"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
09-03-2018, 12:16 AM (This post was last modified: 09-03-2018, 12:17 AM by luster.)
She knows it is morning by the sound of the world coming alive around them - the rustle of waking wildlife, the tentative birdsong from the branches above in their tree. Except it isn’t quite a tree anymore, not in a living sense. It is more like an artifact from an old, ruined world, so out of place among the new and the green. The enormous trunk is hollowed out and empty, with old scorch marks along the walls and ceiling. But from the outside it looks plain, like a mess of earth and wood and knotted roots.
It is home though, wholly theirs.
She shifts and stirs, not rising from where she lays curled up around the small, dark and white boy. But her lips find the smooth of his cheek, press smiling little kisses against fur that feels like velvet. “Good morning, my Merry.” She tells him with a whisper, breathing into his sweet skin and shifting to take a tendril of his downy forelock between her lips with a soft, playful tug. Her voice doesn’t climb past a whisper though, so soft and sleepy and full of dark. Neither does she stand and nudge him awake, or draw the morning light into their den to chase away the fading dawn.
Instead she is still again, curled so safely around him with her nose buried in the impossible soft of a cornsilk mane. Her eyes are at the mouth of their den though, a tangle of bright and dark brown and patient curiosity. There is a small little piece of her that rebels against this new day, that knows when they leave to go off on whichever adventure the day brings, she’ll be watching every face. Waiting for someone, someones, who even now grow hazy at the edges in her memories. She blinks - flinches softly at the direction of her thoughts - and drops her delicate blue and white head across his withers again.
He was awake for a long while. He tried extra hard not to move too much, not to go find those voices that called to him, that urged him out to play with them. Instead, he stared out into the beautiful darkness with quiet eyes, in a stillness his pattering, playful heart couldn’t match. Just those faded-stardust eyes and his Luster’s warmth around him.
He liked to watch her sleep, so quiet and peaceful. But the night was so distracting, so loud inside him, and tugged his eyes away relentlessly. So many times he nearly stood, nearly wandered out of their little den. He’d gotten lost that way before - a few times. She would always find him though, so it should be okay, right?
It worried her though. He didn’t like that. So he was trying. Extra hard this time.
Eventually, he did fall asleep. In the odd hours of the morning, his eyes drifted, nose buried in against her skin and breathing in her comforting scent of home. So deep would he sleep on these kinds of nights, that he didn’t even stir at her voice, or at her shifting. It was like nothing could wake him. The only reason he finally did was because of the touching. One or two he could sleep through, but there were more, soft brushes over his neck, over his withers. He sighed softly, barely mumbled incoherently, and settled right back in as close against her as he could snuggle, not quite ready to be awake yet.
She knows what it means when he fusses so softly at her, knows those little mumbles and the way he nestles in close to the blue of her skin. He had been up watching the night again, soaked in the patch of starlight that often pooled in the mouth of their den. She breathes in deeply, sighs and shifts so slightly to press her lips to the soft place just behind his little ear. At least he had not left this time, not followed the siren song of the night he seemed to love so deeply. There was nothing worse than waking up to find him gone, to find only cold shadows where he had been tucked against her.
Her mouth wanders so slowly down his neck, nuzzly lips moving along the crest of his neck and just beneath his mane. She moves over his withers and side, the curve of his hip and his soft little belly, grooming all the loose dirt and damp earth from the gleaming black of his skin. It is so easy to fuss over him while he sleeps, to tug loose the tangles in his downy soft mane while the morning creeps closer and closer through the mouth of their home. But when it is nearly at their legs, soft sunshine pooling bright and yellow, she pushes it back again with the shadows that live in her veins.
Morning can wait.
When she is finished with her quiet grooming, she settles her head back over him to draw him close, to let his night stretch on until he has had his fill and the sleep can be chased from those soft blue eyes. She keeps the light at bay, hides the morning with deep cozy shadows and throws faint galaxies up along their walls and across the dome of their ceiling.
