"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
SO GIVE ME HOPE IN THE DARKNESS THAT I WILL SEE THE LIGHT 'CAUSE OH THAT GAVE ME SUCH A FRIGHT
Maybe it’s odd, him setting up with his lover on a satellite island of a land ruled by one of his many flings – but Brennen has been in weirder situations. And what he has with Adria was never more than an affectionate friendship, a co-parenting situation. She’s probably happier to have him close by, close enough to help wrangle their twins – mostly Luath, the capricious and occasionally concerning bloodthirsty kelpie colt. Brennen admires his son, tries to nurture his least dangerous tendencies, but he sometimes frightens his mother in his very nature.
What is he doing here, on this small island? Right now, he’s doing magic. Weaving a complicated web of illusions and real changes, creating something straight from his own memories. His lover has been thinking of home a lot lately – and they can’t go home, not for real, but they can for a few stolen moments. It won’t hold forever (Beqanna hates magical changes to herself, and she’ll right herself eventually), so as soon as he’s finished his creation the bay sets off to find Nihlus.
The younger stallion is quite a bit taller than Brennen, and nearly ponderous at this point with the burden of their twins, but the magician doesn’t mind, winding his body around his lover’s and planting an affectionate caress along the boy’s crest before touching his nose briefly to Nihlus’ barrel to check on their children. Lifting his face, he meets Nihlus’ bright eyes with a smile, the kind that doesn’t hide any of his feelings. “I’ve something for you,” he murmurs, waiting for an acknowledgement before he can lead him to his recreated Tundra beachfront.
Brennen had gotten over the Tundra. Years of distance, time in several other Kingdoms, and it had become merely a piece of reoccurring dreams. That was before Nihlus had waltzed back into his life, a blast from the past and the time he’d tried so hard to forget. Somehow, this time it was different. There’d always been…something he liked about the obnoxious younger stallion, but if it had been feelings this strong, Brennen had been incapable of recognizing them. They’d butted heads many times and he might have advised one of his daughters that they were being flirted with, but it just hadn’t been like that amongst the brothers. Not for Brennen. Until it was.
Nihlus is still an obnoxious little shit, but somehow it’s different when he’s Brennen’s obnoxious little shit. Shaking off a memory of facing off against a smart-mouthed blue-eyed youth, the bay stallion reaches over and nips at the other stallion’s shoulder and then brushes the same spot with an inky-black wing. “Do you want to see?”
BUT I WILL HOLD AS LONG AS YOU LIKE JUST PROMISE ME WE'LL BE ALRIGHT
Each morning, he runs through the sequence of events that brought him to now, never quite coming to terms with it all despite the months that pass. Not that much of the information rings particularly absurd (I mean, no one's surprised by the land change or the plague or the taking and giving of magic and this and that, those are regular things), but the parts that do really just fuck with Nih's head.
Like, fuck fuck.
First of all, who'd've thought that him belly-sliding between the stud's legs in rabbit form would have been one of the first steps towards said stud sliding something else between Nih's legs? For the love of Christ, the well-known gay hadn't even flirted! At least, not until a glint showed up in Bren's honeyed eyes that spoke of something utterly forbidden. After decades - after his whole life since leaving the Valley, really - of being the twerpy kid piping up when he shouldn't have in countless kingdom meetings where his opinion really was worthless considering that he contributed nothing but grouchiness and raw sexuality, this sudden change in the man he once considered a father figure came as more than something of a shock. Everything of a shock.
So of course, stumbling over his words and succumbing to the eagerness that arose in his chest (and the arousal that rose elsewhere), he flirted. Day and night, his merciless onslaught of come-ons seemed to know no end - at least, the end was known only to one. One Brennen, of course. After a particularly descriptive instance of flirtation (which, let's be honest, Bren could have stopped if he'd really wanted to...), Brennen, king of multitudes, father of more, and true lover of few, had turned. A fire in those amber eyes. A dare on his tongue - "Turn around then."
