"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
12-18-2019, 03:12 PM (This post was last modified: 12-19-2019, 04:51 PM by Warlight.
Edit Reason: i'm dumb
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Warlight
She dreams of him in her first true sleep after returning to the land of the living. She dreams of him in Pangea with blood on his face, confused and so young. She dreams of him traveling, crossing the common lands to return to the place where their friendship grew into something more, where they found something that neither one was sure if it was lust or love.
They hadn't been in a rush then to put a label on it then, they thought they had a lifetime to figure it out.
But her dreams keep spinning in that unpredictable way that dreams do. She dreams of him on top of her, of their fights and his healing, and her sleep brings her little rest.
She begins the transition into wakefulness, the sounds of Tephra working themselves into her dreamscape, the smell of smoke reminding her of where she is. She straddles the place between waking and sleeping, her mind drifting until it comes alongside his. The world around him becomes clear, and she steps across the miles in the span of a breath. Warlight is beginning to think there is something more to the way her consciousness has suddenly been untethered from her body, that the uncanny way she can sense when those she loves are near could be more than just coincidence.
Love.
Something in her being tightens and she realizes what she has just thought, and she resists the feeling in her throat as her eyes open to see him. Her body assembles itself on the beach next to him, but she is far different from the last time he saw her. She had returned to life with a body whole, instead of broken - one shaped by the endless day of battle she had endured in the afterlife - a warriors body and a crown of bones, but still the same defiance in her blue-black eyes.
The sight of him feeds the storm in her breast, the push and pull of emotions she had never put in the time to figure out. Conflicted, she stands waiting, a thing she rarely does, too afraid of what would come out of her mouth should she open it.
She didn't want to fight, but she wasn't ready to collapse into his embrace either, and she had never been good at finding the middle ground.
He didn't notice her at first. The silent way she appeared, like a wisp of fog made solid. Clegane had not stayed so near as of late. The boy had a wanderlust to him that was no doubt made worse by the rise of hormones his body now contained this time of year. Once again, the fiery maned stallion was left to his solitary existence.
His eyes had been half shut, almost asleep in the pre-dawn light. The air was brisk and he nearly wished for the closeness of another body. But there were exceptionally few he could think of who he would tolerate so close, especially in the vulnerability of sleep. Few enough that he would rather face the chill alone.
When her scent filtered to him, it was not surprising. The painted woman had featured in his dreams innumerable times over the years. Fiercely beautiful, even when the sickness had done its best to waste her. Her unique perfume made him reluctant to wake fully, to lose this tiny scrap of memory being offered by his mind. It was too late, though. The birds were singing in the cold morning light, the imminent sun turning the horizon a green-gold tinge. Sleep was at an end, and with it any chance of further dreaming.
He sighed and stretched, blinking the discordant eyes he'd inherited and groaning at the stiffness in his back. A waking routine that came to an abrupt halt as the shadow of another caught his eye. His nostrils flared uncertainly at the still figure lingering beyond his dreams. There was no mistaking the shape of her, the gleaming eyes that looked black in the half-light but that he knew were truly a deep dark blue.
She looked prefect. Whole, and healthy. Nothing like the last time he'd seen her, when their bodies were worn with disease and the stresses of survival. When she had bitten off her words with angry disdain and told him she wanted nothing more to do with him. Had vanished, and taken their unborn son away with her. Emotions in strengths he hadn't felt in a long time emerged with breathtaking speed as he absorbed the sight of Warlight before him.
"Come to settle some unfinished business, have you?" He asked in his grit-rough voice, when the silence stretched too long. For that was all he could think of. That she was a ghost of the girl he'd loved, come to haunt him in waking hours now as well as sleeping ones, or to finally say goodbye. She was too heart-breakingly beautiful to be anything else. More to the point, he could not bear the idea that she had gone all this time alive and well, and avoiding him and abandoning their son.