He slept a while longer, deep and without worries or fears. He could sense the morning near them, but all he felt was the comfort of shadows cradling him into deeper rest. It coaxed another little sighing breath from his lips, another little wiggle to bury himself closer against her. This was home.
When the voices quieted, and the dreams faded away, he stirred with a small nuzzle at her shoulder. Lifting his head and yawning big, he peeked bleary eyes open to find her face, then grinned. ”Hi.” Ugh, his tummy was growling. He chose to ignore it for now. ”I stayed home! I did good, huh? I tried super hard and I did it! I stayed.”
He beamed brightly up at her, couldn't help but feel proud of himself. It was extra extra hard to not play with the night. He just didn't like to worry her, and getting lost wasn't always that fun. He was never afraid though, because she'd always find him. And the shadows didn't want to hurt him. They're nice. Much nicer than other little boys.
She must have been drifting in and out of sleep herself while she waited for him to wake, because a small jolt of surprise races through her when he starts to stir. She blinks, noticing how much of the morning had crept in without her shadows to push them back. A quick glance at the ceiling shows that her stars have gone, too. With a soft smile at the press of his nose against her neck, she closes her eyes and arches her shoulders, squeezing all the sleep from her mottled blue body.
“Hi.” She says back, reaching over to nuzzle his cheek with soft, smiling lips. “Mhm, you did, baby! You did sooo good last night. I’m proud of you.” She takes his forelock between her lips again, smooths it down so it is out of the way of those cornflower blue eyes. “How about we go find some breakfast, huh? You seem aaaawful growly this morning.” She grins and nudges his tummy, using her lips to tickle the soft black and white freckled skin.
She shifts to bump his smiling face again, feels the tickle of his whiskers and grins soft and crooked. “C’mon, Merry.” With a quiet huff, she climbs to her feet, reaches down to lip at the curve of his delicate hip. For a moment she pauses like that, with her nose pressed to his baby-soft skin and the tickle of his whiskers still a memory against her lips. How strange that this shadow-boy of hers is so good at chasing the dark out of her heart. She is sure he doesn’t know he does so, sure he has no idea how much light he brings her.
She blinks, closes her eyes for a beat longer than they need to be, and then lifts her lips from the heat of his skin. “What do you think, did you get enough sleep for an adventure today?”
09-08-2018, 07:01 PM (This post was last modified: 09-08-2018, 07:02 PM by Cimmerian.)
He blushed a little as she smoothed his hair from his face, his grin widening and eyes lighting for her. Then nodded, and giggled as she tickled his hungry tummy! "Yes, yes!" he gasped, "Breakfast sounds yummy!" With a last nuzzle to her cheek, he rose to his feet with her, glancing around them at their cozy den and quiet forest.
His delighted gaze swiftly finds her again when she speaks. "An ADVENTURE!?" He nearly lost his balance with childish excitement, finding it so hard to sit still, little nub tail wagging happily. "Yes!! I want an adventure! Will we find treats too??" Treats, as anyone who meets little Merry quickly learns, are the absolute most important thing on this earth after his Luster mommy.
"Will we find friends, too, Mommy?" And by friends, of course he didn't mean other horses, no no. He meant animals. Forest creatures. Little rabbits, or big cats made of shadow. Things that felt like home to him. "I want to meet a Mumblecat. Do you know what a Mumblecat is? I can teach you!"
He always was so eager to teach anyone who would listen.
She laughs, those dark brown eyes lighting with amusement as she reaches her nose out to his little withers to steady him. So much exuberance in such a small, wiggly body. "Mhmm, an adventure!" A smile slips across her quiet mouth, catching crookedly in one corner. "Maybe we can find some apple trees, yeah? Or a patch of wild strawberries growing in the meadow?" She nuzzles his shoulder, using her teeth to nibble so gently at his itchies. "Or even some of those sweet, purple clover flowers."