After that particular romp (a first for Nih I'll have you know), things had strangely not been strange. The life-long friends remained just that, the fliration finally ended... But a certain intimacy remained in its absence, a closeness that had never been there before. One that brought them together for long hours, thoughts and feelings pouring out in ways they'd not before, not for ages (or maybe ever). When enough nights passed where Nih left near dawn, he eventually just... stayed. And again. Under Brennen's wing, curled with him on the ground, coupling again in a far more intimate way than that initial surge of testosterone and sex. When the words I love you were followed by and I want you to carry my children, Nih hadn't a choice but to say yes. Frankly, he'd never imagine answering in any other fashion; he knew with every part of his being that this was where he wanted to be.
Of course, having made others pregnant before but never having been himself, he didn't quite estimate the severity of discomfort that came with carrying a child. Or TWO children. Magician's sperm... They swam too damn well.
And that leaves him here: pregnant, with twins, dam to the magician he'd once thought of as a father. And a brother.
Alas, his morning reverie must always come to an end. This particular morning, the gentle hoofbeats of his Arabian counterpart revive Nihlus. An eager nicker whistles through his slightly parted lips, ears flicking forward as his legs follow suit. When the first touch he receives is one to his swollen middle, a heat rises to the bachelor's cheeks, one he knows his magician can sense. Sensing the rush of blood to certain areas comes like breathing to a water mage. Nickering again (softly this time), Nih bends his neck to bump noses tenderly with Brennen, hesitating a moment before meeting the other's eyes.
How the man forged the dominant Nihlus into a submissive wife, few would ever know - last of all, Nihlus.
And yet, at the words Bren delivers, Nih's characteristic dastardly grin splashes across his lips. "Something for me?" The words are simultaneously sing-songy and gritty, full of that raw sexuality I happened to mention before. He flicks his mane out of his glittering blue eyes, intensifying their glow as they scan Bren's sleek, attractive figure. "While I would never normally turn down such a delicious offer, darling, I think you've quite foiled such plans by impregnating me. I'm not as capable as I used to be." Playfully, he snakes his lips out to tug on a thick lock of Bren's silky mane. When a laugh issues in response, accompanied by a doting nip to his shoulder (followed as always with a gentle caress), Nih thinks that the end of it - but then Bren presses for a real answer, and Nih's curiosity peaks.
"Of course I do!" His legs prance beneath him, swinging his hind end such that it bumps into the smaller magician's. Bobbing his head, Nihlus gestures for the other to lead the way. "After you, my love."
SO GIVE ME HOPE IN THE DARKNESS THAT I WILL SEE THE LIGHT 'CAUSE OH THAT GAVE ME SUCH A FRIGHT
He was never looking for this. Honestly, he wasn’t intentionally seeking anything after Scorch; almost every one of his previous true love relationships had ended with the death of his partner and so he had thought he’d been prepared for the end of any relationship but he’d been quite wrong. Losing Scorch had shattered him into pieces he’d never been quite sure were ever going to be repaired. Partially, he’d thrown himself into raising children, and partially he’d drifted along, totally apathetic.
The first reappearance of Nihlus had not been welcome, and he will deny ever having thought so to his dying day. It was probably a trick of the light that there had been a welcoming glint in his eyes, or maybe a momentary mental infirmity that led to an actual relief to see a friendly face. He doesn’t know what happened really, he’d been operating mostly in a fog, floating around Ischia and trying to keep up with his youngest twins, Adria’s children who spent more time in the water than on land. (A weird side effect of his water magic, this insane amount of children with strange water traits).
What had happened after that was that Nihlus simply didn’t go away, and slowly his continuous banter and flamboyantly persistent nature had lifted that fog, and with it came the slow (probably glacial, if you asked Nihlus) realization that he would be sad if Nihlus went away, and the even slower realization that he thought the boy was attractive. It was a daily struggle to keep a straight face, be nothing more than polite or maybe friendly. The bay magician wasn’t sure what it was about Nihlus that caught his eye, held his attention, the boy certainly wasn’t his usual type. He swallowed every smile, every sarcastic response, every warm glance from amber eyes until the day he couldn’t.