The ocean wind twists between them, carrying his scent, pulling at her salt-dried mane and reminding her uncomfortably of the days when they rarely left space between themselves.
There is moment where she watches him unobserved and she is reminded so much of their son. But when Raul's eyes find hers she sees he too has changed since the days when they were inseparable. They are wiser eyes, tired eyes, the eyes of a man instead of a boy. She doesn't lie to herself as she watches him take in the sight of her, she doesn't deny the feeling which begins to relax her coiled muscles and solid stance. But there is so much more than salt air that stands between them now.
Come to settle some unfinished business, have you?
The rumble of his voice more robust than she remembered and her heart churns unexpectedly below her ribs, a feeling she was still getting used too.
"I missed you," she finally says, as if it will make up for the way she drove him off. The things she had to say to get him to leave.
She had regretted her decision, in the end, but she would never say those words out loud.
The leopard-skin mare doesn't allow the sentiment to breathe for long. Her world had been so, so dark then. She hadn't been able to see any other way; her stubborn independence had not allowed her to keep taking his help with no clear end in sight.
She had decided she would live or die alone. But then she wasn't alone.
She wonders of Raul even know that his son exists.
She wonders if he knows of her death.
She doesn't know where to start.
"We have a lot to talk about," she says, her voice not betraying the heat in her belly. But she breaks, stepping forward tilting her forehead until it falls to rest against his, her antlers stretching above them and catching the rising sun's light.
"How... how much do you know?" Her voice barely rises above the waves, and she hopes that somehow he knows it all.
It was violent, the way emotions crashed into him all at once. She'd missed him. She'd missed him. A tongue of anger licked at the base of his skull at the words, at the same time as his heart lurched painfully in his chest. It had been so long since he'd heard that voice, and it stirred the long dormant warmth he'd stored away.
Old wounds resurfaced. The pain of her rejection, when they had survived so much together. He'd thought they'd have a future together, that they would face every odd together. And it had all been thrown back in his face. As if nothing had mattered.
He let her talk. Truly, he wanted to know what she had to say. If there were any words that could change the hurt she'd done him. When she stepped forward to rest her head against his, the baroque stallion flinched. Until that moment, he had not really believed she was there before him. He'd suffered hallucinations before, it would be no real surprise to have this be more of the same.
She was real. Warm, and solid where her skin met his. A shudder of emotion wracked him. His voice was barely audible when he finally found the words to say. "I'm beginning to think I know nothing at all." The breath caught in his chest.
He wasn't ready to forgive her. Not until he knew what the hell had really happened between them. But he'd missed the touch of her, the smell of her. He was half tempted to run his lips along her face, to see if the memory of her tasted like the real thing. If he started that, though, he knew he would never be able to stop.
It almost killed him to do it, but he had to step back. To put space between them before he lost all sense. The blood red line of his mouth pressed tight to see her. It was a morning like so many others. To see her standing there, illuminated in the dawn light, was every dream he'd had since she'd left come to life. The broad weight of his head shook slowly. "No. We're not starting with me. We're starting with you, and why you left. Only to come back now that you've missed me."
The last words were bitten off, harsher than he'd meant them to be. A betrayal of the newly reopened wounds now exposed to the morning's light. He would have his explanation before anything else was discussed.
He flinches, and the warmth which had been building grows cold. Their brows touch and she feels his hesitation, mistrust, and anger. She realizes the mistake she has made.
Suddenly, the morning light is glaring to her eyes. The sand burrowed in her pelt makes her skin crawl. Before Death, hot, angry tears would have pooled in her dark eyes. But now, if the way his words affect her could be seen, it would be in the way her mouth sets and her shoulders tighten.
He forces her to make a choice when he uses her soft words against her, it is an effective weapon he has chosen. She would not grovel or plead, and it makes her sick to think that this is what he wants from her. She almost turns to leave, suddenly impatient with the whole situation.
The silence stretches as she makes up her mind, but in the end, her deeper instincts win.
