"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
More so than any scrape or bruise could because this went so much deeper than just the skin - this was a hurt of the heart, something she had not experienced so keenly before, even in her separation from Spear, her twin. This time, it cleaved so sharply through her breast that it stopped the breath in her throat, making her gasp.
She did not wholly think the betrayal his fault, and knew that she’d forgive Giver just the same because she loved him more than life itself. But for now, she needed the hurt to spur her on and it did just that - made her stretch out faster and flatter in a gallop, each stride making the world around her just a blur or maybe that was the fierce hot trek of tears down her cheeks until the pain of it blinded her and she slowed, at last, and just barely.
“You’ll break a leg that way,” he chided her, rather casually as he rounded upon her heaving spent flank. The pale parts of her fur were damp and lathered with sweat as he swept his eyes over her, one red and the other, black - the same as hers, only in opposite. Spear tsked like a mother hen and shook his head, “You never listen Spark.” is all he says to her, before pushing his nose rudely against her own as he sucks in her scent. She smells less wild than he remembers, more tame and more of Tephra than he cares for - there is something orchid-sweet and sulphuric about her now, like she belongs and he begrudges her that. It was easier for her to stay somewhere, to put down the very roots that he seemingly lacked.
Her sobs have softened, if only because she has buried her face in the thick sinew of his stallion’s neck. A strange realization hits her, when had he become so different from her? She pulls back a little to look at him, at the fresh scars from bachelor fights and the way there is a new hardness to him that was never there before. “You’ve changed,” and it comes out more like an accusation. One that is charged and the air seems to crackle and spit between them as they eye one another angrily. “So have you!” he hisses and the menace in his tone is something that had never been thrown at his sister, never until now as she provokes him so with her trail of tears down dirty cheeks and the way her eyes keep secrets from him.
Spear and Spark face off in a battle of glowering stares and grim faces.
Neither is keen on giving in to the other, not even for the sake of their love for one another.
Well this was an awkward moment to stumble across her childhood friends. Interrupting a moment of tension and strife, anger and tear-stained cheeks. A standoff where they’d always stood together. But then, so much had changed for her since the last time they’d been together. It was only natural they’d changed too.
Lilitha cleared her throat and stepped out of the shadow of the trees lining their impromptu battleground. Funny, she looked more like Spear now than Spark did, in build at least. Large and broad and solid, hard and scarred with little in the way of soft curves or feminine grace.
They could almost have been related. Except, of course, for their drastically different coloring. Her glittering gold eyes to his red and black. His vast patches of white to her solid black, marred only by the jagged scars where wings had once been. And of course the red of her mane and tail, a gift from a mother who had wanted nothing to do with her.
“Hi,” she murmured softly, ducking her head and peeking at the twins through thick black lashes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t...I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can go if you...if you want space to sort things out. But I’ve missed you very much, and it’s good to see you.” She bit her lip and lifted her head, looking at the pair of them head on.
A throat clearing catches their undivided attention;
They recognize her after a moment of hard stares and faces still pinched tight in anger.
It looks like Lily, but all grown up. She bears more resemblance to Spear now, thick and filled out in ropes of muscle and scars that surely have stories to tell them. To them, she is still Lily - minus the wings that they’d seen on her last time, but the red hair is the same as are the glittering gold of her eyes.
They share a look; maybe even a decision to momentarily forgo their fighting (it was too heated to be familial bickering to them, too hot and hateful in a way that neither of them has ever shown the other but even they’ve kept themselves apart for too long - changed, like Lily has) and plaster congenial smiles on their spent roman-nosed faces. Each of them feels like a strange heavy weight has left their shoulders as Lily looks shy and uncomfortable.
“Don’t go…” Spark murmurs, taking a step forward.
“Stay,” echoes Spear who remains back a pace, content to let his eyes linger on Lily and anywhere but his sister.
“We’ve missed you too.” Spark admits, still somewhat ignoring Spear who refuses to look at her. She moves closer to the big black mare (everyone is big to Spark who remains small and slight), and brushes her nose against the scar-laden shoulder. The sight of that seems to spur Spear into motion and he moves to Lily’s off side, echoing the touch but his nose finds the seam of puckered flesh where a wing once was. “What happened to your wings?” The concern in his voice is genuine, as his lips trace the length of the scar in a friendly kiss.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell us.” Spark amends quickly, shooting her brother a meaningful glare over Lily’s broad back. Sometimes, he was so bold and so rude…. And she missed that in him, even as they sparred and spat at one another. She tucked a sigh into the black skin of Lily’s shoulder, noting the sinew beneath that belied a strength Spark did not possess. “Oh Lily…” she murmurs, “we missed you!”
