"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
Don't say I'm out of touch with this rampant chaos; your reality. I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge.
She comes to him as she always had – quietly, gently, before the sun has even touched the edge of the horizon, with only the palest gold amid a splendor of indigo to give promise to the idea that it will rise. The starlit sky is as breathtaking as always, and she is quietly marveling at how barren the vast and empty canvas is – if not for the constellations, it might be naked. Exposed. Even the volcano is quiet, surely rumbling beneath the surface but there are no heavy plumes of smoke to shroud the island in a haze of gray, and so the view is unfiltered, unmarred. It is perfection.
She would miss the dry grass caressing the underside of her belly, and the warm spring carved into the soft and supple ground, as if it had been made only to rest weary bones in and nothing more. She would miss the crevices carved into the mountainside, where solace and tranquility could be found, and she would miss the sea cave that opened at the mouth to the tumultuous and roiling ocean tide, where she had birthed her children. Where she first felt her love for Dahmer blossom in the early morning light, as he cradled a son born from unexpected circumstances as if he held the entire world to his heart.
Her cheek brushes against his shoulder, dark in contrast to her own, as the soft ivory of her own finely preened feathers entangle with his of deep cobalt. Side by side. Her good eye is settled upon him, observing the intensity of his stare, knowing that he must be lost to his own contemplation – about the starlight, the island, anything at all. The burden and weight (and honor and glory) of the crown is heavy but he is wearing it well. Standing taller. Standing brighter. A faint smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, knowing that the information she carried to him would be difficult, and somehow trying.
He would be disappointed. Angry, even? She hoped not, but she had promised Dahmer she would follow him to whatever end, and she meant it. He held her heart, and she had never been content to simply be, and her time amid the sulfur and volcanic rock had come to an end. She cannot suppress the hope that he will understand; that he would see Dahmer and her taking the helm of Sylva (that of which has caused so much pain and suffering to so many!) as a good thing. An alliance. A strengthened bond, across the anxious sea and over the rolling hilltops, through the endless forest.
She could only hope that he would see it as she does; as Dahmer does.
I will be here for as long as you need me, Warrick, she told him.
She meant it.
Should she need to travel from Sylva to Tephra and back with each rise and fall of the sun, she would.
For him.
”Warrick,” she muses, interrupting him from what is sure to be a heavy cloaking of thought. ”I need to speak with you.”
The shift of Tephra’s leadership had been peaceful and smooth process - the volcanic peninsula welcomed him without much hesitation, and so did its people. This shift, however, already weighs heavy on his heart and his head - there is much to consider with his home as it moves beneath his guidance, and the navy-winged stallion cannot help but feel a little bit inadequate; is he ready?
He knows nothing of the inner stirrings of Ellyse’s mind as she finds him within the depths of twilight, tenderly finding him with a gentle brush of her cheek against the auburn of his shoulder. The peace he feels in her presence is astounding, and he wonders if she truly knows how much her friendship means to him, and with widened, gentle eyes, he turns to meet her gaze. He can feel the soft rustle of their velvet feathers as they meet so familiarly, ivory and indigo blending beneath the dying starlight.
‘Warrick. I need to speak with you.’
She is soft as she stands beside him - something that is also unfamiliar and almost unsettling - nearly hesitant in the way her voice leaves her throat. The unfamiliar weight that clings to her voice strikes something in his chest, and though his gaze is already fixed on hers, the expression changes - he wonders what she is bringing him beneath the rising morning light - and his eyes search her face imploringly, worriedly. His wings flex slightly and the cobalt sheen of each individual feather glimmers with the movement, rustling with an anxiousness he has not felt in a long while.
His heart thrums smoothly, but it is hard and strong against his ribcage. He inhales deeply, turning his face towards the sea, where the sun now proudly rises - his first official day as Tephra’s Overseer has begun. With a shuddering sigh, he exhales. The sea breeze begins to stir as the heat from the sun warms the air, the briny wind familiarly brushing through his mane and feathers.
“What has happened?” His voice filters through the thick, ashen air with a robustness from the morning, his face expressionless as he watches the sun rise over his ocean.
His mind reels with the possibilities, but he remains stoic as ever, never showing the intensity that is beneath his auburn face.