She had never back down from a fight.
As if in a dream, she watches him step back, and she tells herself she doesn't care. She feels herself pulling away, mirroring him before she consciously decides that is what she must do. It takes a moment, and the emotions ripple across her face as her tender impulses wrestle with her will, but in the end, she detaches.
She had always been a quick learner.
Her lip curls and she wonders, fleetingly, if she is burning the most most beautiful thing she ever had. Again.
"So, I'm the bad guy," Will states her interpretation of his words, watching him as she may a rival, as she had watched the beast that killed her before he struck her. Before she ripped his throat out.
(How would this go if she broke down with hooded eyes, told him she has only been alive for less than two days, or that in the afterlife she spent her weakest moments cured together with him and their son.)
But that's not her. It is easier to say that this is what she wants, that she doesn't need anyone as much as she needs her independence. Right now she is hurting, and chasing him off again was the fastest way to make it stop. But she thinks of their child, and that is something he deserves to know, she decides. So she better get that out before one of them brought this reunion to its abrupt and imminent end.
"We have a son. It was best for my mother, Solace, to take him." He probably wouldn't believe her, choose this fact as his next weapon, but her words catch in her throat. It is the only crack in her wall, and she doesn't elaborate. If she thought about her baby, her death, she would unravel.
"She was in the Riverlands last I saw her." Cool and dull she overcompensates, not wanting him to see the way her heart is breaking. He could never see the frantic and damaged part of her that needs his calm and steady presence. That was the part of her she left in the Afterlife.
"I'd imagine you would like to meet him, so I'd start there."
He can fell it, the moment she realizes that this is not the happy, effortless reunion she'd been hoping for. A piece of him curses that he couldn't let them have that. That he couldn't put away his pride long enough to feel the joy he knew they should both be absorbed in right now. In his own way though, he was as stubborn as she. Perhaps that had been their undoing in the first place.
Her curt response is biting, and he can feel her grasping at the idea like it will save her life. The deflection is reflex like for the mare, her defense against what she won't face. He's seen it before, the warrior woman always ready to take charge and wrestle the situation to her advantage. Now it seemed she was ready to put him in the place of her adversaries.
Raul snorted, one forehoof stamping to gouge a streak from the red earth. "Damn it, mare! You know perfectly well that's not what I said." His voice growled from deep in his chest. It was physically impossible for him to yell, the long ago damage to his throat had rendered anything over a low speaking voice painful.
Oh, but he wanted to yell, and to scream and to cry until things made sense again. Until he understood what had driven her to leave him, scared and alone and wondering what he'd done wrong. The world had been been dark place, and how long had he waited for some sign that she was still in it? That if she wasn't his, she was at least safe and happy.
No sign, no word came. He'd been left to imagine any number of horrors befalling the girl he'd fallen in love with and had sworn to protect. Now she stood before him, every wall in place, and for what? What did she need to hide so much that she would not grant him the basic courtesy of an explanation.
She speaks again, in tight and fragmented sentences. This is, at least, confirmation of what he'd learned so far from Clegane. That the boy was in fact his son. Another twist of the knife that Warlight wielded so deftly, that she had not seen fit to return even once their child had been born.
Cold, clinging pain filled his heart. It threaded every inch of him, the razor wire that held him together these days. "Warlight..." Had it always been like this between them? Was it only the brutality of the plague days that had given them a leg to stand on? He didn't, couldn't believe it. Not yet. "Warlight," he started again, and closed the distance between them once more to lay his face against the blessed warmth of the crowned mare's neck.
"I know our son. He has lived in my care the last year or more, and we have both missed you dearly. Why can't you understand that? That I have missed you every day since our parting, every night, and that I have never once stopped wondering if you were safe. Am I so unworthy that you cannot give me the honesty due a loved one? Even a past loved one." A shuddering breath rattled through him. Years of unspoken emotion welled within him, a last ditch hope that if he threw his pride at her feet, it would be enough.
