dancing in the desert, blowing up the sunshine [Nevi, Offy, Isle]

[Lieschel]

Lieschel

She doesn't remember the run back from the Playground. She remembers nothing really as she finds herself back in the Adoption Den. She remembers her heart breaking and then shattering into a billion pieces as she had listened to Nevi talk. She remembers leaving the cave so fast it had been like something was chasing her. And then she remembers not wanting to care so damn much.

She had wandered home, mind in a fog as she tried to forget. She tried to forget the hurt, tried to push it away back where it had been. But it was strong, so much stronger this time with Nevi's family in her mind. She kept picturing them even when she didn't want to and knew that this would be her own lesson to mind her damn business.

Her conscience mind comes to her when she stumbles over a tree branch. Her chest heaving and sweat coated her little body. She tried to take stock of where she was, eyes having a hard time focusing on what was around her until she realizes that she was near the place that Nevi had spoken of. Those big trees with the branches that seem to go on forever. The ones that he had curled up against and then woke up to find his dream life.

Tears threatened the little girl and she snorted angrily, still pushing them back, still not wanting to admit what they all wanted. A home. A safe place. Someone to love them. Her tears come anyways.

And then when she gets them under control she goes to one of the big tree trunks and rests her forehead against it. Her eyes close and it is hours before she stirs. She's only glad this part of the Den isn't as crowded.

That awkward moment when you're laughing so hard but no noise comes out so you sit there clapping like a retarded seal.

[Neverwas]

As soon as I finish speaking, I can tell I said too much. Oh, not for my sake. No, every word I spoke about my family was truth, and it settles in my chest and fills up places that have been empty for too long. I don't think I could have said those words if Lieschel wasn't a lost child just like I once was. Lost, that doesn't feel quite true. I was discarded, abandoned, with a nametag sewn onto my soul that said I never was, or at least never should have been.

But she is still a lost girl, sad and lonely, with no one to hold her close and tell her that she is safe and loved and wanted, and that everything is going to be okay. Yes, she understands exactly how blessed I am, but my words must be like daggers to a heart yearning so hard for what I was lucky enough to be given. As soon as they're out, I know she will run.

And so she does. She hides her pain beneath a pasted-on smile, but I know the weight of that fake smile on her lips. I've worn it myself. She pauses just long enough to breathe in the scent of family on my skin, because I've been home long enough now that I carry traces of them with me wherever I go. Then she makes her excuses and bows out, disappearing before I can try to stop her. And what would I have done? Held her tight against me and refused to let go until Offspring and Isle came to find us? I could not have kept her here if I had tried, so I watch her leave, the ache in my chest a sad little echo of the lost boy I used to be.

As the sun begins to set, dimming the entrance to my little cave and casting the world into twilight, I rise and walk toward the edge of the playground in search of the grownups who have taken me into their home and made me theirs. When I find them though, I hesitate, not quite knowing how to ask something so big. “Um...hey, Mom?” I ask, meeting angel eyes that have always only ever looked at me with love. “I...” My voice trails off, my gaze drifting toward the ground as I bite my lip and struggle to ask. But it's not for me. It's for someone I could have been, if I had not been so unbelievably lucky.

“I met a girl,” I go on, my eyes darting to hers again, and to the deep red of Offspring's eyes too before locking on the ground again. “And she's...she's all alone, with nobody to love her. She...she ran away when I told her about my family, but I think I know where to find her.” If I were still a lost boy, and I'd heard the story I told Lieschel, I would curl up beneath those big old trees, the place where the teller had found home, and I would hope against all reason that I would be just as lucky. Even if I knew it was impossible.

And then the words start to spill out in a nervous, hopeful torrent. “I...I know it's big. A lot. More than I should...should ask, but...but she needs somebody to be her home. Could...could maybe we? Be her home, I mean. And if we can't, because I know you already took in me and Mari and that's a lot and you have Argo too and three is already big, but four is only one more which is really not so much bigger, but if four is too big I mean also we could maybe, if you know anyone, at least find her someone that can? But they have to be someone who will love her like...” My eyes find angel eyes again as my lower lip trembles, tears threatening to well up and fall down my cheeks. “Like you love me. Someone who will never let her be lost again.”

I can lead them back to the den, to the neverland where lost boys and girls try so hard to not grow up into lost men and women. Mom will recognize the sprawling old trees, because how could she not? And that's exactly where I know Lieschel will be waiting. Hardly daring to hope, because hoping hurts too much when you have nothing and no one to hold onto. It's okay, Lieschel. We won't let you be lonely for long.

[isle]

hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river

She is tucked perfectly against the crook of his neck when Nevi comes back to find them, her shoulder pressed to the beating of his chest and her breath warm on his skin where whiskered lips trace pale pink scars. There was not a single day in her past where she had imagined her future would be so full. There had been too much loneliness, isolation forced by the way her thoughts wandered and the way her mind had a tendency to slip into places it shouldn’t be, places she wasn’t welcome. For three years the only family knew, the ones she had not hid herself from out of resentment, were the leaves in the trees and silver stars in a sky that threatened to consume her. She had known then that it was the life she deserved, the only one she deserved, and she had embraced it willingly.