With a gentle nudge she guides him out of their den through the narrow break in the trunk of their hollowed-out tree. "Probably," she tells him with a nod, continuing on with a gentle tug on his downy soft mane to keep him moving in the right direction, "my Merry is so good at finding friends." It is his gentleness, she thinks, his dark, beautiful quiet. Most find it very difficult not to be drawn to him.
But then her brow is knit skeptically together, the corners of her mouth quivering with the promise of amusement. "A mumblecat?" She repeats, touches her lips to the soft place between his ears. "No I don't think I've ever met one, will you tell me about them?"
She laughed and it filled him with a light like she has power of, made him feel like he was glowing from the inside out. He loved when she laughed. And when she smiled. Because sometimes... Sometimes she wasn't smiling, or laughing. And sometimes it felt like maybe she was something less than happy.
She hid it so well, though.
So that was as far as he could tell.
She caught him too before he could lose his blance, and he got his feet under him better and beamed up at her with love in his eyes. And she promised an adventure, too! With maybe some apples or some strawberries -- he forgot which ones those ones were -- and even the special purple clover things!!
He nodded earnestly. "Yes! Yes, those, please! Those are our favorites." And of course he would go on to tell her about Mumblecats. He would chatter away for days at her if he had enough things to teach her. He'd need to learn more so that he could! But he started with Mumblecats for now as they walked.
"Mumblecats are black, like shadows. And they're kinda big, bigger than me 'cause I'm small. Or just 'bout the same. And they follow you everywhere and keep you safe. And sometimes they make you wonder if really they are a real person hiding in a big cat body, but it's a secret, so you can't ask them. It might kill them if they have to say it, I bet. Or maybe it kills someone they love, or the person who asked. So they won't answer that one ever. Maybe it's not true though, that part, but they are very good cats so don't be afraid if we find one, okay?"
He can have all her light, what strange little of it remains, but this dark is not for him. It is too thick and too heavy and too much for a boy made of the dark born from starlight. It is not the playful friend he leaves her for each night, not the currents that shed from the twilight sky past tree and branch and leaf. It is something more corrosive, something wrong inside her chest. It is not meant for him, not this.
Our favorites, he says, and she cannot help but shake her head at him in that soft, amused way, eyes alight and twinkling. “All of them are your favorite, baby.” She reminds him with a deeper smile, crooked and imperfect, catching a dark ear between her lips and tugging.
She takes him west, following a trail through their forest that she’s come to know by heart. Through a world of new trees and fresh growth and so much green it feels like being trapped in an emerald world. Until the trees start to change - grow wider and thicker, with leaves of red and gold and rust. Colors that make her heart ache with remembering. It was home once.
But she doesn’t take him across the border yet, despite that wild tug to find the lake and the cave and see if the man inside it is the one she discovered love with. They need food first, need to find breakfast. And Sylva isn’t her home anymore, hasn’t been in long years and there is no way to know if she would still be welcome there. Maybe they’ll come across someone in a little while, but not yet.
“Mumblecats sound wonderful,” she tells him as she steps gingerly through a rut of uneven roots, pausing to help Merry should he need it, “I definitely won’t be afraid if we meet one.” She glances away, hides a curious almost smile as she wonders where he came up with this - how he comes up with all his beautiful stories. “Maybe we can make a mumblecat out of shadows, and maybe more mumblecats will come to meet him. What do you think, should we try?”
They’ve reached the cluster of apple-trees, a small orchard of twelve trees growing every which way. The limbs tangle, the roots twist together, sunlight struggles to find the grass below as it gets trapped in such huge, grasping leaves. But it is still one of her most favorite places, so quiet and secluded, the air sweet with the rotting apples underfoot, a soft hum of wandering bees. “Come on, baby, let’s find the most perfect apples.” Which she’ll pluck for him with her shadows, carry them down where he can reach.