They looked at one another, a silent exchange that said far more than she could read. She had after all, had very little interaction with others of her species these last years, and the subtle nuances of their nonverbal communication went a bit over her head.
But they turned to her and smiled, and with that one moment of welcome she was suddenly back among friends. Don’t go, they asked her, stay, and just like that, she was home again. Or as home as she ever got, at least.
“Okay,” she agreed, her face relaxing into a smile to match theirs, quiet and welcoming as they stepped closer and offered soft touches that evoked a gentle, glowing warmth in her chest. “I’d like that.” And she offered her own soft touches in return, gently exploring the curve of Spark’s neck, the hard plane of Spear’s shoulder.
They traced the scars that marred her back, and she shuddered as their lips traced the puckered flesh. Almost no one ever touched her, as and certainly not there. It didn't hurt, hadn’t in a long time, but there was something inexplicably intimate about even those soft, friendly touches that had her pulling back just a little, a quiet gasp of indrawn breath chased by a whispered apology.
“I’m sorry.”
She flushed and ducked her head again, cleared her throat and explained, “The fire came back, and it...it burned them away. I was...I was alone for a long time. Couldn't follow my fath...the man who adopted me to his new home, so I’ve spent most of my time in the forest by myself. It...the fire used to hurt me, but it doesn't anymore. That's...that's really all there is to tell, I guess.”
She glanced at Spark, and then at Spear. “What about you? What has happened to you? It’s been a very long time, my friends.”
04-08-2017, 09:45 PM (This post was last modified: 06-05-2017, 08:47 PM by Spear + Spark.)
Change is inevitable.
Just as every sunrise and sunset is, and they all know it.
Despite the changes in all three of them;
Spear and Spark share a look that enters them into a wary truce with one another.
Something in the regal yet aloof look of her spoke of a despair and a loneliness that nothing Spear nor Spark had ever encountered or experienced, not separate nor together. It brought them together for her sake and her sake alone, and they buried the hatchets of hateful looks and more hateful words for the time being. Each of them knew that it was a only a matter of time until they all separated again, and the twins went back to their arguments and sibling strife. It felt like that’s all they knew these days, how to war with looks and words that left them both aching and alone, unsure of how to find their way back to that easy casual way of life they once had.
Both of them grow calm and indulgent in the soft touches to Lily’s skin and the way she gives those touches back to them. It feels like home, like a small cozy herd if such a thing is possible for a herd to consist of only three. Spark smiles and Spear sighs; each of them is briefly but undoubtedly happy to be back in her familiar anchoring company. She agrees to stay, and they share another look over her back - one of friendly triumph at hearing her proclaim she’ll stay with them, if only for now and they clutch greedily at those minutes, hoping they’ll turn into long hours and less loneliness, less aches and things in their eyes that move like shadows and sadness.
(They see these things in Lily’s eyes, and in her scars.)
Neither of them had ever mastered much of respectful decorum or distance; they are always quick to touch and assume that it is okay to do so. No one has ever told them it is impolite to push and poke with their long noses, or to pry into the secrets and stories of another’s life. It is just something that they do and do not really realize that it makes others uncomfortable, and no one has ever really had a problem with it but they can feel how she tenses up her muscles beneath their curious questing touches and they instantly freeze, like rabbits caught unaware by a hunter’s hound. “Lily…” Spear says her name tenderly, questioningly. Spark says, “Don’t be sorry!” in quick apology, realizing that they’ve crossed some line that was never there before. Each of them backs off a pace, to give her room to breathe and the space that she needs to regain her indomitable spirit, one that they’ve always admire and flocked to.
Their eyes find each other - red and black, mirrored in their faces is the horror they feel at her tale. Her fire came back to her, as they had always known it would but at a terrible price. Their ears pin back at the emotion choking her throat; they don’t want her to hurt like that any more, fatherless and homeless and all alone! Getting her fire back had cost her so much more than her wings, and they cannot imagine ever going through something like that and they feel small twinges of guilt at how they quarrel over less significant things than that, like Spark loving Giver and Spear always off on some adventure.
“Oh Lily!” Spark gasps out, tracing her lips along a sleek black cheek.