Willingly, until war found Beqanna, until war found her. It had leaked into her thoughts, or maybe her thoughts had leaked inside it, but she had been blind with the fear that took root in her belly and chased her from the safety of those lonely in-between places she hid in. The empty spaces between kingdoms and herd lands, with no bodies and no thoughts to haunt her days. So she had run, until her bones were brittle and her heart had beat itself ragged within the confines of her chest. She had run until she couldn’t run anymore, until she had found solace in a patient stranger with worried red  eyes who let her trace the stories of his scarred flesh so that she might forget her own scars in that instant.

Everything had changed then.
This life was more than she ever deserved.

She shifts to embrace Nevi when he joins them, leaving a gentle kiss against Offspring’s jaw before she pulls away, and then drapes her chin over the boys withers to draw him close against her chest where he can listen to the sound of a heart that loves him so. When he speaks she listens quietly, pushing aside his wispy forelock to press a kiss against the center of his forehead. But he says something that interrupts her easy silence, something that makes her hold him even closer, even tighter- something that flushes warmth through her veins and spills over in her heart.

Mom.

She is whole.

She listens to Nevi’s tale, her heart growing heavier and heavier in her chest until she can hardly breathe around the lump that has formed in her throat. When she lifts her head to turn to Offspring, there is no hesitation shared between them, no uncertainty as she places another kiss against that hollow imprint just above the corner of his mouth. Then, turning, “Oh Nevi, my little love, there is nothing you could ever ask of me that would be too much.” She drops her chin over his back again to give his shoulders a small squeeze. “And our family doesn’t have a limit, darling, please take us to where she is. She shouldn’t have to be alone. We don’t leave anyone behind, okay love?” She can see his expression waver, see the promise of tears in the tremble of his lip, so she presses kisses to the dark angles of an impossibly delicate face until she is certain the worry has gone.

They go then, with Isle and Offspring shoulder to shoulder and flank to flank, and Nevi leading them like a shepherd to the Den. She recognizes it immediately, flinching with renewed revulsion that such a place even existed at all, that anyone could leave a piece of themselves behind like this. A piece of their heart, of their soul.

He takes them to a place she remembers well, where old trees lean with broken backs and leaves so thick and knotted they blot out the sky. She notices the sleeping girl immediately and it is entirely reflexive when she approaches quietly, her face soft and worried. For a moment she hesitates though, her chest tightening, and remembers how Nevi had explained that she had run from him. So when she continues, closing the distance between them with quiet, easy strides, she doesn’t try to wake her immediately. Instead she reaches down to brush her forelock with gentle lips, pausing when she tastes the salt of stale tears, and then traces kisses along the crest of her dark neck. “You’re so wanted, little angel,” she whispers in a voice like wings against skin, “come home.”

And it does not matter if she rouses in time to catch those words, because when she opens her eyes to see the faces surrounding her, she will know their love. She will see the pain of yearning etched into Isle’s bay and white face, know that the brightness in her eyes matched an ache in her heart, a desire to hold this filly close against her chest so that the scars of being unwanted could start to heal.

Isle

[Offspring]

BROTHER, LET ME BE YOUR FORTRESS, WHEN THE NIGHT WINDS ARE DRIVING ON.

I CAN BE THE ONE TO LIGHT YOUR WAY; I WILL BRING YOU HOME.

  Her lips press against his, and he is reminded of how blessed he is. Though his children are still fragile fragments of their future selves, he savors their youth and the ardent adoration of his lover with each passing, fleeting moment. Her kisses are gentle but pressing and this moment of solitude shared between them was a rare treasure that sent a shiver along the course of his spine - though the cold no longer phases him (as his blood, some days, is colder than ice itself), she still manages to unhinge him in the most primal, most unnerving way.

  He knew their quietly shared time together would soon come to an end - their son, Neverwas, was traipsing around (though the boy rarely traipsed - wise beyond his years; an old soul, that one) nearby and would soon return to their sides to finish their outing and return to the safe, albeit freezing embrace of the icy tundra. In an effort to soothe his lover's aching bones and stiff muscles, he'd beckoned her out today - a venture outside of the kingdom, as he left it - and Argo - within the trusted care of Brynmor. He, too, enjoyed the bright sunshine and warm caress of the breeze. Though it was still undoubtedly cold, it held no flame to the frostbitten burn the Tundra sometimes carried.

  Alas, their sweet moment is cut short, too soon - as he worried it would be - but his momentary lapse into selfishness falters upon hearing his son's pleading, heartbroken words. He stammers to them, mostly to Isle - who not only has his heart, but his entire being, and if any plea is to be made, it is to be made to her. The King is not without weakness. He studies the boy and his dark, silvery obsidian coat, and the bright tears that threaten to fall from his lashes as he speaks urgently yet hesitantly. Offspring knows before Isle ever speaks - when she looks to him, he understands her, and she understands him in turn. She kisses him, sealing their fate. Another would join their family.

