"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
Daemron comes quickly to her summons, but the moments Trekk and Noori spend pressing themselves together remind the mare of so many things she has forgotten in wake of the magician, of the rapist, of her children. These passionate caresses have been erased from her memory in the light of things far too intricate for her to understand. When they are together, however, they are the simplest form of love. If only she had not done what she had, maybe they could have concentrated on being motes of dust in the land of Beqanna, eternally in love but forever nonexistent.
They part from one another, and the confusions of life dirty the clarity of what they once had.
Her baby boy comes slinking to her side, attaching himself to her confidently. The she-wolf has come too. While the boy muses over Trekk's arrival, Noori curves her neck, straightening the willow fronds which tumble down his oddly coloured face. Warmth begins radiating from Mother Spring, and flower petals rain down slowly upon the trio. This happens naturally, exhibiting Noori's happiness for all to see. She has her children about her, and with them, she is fearless, powerful. With them to love her, she needn't look beyond for attention.
Yet she does.
"He's your uncle," Noori blurts thoughtlessly at the same time as Trekk mentions knowing each other from a while back. Blood rushes to Noori's cheeks, red cracks appearing where seamless white bark once lay. Looking away from Daemron, the mare allows Trekk to do the rest of the talking. The she-wolf brushes against her forelegs while she stalks about her pack, and Noori appreciates her presence. A solidification of what she has here, and what she does not need elsewhere.
Falling petals drift down around them, but Daemron’s eyes remain trained upon the stallion even as his mother straightens his growing willow-mane. When they both answer his question simultaneously, his stare nearly pierces through their charade. “My uncle.” His young voice is saturated in suspicion, having caught the way his mother’s expression had reddened at their blundering. “Right.” Her lie is obvious, though for now Daemron allows it to stand. Turning his attention back to the winged tobiano, he dips his head in acknowledgment of his own name before learning the stallion’s own. “Uncle Trekk,” he reiterates dryly, humored to play along with their little hoax. “Pleasure.”
There is a small tilt at the corner of his mouth as he witnesses their less-than-smooth recovery; while the stallion redirects the conversation, his mother distracts herself with the she-wolf winding about their legs. “I like it well enough,” he answers, “Not that I’ve been anywhere else. This is my home. Where else would I be?” He shrugs a ruddy shoulder, thinking of his family. His pack. Daemron belongs wherever they belong – he doesn’t know that one of his pack has never belonged here. He doesn’t know that he might have had a different home, if fate hadn’t split Noori’s heart in three.
“Where are you from?” His light grey eyes glow with a faint mixture of amusement and curiosity. He wants to know the reason for his mother’s lie, the stallion’s evasiveness. Stepping from Mother Spring’s side, he comes close to Trekk and stretches his neck to touch the broad side of a wing. Soft feathers brush against his muzzle. “I’ve wondered what it’s like to fly before,” he muses, glancing up at the tobiano with a look that seems to portray only a casual interest. With a life as saturated in magic as his, the traits and abilities of others would never truly astonish him.
His she-wolf grows restless, snatching at some of the falling petals with sharp teeth. Daemron ignores her. “You aren’t really my uncle.” The statement is startlingly forward, though he is not so concerned with whatever the truth might be – he merely wishes to see how Trekk would respond to it. Ever observant, the colt’s eyes lock upon the stallion’s expression. Everyone carries their secrets in their eyes. He knows this. He’s seen them there before – in his brother’s stormy gaze, in the furtive looks that sometimes pass between Eight and Noori – and in Trekk’s eyes when he first beheld Daemron only moments ago.
daemron
trekk § noori
WHEN THE SNOWS FALL AND THE WHITE WINDS BLOW,
THE LONE WOLF DIES BUT THE PACK SURVIVES
He’s missed her. He always misses her. There’s a hole in his chest when she leaves and then there his chest is full when she is with him. He loves her from afar, while she dances with magicians and silent killers and her tender child and her wolf child and her rain child. He waits patiently until she bores of them and finds herself creeping toward his lonely arms. He admires her beauty even when they do not (he admires both sides of her he knows – that willow-strewn, spring-goddess side and that carefree, freckled-sun child side) and he waits for her until she ceases her dancing around the fire of her other lovers and comes toward the shadows he lingers in.
And so when they separate just before their child (his child, her child, their child) arrives, his heart cries for her touch. He can see the boy’s smarts from behind his red and white face and he knows instantly their hastily-covered tracks will be noticed. It doesn’t help that both of his parents (he cannot get the thought of his mind; this boy is his son, this boy is her son, this boy is their son and they are his parents) jump to opposite conclusions about how they know each other.