They hadn’t made love that day – they’d had sex. And Brennen felt horrible unprepared, like a colt with his first fling, but it couldn’t have been that awful because his younger companion didn’t abandon him then. And it was the turning point, because the Pegasus stopped resisting Nihlus’ charms, and they became something tighter. Friends, true friends, and then lovers, and he doesn’t know how he resisted so long, and he doesn’t want to ever again. Even his ridiculous outrageous flirting has become something Brennen looks forward to, even if he rarely reciprocates in the same way.
Even now, bursting at the seams pregnant with their children, Nihlus makes an overture, which Brennen responds to with a little smirk and a laugh in his eyes. If Nihlus wasn’t beyond the hope of doing anything until the twins were born, he might have even taken him up on the offer, though it would have been without any of the explicit commentary his mate is so fond of. Suddenly, he is nervous about his efforts. Whatever his stoic exterior, he wants to please Nihlus, and he won’t ever be one to do it with words.
“Yes, something for you, my insatiable heathen,” his voice is still almost painfully dry, but there is affection underneath instead of the flat sarcasm he often offers to those not in his circle of intimacy. He presses himself against the boy and nibbles on his mane, but between one breath and the next he also moves them from their spot to his curated one, on the other side of the island without Nihlus having to take a single step. Before them stretches his creation, illusion and reality in equal doses, a part of their Tundra recreated in Ischia. Even his favorite cave system, tucked into a mountainside, is recreated, to provide a safe and warm place for them to eventually greet their children. But right now the children are still safe and warm and unconcerned – inside Nihlus; and it’s his opinion Brennen is worried about.
BUT I WILL HOLD AS LONG AS YOU LIKE JUST PROMISE ME WE'LL BE ALRIGHT
Something melts deep within Nihlus. Words sweeter than those freshly fallen from Brennen's lips exist not to the boy, at least in this moment; something about the pet name combined with the warmly anxious look thrown haphazardly over his shoulder leaves Nihlus a puddle. Though the sun shines happily above, in Nih's eyes, the true light beams upon him unwaveringly in the form of his lover's smile (a smile which gives away how much he truly cares for Nih, a little secret shared just between them). Somehow, Nih wishes he could slow down time. Relive this moment on repeat forever.
But between one breath and the next, everything changes, leading the pair to another moment worthy of time infinite. Suddenly, it's not only the sensation of Brennen's body against his that stands out against the monotony of their tucked-away island: it's also a bitter cold and a blinding white light. When his eyes adjust, it's his heart that finds itself struggling to function properly. Before him, the Tundra stretches in every direction until it meets the sea, barren and rock-strewn and ice-packed. For a heartbeat, Nih wonders if perhaps his fleeting wish had come true: that time had travelled with them as its passengers, transporting them to a time when things were simpler.
The babies kick, irritated with the sudden change of temperature (insulated as they are beneath Nih's sturdy hide [needy creatures, I wonder from whom they get it]). This movement revives the silent-til-now stallion, sending him forward three paces with an awe-filled smile trailing upon his lips. The sensation of real snow beneath his hooves tangibly releases dopamine in the recesses of his brain. "Bren..." The name comes out like that of a god, the reverence in the younger man's voice unmistakeable. When the sharp wind of a winter forgotten slices through his mane, it feels as though he can breathe again.
He wheels around, tears in his eyes (not a first between the intimate pair, but a rare occurrence). "Bren," Nihlus repeats, with more intention this time. Gratitude and bewilderment combine pleasantly upon his every feature. "I - I am speechless." Again, he throws his head around to try and catch every single detail, to live in this forgotten empire as much as he can, for as long as Beqanna will allow him. But it's not just him here - that much becomes evident as he slides into Brennen's embrace, leaning dreamily into the smaller Arabian, words like prayers falling from his sinner's tongue.
"I can't believe that you did all this... for me. You captured everything. Even the caves - gods, I - it's beautiful." The words of affirmation press persistently at his throat, but instead of surveying the magically-instilled environment, he turns his head. "You are beautiful. And I -" a grin colours his expression, though its corners speak to how truthfully he means the following words: "- I absolutely do not deserve any of this, or you. I love you. Thank you."