“That’s terrible, you shouldn’t have been alone for so long.” Spear states, bound and determined to comb his teeth through the glorious red of her mane. It is his way of apologizing for them never being there, always off elsewhere and not around when Lily needed someone - anyone - even them, bickering like they had with each other and not once did they stop to search for her, to reunite with their closest and dearest friend.
“A very long time,” she echoes more quietly, glancing back and forth between Spear and Lily. Something in the way that her brother combs his teeth through the long red mane makes her pause thoughtfully, and Spear squares himself up beneath her burning stare and lingering quiet. It is the lapse of conversation that makes him pick it back up; “Lots, and very little at all.” He tries his best at a charming boyish grin but it doesn’t belong on his grown up face any more, so it falters and he goes back to his previous task of combing out her mane.
“We’ve grown a bit apart is what he means to say.” she mutters, rubbing her check on that strong black shoulder. She felt small and slight next to the pair of them, but she didn’t really mind so much as she tucked herself up nice and neat against Lily’s side. “I’m glad you have your fire back.” she murmurs, because she is but she knew what those wings meant to Lily too - freedom, adventure, and she understood Spear a little better than, because she had always been to him what the wings had been to Lily, a representation of something more. Her lips form a little moue as she sighs, why does everything always have to be so difficult?
Lilitha immediately missed their touch, her heart aching as the pair of them stepped back, gave her distance. Even if she was the one who’d pulled back first. Still, it was easier to catch her breath as the odd tingling rush that their gentle exploration of her scars had awoken faded away. Not unpleasant, just...just new, and entirely unexpected. A little too much, all at once.
And then Spark’s lips were on her cheek, and that quiet ache in her chest eased. Better, this was better. This, she could do. She returned the touch, the furrow of her brow relaxing, her lips curving gently as she brushed the side of her nose against Spark’s cheek in turn. And Spear, running his teeth through her hair, oh, that was nice.
“It’s okay,” she murmured, leaning into Spear’s lovely, determined attempt to groom her mane. A lost cause, her hair was a wild tangle of red with a mind of its own, but it felt good letting him try. She rubbed her cheek against his strong, broad neck and gently scratched his shoulder with her own teeth. Half-heartedly, though. She was far more inclined to trace the line of his shoulder with her nose, breathe in the almost-forgotten scent of him, and reach up to wrap herself around him, pull him into a quiet little hug.
Yes. That was much better.
Spark’s cheek on her shoulder coaxed another soft little smile to Lilitha’s lips, and she turned her attention back to her friend, gently tugging her a little closer, draping her neck across Spark’s and breathing her in too, noticing as she did the way their scents were so much more distinct from one another now, less mingled and blurred until they could almost have been two halves of a whole.
“I suppose it’s only natural to grow apart some,” she said softly, with a quiet little squeeze to offer comfort and support. “You have your own lives to live, and sometimes that means taking different paths, spending time apart. Distance, where once there was such closeness.” And the way her indrawn breath shook and the sudden wave of sadness that washed over her told her maybe she wasn’t just talking about the two of them. “But you’re family, and that’s important. You’ll find a way to...to be there for each other, something that gives you both the space you need to grow but still lets you love each other.”
She hoped. She maybe even believed it. But what did Lilitha know of family? Maybe it was just wishful thinking, that anyone could ever make it work. Maybe it wasn’t just her, maybe everyone was cursed to suffer heartache and loneliness and loss, growing up and growing apart until there was nothing left of the strength and beauty of their bond.
“Thanks, Spark,” she whispered, pulling back to press her lips to the line of her friend’s shoulder. “I did miss it. It was gone just long enough for me to fall in love with my wings, and it...it hurt. A lot. For a long time. But it’s okay now. It’s back to...normal, I guess? Whatever that even means. I can use it without feeling like I’m burning alive, anyhow. Which is, I guess, a nice change of pace.”
Even if part of her had come to crave it. To love it. She could have stopped using it entirely, but that would have meant letting their god’s cruelty go unchallenged, letting the world win. And Lilitha was nothing if not stubborn. She’d used her fire more than ever, and survived the pain of it the only way she could.
And now?
She sighed, resting the weight of her head against Spear’s shoulder, rubbing her cheek against his solid strength. Now she’d find a way to let go. Or to adjust back, or something. She’d get there. One step at a time. For now, there were more important things. “Do you...I mean, do you live somewhere, do you have somewhere you call home? Or do you more wander?”
