"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
03-13-2016, 11:38 PM (This post was last modified: 03-13-2016, 11:39 PM by Ilka.)
It is impossible, in this moment, not to remember the first time. She had been alone with the night, so small and insignificant beneath the stars, scared and with something dangerously close to regret bubbling beneath her skin. She had not regretted the children, never Bright and Woolf, but the details, the how, the bits and pieces hurt like glass buried in her chest. And when they had turned to look on at her with cold, apathetic eyes, she had felt her heart blister and burn away. They had never needed her the way she had needed them, never, and it hurt in a way that didn’t make any sense at all. Even now she flinches with the memory, even now with sweat dampening her trembling flank.
But the air changes and the wind carries to her the scent of sand and sun and something that soothes her fraying nerves like a balm. Shahrizai. Her Shah. Through the tension and nerves, all those wild worries she feels like stones in her chest, she realizes it will be different this time. Even if this child doesn’t love her just as the twins hadn’t, with cold steel in their eyes and ice in their smiles, it would be okay. It would be okay.
She had family now.
By the time the sun had sunk low enough in the sky to hang like coin on the horizon, there were not two silhouettes curled together in the dying light, but three. The first was a colt, small and dark like his mother but for the pair of black and white wings hanging loosely around the curve of his ribs. She reached out instinctively, tracing her lips up his damp neck and along the impossibly delicate curve of his jaw. He turned his face to her then and his expression was soft and curious with no sign of anything cold glinting in the bottoms of his emerald eyes. Green, just like Ilka’s mother. She felt her heart stutter in her chest. The second was a filly, smaller than the colt but the same beautiful blue of her father. Ilka could feel the flutter of wings beneath her skin when she reached out to trace quiet kisses along the curve of her cheek.
With a quiet groan Ilka stood, sand clinging to the sweat-dampened places along her neck and flank. As soon as her legs had steadied beneath her she shifted closer to the two small shapes still curled in the sand and brittle grass at her feet. Reaching down to the girl again, that impossibly perfect creature she and Shah had created together, she traced her lips gently along the soft ridge of her spine. “My little Heartfire.” She whispered in a voice soaked through with affection as she reached over to push aside the corn-silk wisps of her forelock away to one side of her small blue forehead. “My beautiful girl.”
But the colt drew her attention as he struggled to get his long, spindle legs beneath him. Two, three, four times he tumbled back into the sand and Ilka felt something protective tightening in her chest. The next time he tried to stand she was beside him immediately, the soft of her dark nose tucked to his belly until at last he was able to straighten those legs beneath him. His ribs heaved with exhaustion and she tucked him possessively against her side, touching the point of his hip with gentle, whiskered lips.
Her heart had wings in her chest as she looked between the twins. They were perfect, so perfect. The colt shifted against her side, rubbing the side of his impossibly small face against the curve of her shoulder and she responded instantly, stroking his neck, his wings, until he had quieted beside her with eyes that glowed brighter than emeralds. “Illum,” she breathed, naming him for the way he brighten her strange world, “my perfect boy.”
It was then that she shifted, turning her head to find Shah with a heart so impossibly full it seemed to have grown within her chest.
Sometimes, it is hard to believe that this is his life now. That she had come to him when he had needed her so badly and given to him everything he didn’t know he was missing. She mended all the missing pieces in his heart until he could forget, even if just for a little bit, that anything bad had ever happened. As he stands there, watching her trembling form, his heart hurts inside his chest. But it is not a bad hurt this time. No, it aches with so much happiness he isn’t certain how he is able to contain it.
He steps closer, almost hesitantly, as a slow smile stretches over his lips. His brown eyes cannot seem to settle, flipping constantly between her and the two perfect forms at her feet. Closer, and he can make out the details. A black boy with wings and a little roan girl, each with white markings scattered across their skin, so much like their mother.
”Ilka.”
He breathes her name, so much inexpressible emotion infused into those two simple syllables. He presses closer, his muzzle brushing her damp flesh in an embrace equally filled with warmth and relief. He stares in near astonishment at the two tiny creatures, a sudden burst of happiness filling his chest as he lowers his dark muzzle. He imitates her touch, brushing gentle caresses across wispy manes and knobby shoulders.
”They’re so… perfect.”
He echoes her words unwittingly, even as their names sink into him, branding themselves permanently onto heart. Hearfire. Illum. Whatever else may come, he knew that they would always be there, claiming a piece of his often too generous heart for themselves.
His smile stretches wide as Illum opens his eyes, large and green and so completely guileless. And then Heartfire’s eyes open, bright and impossibly blue, and for a moment, he sees himself. How he must look to her, a towering giant with a silly grin upon his lips. And then it’s gone, and he thinks he must have imagined it.
Lifting his head, he finds Ilka’s gaze, unable to quell the joy as it spills from him and curves his lips. He says the only other thing he can think of in that moment.
