Solace had been born a portion of a whole, the lesser part of a complete set. But that other piece was gone, and she couldn't deny it any longer. 

(she had never been whole on her own, she had always clung to them, used them as crutches in such careful ways that they did not realize they were carrying her) 

She had not known she was grieving in the busy days following the contagion. The birth of her son, tracking down her other children, managing a kingdom alongside her wife, they had distracted her from the fact she didn't want to accept. It isn't until she had returned from the diplomatic mission to Tephra and parted with her companions - when she had found herself alone, and tired, but too awake to sleep that she realizes. Kagerus was still far away, fulfilling her duties as Caretaker with more natural ability than any would for another generation or two, and Solace had slipped away from the familiar faces of her countrymen before she knew why.

Then she had realized it, as the sun sunk low over the land that was not her home, and something had stopped her from finding her sons. Then she had felt the missing piece within herself, without her mate to divert her thoughts, she had fully felt the lack of him.

In those hours she had come to a better knowledge of her mother, even though she hadn't seen the woman in years. She began to understand the quiet unraveling she experienced, and the shadows under her eyes. 

(She never had the whole story, only pieces: the sight of a puckered brand across her mother's neck and the whisper of an unnamed sister.) 

Tangerine had taken Svedka with her in those formative years, and that was something Solace found hard to forgive. She had shaped him into her own creature, glorifying the wanderlust and nurturing the need to roam in his breast.  Without his mother's encouragement e would have outgrown such things, but they defined him now. And that need, It was the only thing he valued more than her.

Solace missed him more than words could describe.

There is a figure, flashing golden in dusks playful light, kindling a spark in her heart as he moves with fluidly among the birch trees. And that color, like nonother, moth nor rust could corrode it in her mind; that shade of gold causes her heart to sing.

Despite the impossibility. 

Svedka, she almost cries, but her voice abandons her. Maybe a part of already knows that it is not him, but the feeling part, the secret part, does not, and there is a moment where the earth moves below her and she finds herself reaching for his shoulder.

Her eyes seem to open then just before contact, something is off, and she sees him the way he is as her lips brush across his skin. It's too late now to recoil, and she completes the gesture before accepting that she is wrong.

(under any other circumstances, the sight of Kagerus' firstborn would have put a smile on her face and a joyous greeting would have filled the space between them.) 

"Abysm," Solace admits, and she can't help the way her voice chokes her. She is scrambling, can he tell? She is flustered as her wings stir at her side and the heat of the summer is suddenly sickening.  

"I'm glad you found us," she recovers huskily, but when her crystal eyes lift to his she can not hide the brokenhearted longing. 

"Lets us go to the others..." she suggests. But how easily Kagerus' boy sweeps aside her veiled plea.

"Not yet..." he insists, and there is nothing but hushed innocence in his proposal.

"...Mother," he adds, churring and pressing himself against her curves, and she winces as the undercurrent of sarcasm chokes her. But before she can reassemble her suggestion into a demand her chance to stand firm has passed, and the earth is stirring into quicksand below her little, hard hooves.

She feels the dream pulling at her extremities: the tingling in her face as he coaxes her into sleep. It was a sensation that had always left her breathless, causing her heart to race in the best of ways. But it had always been her wife who had done the coaxing. The feeling of her consciousness tangling with her partner's was the height of intimacy as their spirits danced together in a world they made for themselves alone.

She had never tried to stop it before.

With a master hand, he pulls on the threads of reality around them and her body gives in through her mind protests.

His consciousness is different, and the difference paralyzes her. It repels her, but there is no way to slow the momentum of their fall. She knows that she is in his world now, she has been inside of dreams often enough to know how this worked. With Kagerus there had always been a give and take, ideas and feelings flowed between the lovers as fluidly as their touches, but here she feels he is the sole author.

Then the tide is rising, the slurping earth crawling up her legs. The air coagulates around her and her open mouth is wordless as this false-air slides down her throat. But round and wild eyes say as what her voice does not.

She is afraid.

She is afraid of the endless possibilities in this world that she knows too much about not tremble at its realization - even if she clings to the hope that this is all a misunderstanding. 

Solace does not know if her thoughts are open to him, although she suspects they are. Her jaw snaps shut and her eyes find him and she doesn't show her fear anymore.

"What did you have planned for us?" she asks, cool and calm although her tongue is thick.

Whatever it was, he was going to have to own it.