Bound for trouble from the start
I've been walking through this old world in the dark

As if he could think of anything else but her. She had her responsibilities to Tephra, a son to love and raise, it's father to occupy her spare moments. All he had was endless stretches of time. He barely spoke to anyone, continuing to pace the ashland or brood in the salty surf that was his only refuge. They probably think him mad these people… They might be right. Nights are spent awake and gazing at the pregnant belly of the moon, wishing with all his heart that the consuming pain and loneliness would leave him once and for all. Berating in his mind the gods for this new torture they had bestowed on him. How much more? How much more could he take?

The moment in the cavern haunted him the most. Her exhausted sweat covered body pressed against his own with the newborn foal before them. For a moment he had tasted true peace. Wrenched away the second Dahmer had arrived. He was not stupid, there was something there between them besides the child they had conceived. Perhaps it was small but it wasn’t meaningless. A small dagger in his heart, twisting with every thought of that dark tense cavern. It had been best to stay away for fear of doing something he might later regret.

Moonlight shimmers off the surface of the waves, fetlock deep in the swelling surf. His gaunt frame still as his hollow dark gaze looks out into the endless sea, into black nothingness. What would it be like to be swallowed by the ocean? Magnus had done it once when he had died. The thought of sinking to the bottom, to feel nothing once his lungs had filled with saltwater… His haunted thoughts broken by the sound of his name behind him. He had not heard her come, had barely heard the whisper that floated in the breeze.

He turns slowly, the good eye unable to look at her fully. His heart threatens to burst open like a beaten piñata before her, the emotions storming his senses. She’s so close her feathers graze his side and he tenses, afraid of the moan that might escape from touches he had not forgotten. I have missed you…. Oh it’s almost too much, the sincerity of her words. How long had he been waiting for this moment? And yet…

He cannot allow his grudge to slip so easily. It would only be a bandaid to a gaping wound. They could not go on like this, a relationship based on uncertainty and what ifs. Only clarity, one way or another, would fix this.

”And I you..” Gravelly words filled with so many unsaid things. Forcing himself to meet her unsure gaze. ”Every second of every day, I have missed you.” Flaxen forelock grazing against the empty socket, tickling the raw skin there. ”I can’t go on like this Ellyse.”

Ledger

Bound for trouble from the start
I've been walking through this old world in the dark

His tongue is heavy, his secrets buried so far within him that it is hard to brush off the debris and release them. His heart is even harder to uncover, so frozen in it’s case of never melting ice. And yet, this mystery woman who had once loved his sire, has set before him the greatest tempest he has ever faced. It wasn’t just that night of lovemaking (it had never just been sex, not when that level of passion and emotion had consumed them both) that had threatened to chisel away his fractured heart, piece by piece. It was that sense of peace and contentment he had finally felt for the very first time in his entire life. His whole world had been built on darkness, decay, sadness, loneliness. Yet she had shown him not only complete understanding but light at the end of a very long empty tunnel. Hope which had been given up so long ago.

But how does one convey that message? How could he ever truly explain to her just what she had done, what she meant to him? Even to Magnus he could never truly explain the pain he had suffered but perhaps that was because he was one of the sources to that hurt. He had never told a single soul what had truly happened in detail that day on the Beach. Or the secret of his torment with Carnage which he held within his ribcage with the trapped bear. Cruel secrets that festered and infected him with every second he draws breath. The icicle that had pierced his heart, made him cold and angry, how could he ever explain that feeling, that sensation? Knowing he would never truly feel warmth again until she had set a fire beneath his hooves?

Her forehead presses against the hollow of his throat and reflex makes him curve over her, scooping her into him. It sends shockwaves of desire through his skeletal body, after being away from her for so long. Pulling away, a pang of regret as she forces herself into his line of view, forcing him to make contact with her. A plea, a whisper. Begging him to speak. His throat constricts, pure panic evident along the ridges of his facial features. How could he ever subject her to such terror? How could he ever force his curses, his punishments, on her?

”I…” Hesitant, that encased heart pulsating rapidly in his chest. ”I’ve never felt anything like what I’ve felt for you.” The words thick but heated off his tongue, feeling stupid as he blindly rushes through his anxious confession. ”My life…. I lost my family when I was hours old, Magnus… His breath is ragged and gasping, barely afloat in this new drowning terror of trying to be honest, to unlock those secrets. ”I’ve never known any sort of happiness until I met you. I’ve never loved anyone but..” A hard swallow, he cannot look at her and instead glances down to where her hooves become submerged by thick foam.

”I look at you and for once know exactly what I want, exactly where I want to be.” Thick murmurs that threaten to drown in the crashing of waves behind him. ”I want you, only you. But I can’t force you to feel the same for me.” And here the resentment creeps into his resigned statement, thinking once more of Dahmer and everything that had happened since he had found out she was carrying his child. Ever since he had seen them together.

It’s a pathetic attempt at unloading his feelings but damnit he’s trying.

Ledger

Bound for trouble from the start
I've been walking through this old world in the dark

For once, just once could everything be simple? Just once could something actually go right? They dance tentatively around each other, prodding each other’s thick walls in the hopes that the other would crumble first. So much hurt, pain, mind games. At the end of the day, those guarded looks and thick stubbornness would only hurt them more. Both of their anxiety simmering and mirrored in the dark reflections of haunted pupils (or pupil in his case).

Despite the fear of the unknown, the fear of rejection, he cannot turn and leave her. He can’t withdraw, too far gone. She had let him taste that pure moment of unfiltered happiness. Such a raw overwhelming feeling. So greedy for more, needing to feel that trembling want of her pressed against him forever and always. The desperate clumsy words that escape him taste bitter on his tongue and he instantly regrets saying them at all.

That is until his wishes come to fruition and she is pulling him close and his face is buried into the sweet salty scent of her tangled mane. Breathing in deep, skin of ash and brine. Feather light kisses trace alongside the hollowed slope of his neck and he is so overwhelmed to have her so close after avoiding each other for so long. The moment her heated mouth finds his own, any lingering doubts are instantly thrown out the window.

Soft curved ears gently swivel forward, his eyelid closing as he listens for the truth in her pleas. And as the last confirmation finally reaches him he steadily looks at her with such unbridled desire, suddenly so very calm amongst this raging storm they had created. ”I love you Ellyse.” Whatever uncertainty that had lingered in his mind simply disappears as the words become reality, realizing within himself how true they really were. Words he had never said to anyone, ever. Only for her. ”There is no one in this world for me but you.”

If the day came when Magnus returned then he would face it head on. Knowing his father the way he did, deep down he would probably understand. It didn’t matter anyways, nothing mattered but this. The last remaining cobwebs of doubt are shed as a strength surprising to everyone, including him, takes over the gaunt stallion. Pushing himself against her, fierce kisses pressed to her lips.

There is something different when he tastes her, when their flesh blurs against each other’s. There are flickers of stallion and bear, becoming one and the same as they both acknowledge the fire she inspires. The passion better than that first time, ignited. His touch a little harder, a little rougher, casting off any last trace images of Dahmer from his mind and from her.

Ledger