Don't say I'm out of touch with this rampant chaos; your reality. I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge.
He heard the soft tremble of her voice; the uneasy cadence of her tone – reaching out to him with uncertainty, as if drawn to a flame she is almost certain will burn her. The sun of her own rule had fallen, and the sun had only just begun to rise with his own, and change had come so much sooner than she had anticipated. He could not possibly know the horrors she had seen. He could not know the anguish of having his eye torn from his socket; of being marked by a beastly creature not unlike the one that once held her errant, wayward heart. He could not know the way the volcanic island held such darkness for her – neither dusk nor dawn could chase away the shadow beneath her sullen eye socket and gold-laced eye.
Tephra held a part of her, and it always would – but no longer is it a land of promise; of contentment. It is a constant reminder of the fire wolves that had torn her away from Dahmer, chasing each into the dark abyss of a merciless God’s lair, where torture and torment had festered into gaping wounds that could only mend in time, but never be forgotten. She is never at ease along the tumultuous sea; not as she once was. She can still feel the despair in the hollow of her chest at the memory of Ledger turning on her; the weight of betrayal as he sought to spill the blood of her son Smoak onto the soft and supple ground below.
She can still hear the shrill cries of desolation; she can still hear her father’s dying breath –
She could never shake it; she knew she never would.
But the longer she remained beside the seaside cove that had been her undoing, the deeper and heavier the burden became for her – and she knew Dahmer felt the same.
It was time to move on.
There is a softness in her eye that is not often found, tracing the hardened jawline of Warrick, and the darkness of his cobalt stare, pointed to the endless ocean that lay before them. His expression is one of indifference, but she has known him too long to be fooled by it. He held onto it as feebly as she did; and just as he so often saw beneath her façade of stoicism, she can see beneath his. Her lips touch the ridge of her shoulder (flinching away, after a moment – realizing she is crossing a boundary; she is falling into an old habit), urging him to look at her.
To acknowledge her, beyond the gruffness of his voice, barely breaking through the pale dawn of morning.
”Dahmer has taken Sylva,” she murmurs softly to him, watching him, imploring him to meet her gaze. ”Gryffen has been dethroned, and the forest is no longer a threat.” She pauses, waiting for the weight of it to sink in, just as her stomach does, though she cannot say why. Perhaps she is worried she might disappoint him; that she might let him down. She can only hope that he can see the promise that it could bring, to Tephra, to Beqanna.
”Dahmer has asked me to come with him,” she says softly, as a soft ivory lock of hair drapes over her empty socket, while the flecks of amber search the shadow of his handsome face. ”and though I love Tephra .. much has happened,” (she averts her gaze, then, remembering the way her wound festered and seeped for weeks preceding the torment she endured) ”and with Tephra in your capable grasp, I feel that I must go, and find a new beginning.”
A rumbling sigh transcends through his auburn chest and and his throat, falling from his lips and spreading into the morning haze as a plume of vapor, dissipating into the heavy humid air that grips them tight. At first, her declaration is one that brings him peace - the threat that once hovered over Tephra much like the obscuring and ever-billowing smoke from the mount, is whisked away in a simple phrase that leaves the alabaster of her familiar lips. Not only is Sylva no longer haunted by the white wraith and his never-ending sins, but Dahmer (a familiar face, loyal and trustworthy) has taken it under his preverbal wing, and Warrick knows without a doubt that the black stallion with ice in his gaze will nurse the forgotten land back to its former glory, and he muses to himself of an alliance that will be stronger than ever, if accepted.
However, the tightness in her voice has not faded, and thus neither has the tension in his muscled shoulders as he rolls them, trying to shake the bitter feeling of dread that curls in the bottom of his stomach, leaving his heart beating wildly with anticipation. There is something more, something that sits upon the precipice and threatens to spill over with ferocity and frigidity, and it lingers in her bated breath that hovers soothingly over his auburn flesh longingly, as if it is the last time she will smell the wind and salt on his wings, or the smoke that is tangled within the thickness of his ebony mane. Warrick still stares out to the sea, afraid to meet the pleading look he know he will find in her eye if he were to turn to face her. He can feel the soft velvet of her lips against his shoulder, an attempt to bring his gaze to hers but he does not succumb, however tempting the gesture feels against his muscled flesh and instead his skin merely twitches with the expectation of what her next words will bring him.