The broken-hearted lover forces his face to remain neutral (something he’s become good at, since there are often times when he must hide the suicidal darkness and plaguing shadows from the brown depths of his eyes) and keeps his gaze on the boy. Looking away would suggest lies. Looking away would suggest losing the competition of strategy. The stallion’s heart begins inspecting the she-wolf, allowing the pair a few minutes together. His jaw remains in the ever-present grip of seriousness throughout the boy’s speaking and wondering. When he asks the rhetorical question of where else he might possibly be, the red and white stallion struggles to keep his face blank.
They could be living together. They could be a little family, the three of them. They could be making lives for themselves but strengthened by the bond of love. They could be back in Echo Trails. He could have another sibling on the way. He could be sparring with his father. They could be together as a family in the bubble of safety and love his parents once had. They could be anywhere but here.
A flash of pain sparks across his brown eyes but he manages to resume the look of neutrality before pain and heart-filled agony and sadness and grief and regret crept in completely. “I’m sure you belong here,” he chokes out, forcing as much smoothness and casualness into the words that he possibly could. It’s hard to talk, now, around the lump in his throat, so when the boy changes topics from where his father – ahem, uncle – lives and about how he wishes to fly, the stallion breaks his serious face with a gentle smile.
“I was born in the Jungle, like your mom.” It isn’t a lie, actually. They were both born in the Jungle, and although they can’t say truthfully they are siblings it does lend to the story. “I don’t really have a home that I can live in at the moment.” The hidden meaning might be hard to pick out, but the red and white stallion’s brown eyes flash toward the spring goddess for a quick millisecond. She is his home (wherever she is, that is his home) but he cannot live with her. Fate has other ideas.
Before the stallion can speak about his wings, the boy is coming out with a statement. He gives a chuckle, as if to reprimand the boy about his foolish nonsense. “Of course I am your uncle. We just haven’t seen each other in a while as well, that’s all. I didn’t know if your mom wanted you to know or not,” he says. He inspects the boy over again and then nods deftly. “You look just like your mom. I’m sure your father is handsome as well – you’ll be a looker for sure.”
Most days, most days stay the sole same
Please stay, for this fear it will not die
Down low, down amongst the thorn rows
Weeds grow, through the lilies and the vines
Wise little Daemron’s skepticism closes the clasps around Noori’s throat, banishing air from her lungs. Her small chestnut boy does not question the lie outright, but she knows. Her flaws clearly are shown, and her child has been graced with an eye for things unseen. It pains her to know that this characteristic had come from the combination of herself and Trekk. Neither of her other children would see through the ruse, not like this. Nihlus would be off-hand, queer. Cerva would be delicate, calculating. Daemron – he is unlike anything else she’s seen. He is perceptive and coolly unafraid; magnificent.
However perceptive her son may be, he manages to comment on where else he would be. He manages to pick the most ironic phrases, and the most painful, too. Noori’s eyes close, the clasps tightening still. She forces herself to continue gazing at the she-wolf, away from Daemron, away from a destiny she had forgone, away from Echo Trails and the Jungle and her parents and especially Trekk. Away from everything.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Daemron touching Trekk’s wing. An image flashes through her mind, one of the three of them deep in Echo trails, snuggled up beneath a willow tree in the midst of a storm. Noori is herself – a freckled chestnut roan, tiny, barely thirteen hands. Her eyes are brown and drowning in Trekk’s, her son is regular and yet amazing. They are a family, a cold, wet family, together in a way which none of them shall ever come to know.
Noori’s eyes squeeze together, forbidding the sap-like tears to fall. Her nose touches her shoulder opposite from Daemron, attempting to hide her regret, her shame, her misery. I don’t want to lie to you, she cries within herself. Her ribs burn for lack of oxygen, for the clasps do nothing but tighten. As Trekk plays the uncle-figure perfectly, Noori learns to live while dying, to breathe while suffocating. Her composure slowly returns, her neck straightening with a calm smile.
She returns to the conversation just in time to catch Trekk’s meaningful glance, the one that says that she is his home. The clasp tightens, but this time, she does not falter. Instead, she smiles again and says quietly, ”The Jungle is rather woman-oriented, I daresay.” Pain worms its way into her heart when Trekk reprimands her son, explaining their mysteriousness. This time however, her tongue holds out until he finishes, until it is safe to speak, until the clasp loosens just enough. ”He’s got your shade of chestnut,” She says softly, looking up at Trekk through her alabaster lashes. Fearing another bout of suffocation, Noori looks to Daemron with a secure smile – too secure. ”Child, do forgive my fumbling. Your brother has been lending me excess nerves as of late - you know how he is. Never in the same place for more than a day.”