  His thick muscles ripple with each stalking movement; his massive shape moving with the very same rhythm of his slender, feminine mate, who fits so flawlessly at his side. He follows with her as they trail after their son - though Neverwas did and likely always would call him Offspring, he would never see him as any less than his own son - and in time, they find themselves in an all-too-familiar place. A faint ache lingers in his chest. Though it had been many decades, he himself could remember being a young child, crumpled up in fear, anxiety and longing - and he loathed to see any feel that very pain. He stands back, knowing that his lumbering form and bright crimson eyes can be foreboding, and he allows his beloved Isle to make the first movement.

  She caresses the sleeping child so gently, and he is reminded again of how much his heart has truly grown with her in his life, and how deeply he has come to love her in her entirety. Offspring's eyes soften as the side of the snoozing filly and the loving caresses given by a mare with a heart too wholesome and too giving for this world. He will never tire of this, and as she had said to their sweet Nevi (he stands close to him now, his nose pressed to the small of his son's back, nudging his tresses in a quiet acknowledgement - You did the right thing, he says without words), they would never leave anyone behind.

OFFSPRING

the ice king of the tundra

[Lieschel]

Lieschel

It had been too long since some one had touched her. When Isle's lips touch her, she jerks her head away from what is touching her. She side steps and stumbles, falling into a heap before she manages to get back upon her long legs. Her eyes had rolled back until the whites were all that showed before she managed to get herself focused on what was before her.

She is standing, just a few steps away from where she had dozed off, those tears having taken something out of her. She blinks, staring at Isle first wondering who she was and why she was in front of her. Her eyes find Offspring and she takes another hesitant step backwards just from his sheer size. And then, then she find's Nevi's form and it takes her a moment to recognize them all.

"Nevi?" She says, turning those searching eyes to Offspring and Isle. "What did you do Nevi?" Her voice is turning hard as she searches for the pity in their eyes, immediately looking for all that might be bad. But how could she not? She's been alone so long and had to figure out her own way through things. She sees the love in Isle's eyes but does not know what it means, does not recognize what it is to be loved and so she cannot understand it. She sees the pain, but she cannot understand why the mare would be in pain either.

There had been nothing that she could have done to the mare to make her hurt so.

Fear creeps into her eyes. This emotion was something she was entirely too comfortable with. She almost sighs with the comfort of these emotions she has known. Longing thumps hard in her chest as her eyes catch the movement of Offspring's lips against Nevi's back. It hurts so bad she wonders if she is bleeding.

And then her eyes fall back to Isle's and that love that is shining there so brightly. She wonders at the emotion that makes her eyes shine so. "Isle...." The words taste funny on her tongue (perhaps because she knows what they will soon ask her) "Why do your eyes shine so?" She finally asks after a moment of silence, where her heart beat had slowed in her chest and the fear (of being left behind again, of going someplace new) had been replaced with curiosity and want.

That awkward moment when you're laughing so hard but no noise comes out so you sit there clapping like a retarded seal.

[Neverwas]

I still can't get over the way my mom – I have a mom! – pulls me in and holds me close, the way she kisses my forehead, hugs me against her, such boundless love in those gentle touches. I hold on, letting my heart heal a little bit with every brush of her lips. And when she speaks, I nod. We don't leave anyone behind. “I love you, Mom,” I whisper, my head tucked into the hollow above her shoulder. She didn't leave me behind. Now we won't leave Lieschel behind.

Knowing that is the only thing that lets me put one foot in front of the other and keep walking as we draw close to the den. Every step brings a flash of memory, of following the purple tail of the woman who gave me my name, of bumping shoulders with a star-touched colt who followed those swirling nebula legs of his far away from me without a backward glance. Every step closer to the place where I was abandoned reminds me of when I was Neverwas, a wisp of a boy with no one to care if I faded away into so much smoke and shadow. But my parents are with me, people who love me more than those strangers ever did, so I can be brave. I can be strong, so we can bring Lieschel home and make sure she never feels alone and abandoned again.

I couldn't do it without them. I couldn't stand here, so close to the place where I was thrown away like I was worthless, if I couldn't hear Isle murmuring sweet nothings in a lost child's ear. I couldn't keep breathing in this place, couldn't keep my heart from shattering in my chest if I didn't have the ice of Offspring's nose gently touching the small of my back. I sidle closer to him, pressing against the pillar of his leg and breathing in the steady comfort of his presence, and the old hurts lingering in the cracks in my heart ease a little bit.

The moment Lieschel begins to stir, I wipe all trace of that old hurt from my expression. This is about her; we're here to bring her home, not to dwell on a past that is far beyond changing. One that I wouldn't change anyhow, given the chance. I wouldn't give my family back for anything, not for the whole world and certainly not for someone who didn't love me to begin with. They are mine, and the past doesn't matter anymore. 

So when Lieschel jerks back and stumbles to her feet, eying the people I love with something bordering on panic, the only thing on my face is gentle encouragement. When her gaze lands on me, I just smile. “I found you,” I answer her simply and then I wait, leaning against my father's ice-coated leg. There is no better balm for a wounded heart than Mom's angel eyes.