Then, as if the words previous to her next phrase were meant to soften this final blow, she unleashes the reason she has found him in the early morning light,
‘Dahmer has asked me to come with him,’
He does not think his heart is breaking (his love for her will outlast any sort of ill-will he could think up to harbor against her), but he can feel a piece of himself, a sliver of him falling away, crackling and shattering with defeat and sadness. It is now that he turns to look at her, his eyes wide with concern and disbelief, the sharp angles of his face that once held indifference now falling away to the softness of sorrow, unmasked in the brightness of the morning light. The break he feels is familiar (it is much like what he feels when Tangerine leaves him for the spring and summer, with her need of changing scenery but always the promise to return), and he is not a stranger to the strong grip that now twists around his heart. His cerulean eyes click into place as he meets the gold-flecked of her one iris, and though he tries his best to remain stoic and resilient, he cannot hide the turmoil beneath his gaze.
No, he wants to tell her. No, you must stay - what if something happens? What if I need you? What if he cannot wield the sword of leadership without her steady guidance, the frigidity that she has that he often lacks? He is a weaker ruler without her, he knows, and the selfishness that tears through him nearly leaves his lips in fervor, wanting to give her a convincing argument for her to remain here, in Tephra, where she belongs. But as the winged-bay’s eyes trace over the sullen socket that attempts to see him though it no longer can, he swallows hard his words of desperation. The decision has already been made, and no amount of pleading or logical reasoning on his part would sway it. Part of her is already gone (though when it had been lost, he cannot place it) and she only remains here now to say goodbye to him, as all good friends do.
“You will always belong to Tephra, Ellyse.” His voice is rumbling with finality, intent on remaining unwavering and solid despite the ripple of uncertainty that plagues him. “But Sylva needs you, Dahmer needs you - and you need them. I trust your decision, as I have trusted all your decisions before.” A pause, and suddenly the formality of their conversation slips away and he reaches forward to brush a tendril of ivory forelock away from her pale-golden face, a tender gesture. “I will miss you,” he admits to her, with a softening in his voice that threatens to break.
Don't say I'm out of touch with this rampant chaos; your reality. I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge.
The flicker of respite in the dark turmoil of his gaze is not enough to quell the uneasiness inside of her; it is fleeting and when the admission of her departure has left her parted lips, softly and quietly, it is all but swept away like granules of sand by the ravenous ocean tide. In its wake, trepidation, and disbelief fill the shadow of his features, usually so soft beneath the pale morning light of dawn but suddenly hardened by resolve. He is withdrawn, pulling deeper into himself, keeping himself under a tight lock and key and the realization is heavy and painful for her – that he desired to keep her out at all; how far had they fallen?
She can remember the endless summer nights spent with him beneath a splendor of starlight as if it were only yesterday. Whatever was shared (caresses too intimate for friendship, but yet too gentle and reassuring to be anything but) seemed to have been long forgotten and set adrift at sea, but her memory is an anchor, tethering her to the way she used to lean into him while pushing away the darkness of his uncertainty. There would always be a small piece of her that would wonder what could have been, if neither heart had been broken those years ago. It had always done her good to chase the doubt away from his starlit-laced eyes, for however short a time she could.
She cannot seem to brush the melancholy away this time, and it causes her heart to clench in a way that is unexpected. Her breath is stolen, if only for a moment, and held tightly in the confinement of her throat, while the golden flecks of her one eye search his broad features imploring – seeking any remnant of the shy and heartbroken boy she had come across along the volcanic shoreline so long ago. He is there, buried beneath a façade that she is not accustomed to, but he must harden his skin and prepare for the weight of leadership.
It should be expected that he might tuck away the tenderness of his heart, but from her?
And then, all at once, he is as he once was. Open, vulnerable, with the raw ache of his emotion rising rapidly to the surface and though she has never taken any joy in seeing him suffer, she is relieved to see the softness of his gaze, where worry and sadness have taken hold. The sunlight swathes the darkness of his indigo-painted features in the soft light of daybreak, but not even the promise of vast, endless skies of cerulean and dry grain gleaming gold beneath the light of the sun can fill the void growing larger and deeper between them. The sun is forgotten, and she can only focus on his words – formal, unbending and suffocating the emotion swelling in his throat.
