him the most. It shows in his eyes - the regret, at not having been there or come soon enough to prevent all that happened next, but it changed Spark for the better.
“I met someone, fell in love, but it was doomed to say the least. Things happened and he left, then I grew sick.” Here, she pauses to separate herself from the tangle of them. Spark begins to glow, like soft firelight at first. Then she ignites, as flames sprout from her flesh and the grass underfoot begins to smoke and turn to ash. “Out of that sickness, came this.” and her smile is resplendent before she dims, dousing herself without a second thought and a quick dragging inhalation from Spear as if he ate her fire.
Spark moves in close, shoulder touching shoulder as they give Lilitha time to process this. Later, Spear will have his turn.
@[Lilitha] this would have been so long if I didn’t break it up haha ❤️