”Ilka, I’m a dad.”
shahrizai
hestoni x scorch
This makes me so happy, even if I am ridiculously slow <3
Shahrizai steps close to touch her shoulder with the soft of his whiskered mouth, her name hanging like a promise on his lips, and she cannot help the way she melts against him in that moment. There is so much love swelling in her narrow chest, so much affection glowing for her small, perfect family in the hollow lines of her dark, delicate face. It is so different from the first time. She can remember feeling hollow, carved out inside when the twins had looked up at her with coldly sharp eyes and then disappeared in the dark to the belly of the black night. When she finally found them huddled with their grandfather, they had seemed irritated that she felt the need to interrupt them. Never had they looked on at her with love and innocence. Never had she felt so painfully alone.
But Shahrizai had changed all of that with his smiles and his sadness, his secrets and the burdens he kept hidden from her. He had filled her days with light and bright and love she had not thought herself capable of, or deserving of, for so many years. He healed her. She reached out once more, nuzzling his neck tiredly and tasting the dampness of salt from the sweat on her own lips. “Shah,” she whispered softly, the almost gold of those quiet eyes resting gently on the blue of his perfect face, “you’ve given me everything.” She is quiet when he pulls away to meet his children, quiet, though she thinks, and I love you.
The crushed gold of those impossible eyes follow his gaze to watch their children again, those impossibly perfect little bodies. Heartfire’s eyes seem to settle on her father, and then after a moment so do Illum’s. The colt, have nursed in the moments before, toddled forward on ungainly legs until he had crashed gently against his father. The boy nickered quietly, his wings held out to the side as if to steady him, and his tail flicking behind like a tiny black scrub-brush. At first Ilka did not notice, but the longer she watched father and son, it became readily apparent.
“Shah,”she breathed, surprised, lifting her dark face to his and then motioning back to Illum’s dark skin again, “look.” Shadows hung in the satin of the boys glistening skin, subtle at first until it seemed to thicken and collect around him like odorless smoke. But the boy hadn’t seemed to notice, because his attention was directed to Shah’s long, blue legs which he was nuzzling and lipping at curiously.
With a smile still etched into the pale pink and white of her velvet mouth, Ilka moved carefully forward to Heartfire. Her nose touched the filly’s forehead, ruffled her forelock, lipped at the impossibly soft skin behind her dark blue ear. Then lifting her head to look back at Shahrizai, she whispered, “You are. And they are the best parts of us.” She pauses to try and coax the beautiful blue child to her flank to nurse, and then turns back once more to the roan stallion at her side. “I love you, Shahrizai.” Her voice is as gentle as starlight as she reaches over to leave a kiss in the hollow above his dark mouth.
ILKA
makai x oksana
@[insane], oh gosh, me too. their little family is the most perfect thing ever. <3 i
I love you. The words whisper across his skin like the softest touch, causing a faint shiver to dance across his skin. She could say those words to him a thousand times and he would never tire of hearing them. He ignores that small part of him that keeps murmuring he is not worthy of her love, of anyone’s love. This is neither the time nor place for such doubts. Instead he moves closer to her, his response falling from lips with a familiarity that should suggest he had already uttered those words a hundred times before.
”I love you too, Ilka. I don’t know what I would do without you.” His eyes turn to the twins before them. ”And our children.”
He feels as though his heart might burst inside his chest as he watches them. They are struggling to their feet, Heartfire following her brother to nurse. He cannot contain the grin that continuously threatens to spill across his dark lips, even when Illum totters over to him and stumbles against him. With an instinctual swiftness he didn’t know he possessed, his head whips around the steady the boy against him.
He knows before the words even cross Ilka’s lips. Knows that Illum had somehow inherited his dark ability. His own shadows react to the stirring of his son’s, arching across his skin to mingle with the subtle shifting of the boy’s own shadows. For a moment he is speechless, unsure how to react to this newfound realization. The ability had been a product of one of the darkest moments of his life, and for a moment, he fears that he has somehow tainted his own child. His brown eyes find Ilka, find the smile still curving her lovely, dark lips, and he feels his fears easing. She is there, so soft and perfect, reminding him of everything good that had come from those painful memories. He could never bear to spoil her happiness, not for such unfounded worry.
And then Heartfire is there, wobbling alongside her equally unsteady brother, blue eyes wide and curious. Suddenly the world has shifted as his perspective is altered. The world appears so large. He can see himself, towering and masculine, Ilka, so small and dainty when compared to him, but so very large in her young eyes. A mixture of alarm and shock spreads through him as he jerks back reflexively.
”Ilka!”
He can feel his body move, his voice vibrating as it passes his lips, yet at the same time he can see his massive frame shifting backwards.
”Heartfire! Stop!”
And suddenly his sight is his own again, his wide brown eyes staring down at even wider blue eyes framed by a surprised expression.