Unfamiliar, but nonetheless, the stoicism and evenness of an Overseer.
Her breath is finally exhaled, though she does not fall into the same trope as he – she has always been one to ride emotion when she should not (her exile by Zeik, the scathing exchange with Heartfire), and as such, she could never serve the purpose of Tephra as wholly and truly as Warrick could. She is anger, strength and ferocity defined, and her scathing retort and vengeful retaliation had no place on the volcanic island (not when it had once been founded as a sanctuary; she is too harsh and too unforgiving to fulfill the vision that had once been).
In Sylva, she would never have to be anything less than what she is.
In Tephra, she is constantly reminded of everything that she is not.
The revelation suffocates any remaining doubt in her mind, but it would never be said to him in a way that he could understand – he would always see the volcanic island as much hers as it is his, but he cannot see that he is the island, and he is all that it would ever need. Her shoulder presses into the ridge of his own, while the entanglement of her ivory feathers mingle with his own of stark indigo against the warm light of dawn. At last, he reaches to her, brushing away the paleness of her tousled tresses, draped over the emptiness of her eye socket.
She reaches in return, brushing her lips across the curve of his cheek (she shouldn’t, she knows), her heart thrumming in her chest. There is so much she is left wanting to say, but she cannot find the words – not as his gaze is met with hers, heavy and laden with sadness, and she presses a soft kiss beneath his eye – wanting to see the uncertainty and dread and apprehension melt away. I will miss you, and finally the corner of her mouth is upturned in a smile, and a chuckle rises to her parted lips.
”You know that you can always call on me, should you need me,” she murmurs quietly (almost a whisper dusting across the russet of his skin). ”I have faith in you, Warrick – Tephra was always meant to be yours,” (she has said it before; she would say it a thousand times if it would make him believe it) ”I love you,” she breathes (Dahmer had broken through the barrier of her iron-fortified wall and opened her heart in a way she had never before imagined; and she had seen too much death and destruction to not know when to seize the moment) ”and I will miss you, too.”
The stallion struggles to keep his composure, to become truly the Overseer he is expected to be and to remain a facade of strength and regality that comes with the title, but the reality of the situation consumes him, and his heart cries out for sadness, distraught clear and overbearing on the darkened features of his face. There are few in his life that understand him so fully and intricately as the golden and white woman before him does, and it pains him to see her leave him - it is a severing that he prays can somehow be avoided, even in this moment as she stands before him and bids him a final goodbye.
She had been a beacon to him since as long as he can remember, and now he will be forced to create his own light, to trust in his own instincts without her constant guidance and encouragement. He does not blame her for wanting to leave the tepid country, to search for a land anew with her partner, to leave behind the memories and pain that lingers within every volcanic spyre and ocean wave - he could never blame her for that, nor could he hold resentment for her fulfilling the desires of her heart. Warrick’s Tephra is painted in a different light, vastly different than Ellyse’s Tephra - where his home holds the hope of prosperity and growth, hers only serves as a reminder to what has been lost, and to what she has lost.
Warrick will not make it harder for her to leave than it already is.
He won’t add to the difficulty that trails in the edges of her voice, or the reluctance that resounds within the necessity of her departure, though he will not brush away the sorrow that hangs above them, despite the brilliant sunshine that now bores down on them. Warrick feels a slight relief when a simper of a laugh reverberates within her parted lips, her breath warm and even on his russet skin, savoring the velveteen of her ivory feathers as their softly preened touch intermingles with his own, relishing the moment and storing it in his mind for when he may need to retrieve it, on a day where he finds himself weak and unfit for the crown.
“Ellyse,” he speaks her name solemnly, fervently, as if it is the last time he will hear it come from his own lips. “I cherish your friendship more than I can begin to explain - I will always consider you as family.” He pauses, the tightness of his lips that had once pulled into a frown now releasing as a tiny hint of a smile finds him, and though his cobalt eyes shine with unshed tears, they sparkle with adoration. “I love you too, dear friend.”
“Go in peace,” he says, pressing his russet forehead against her own, inhaling deeply the scent of her and closing his eyes momentarily. “May we meet again.”
He falls silent as he awaits to hear her wings as they outstretch and take to the skies.