She had never been a creature ruled by her emotions, or so she liked to think, but Raul's are hitting her as tangibly as a kick to the ribs. Warlight feels his hurt in a way she has never experienced before; it flows and weaves itself into her hurt, swirling together until they are indistinguishable.
She tries to swallow these unfamiliar feelings with little success. She is not prepared for the way his emotions bluster against her defenses, and it causes her to catch her breath. But he leans against her and she doesn't flinch from his touch. He pleads for clarity, and she can feel her determination begin to weaken. He begs for honesty, and the wound she had carelessly sealed cracks opens.
Warlight can't put into words the way continuously asking for his help had fractured the structure of her identity. How draining him of his disease suppression, just to make her body stop complaining for a few hours, had eventually become worse than living with her symptoms. She had been a burden, and although he had said she was one he was happy to carry, it wasn't what she wanted. She hadn't then seen what that her independence would cost her.
Cost her son.
"So he doesn't remember." She is relieved at this, it is a small grace she had not expected. The boy had been so young, they had struggled together for only a season or two before...
Her mind spins to formulate the sentences that will explain it all, but there is a dam blocking her honesty. She looks at Raul, lips parted yet wordless, and she knows that if she doesn't tear down her walls this may be the last conversation they ever have. So, she swallows hard and releases her tight grip on every word, not sure if this is the right choice, but knowing she will always regret it if she walks away from him now.
"You should have been there..." She aims for acquisition but it falls flat, the grief she had felt pushing it's into in her voice. "...in Silver Cove when I had him."
There would be no mysteries between them if they had been together that night, and their son would have had a different childhood. One without the grief and confusion which would haunt him for a lifetime. She shakes her head, unsure if she should lean in or pull away, so she stands at the crossroads with her cheeks stained black by her tears.
"I thought I was dying when I left you, I never thought I would have a healthy child." She still didn't know how she had found the strength to stand back up that night. "But I did, and then I couldn't defend him."
Her throat tightens as her body physically resists, trying to stop her from saying what she and the secret she had never meant to tell him. She had failed her most important challenge, she had died alone and she didn't even remember where. But her heart tells her this is the only way. He needed to see her failure to understand, and for once, she listens.
"I died trying to defend him. I was selfish to keep him, but I didn't know where to find you, where to find anyone..." Those days after the Plague had been nearly impossible for her to navigate in her collapsing state. "Until the end, then I found Solace. It was too late for me but I passed him to her in a dream, and then... "
01-17-2020, 03:42 PM (This post was last modified: 01-17-2020, 03:43 PM by Raul.)
They twisted around other's emotions, a dance that they had not shared in far too long. There was an eternity of agony in her eyes, feelings that ran deeper than he knew what to do with. There was nothing else he could say. If she turned from him now, he'd let her go, because he didn't have enough will left in him to chase after her. Not again.
Hot tears seeped from beneath his tightly clenched lids, a betrayal of the anguish that seemed to be turning into a physical thing between them. They had both lost so much. Lost pieces of themselves, of the lives they should have had. There was no promise that they would ever be able to regain these things, that the brokenness could be healed. It was time they'd never get back.
The world had crashed around her, he could feel the anxiety tighten every muscle of her body where it touched him. She'd never been an open sort, but this went beyond the normal guarded nature she had always held close. This was fear. There's a pause in the moment where the tension slackened, where he saw relief on her face. Their son had not been forgotten. There was love in her voice. He could not believe that much love would allow her to abandon the boy voluntarily.
There's a long moment of silence between them in which only the hollow sounds of their breathing is heard. He could feel the words pushing against her throat, and knew if he said anything at all they might disappear forever. They would take her with them. He could only hold her, to let his tears silently seep into the dark hair of her withers while he waited for courage to find them both.
Her words when they come are as stiff as her body. Hard words, ones that hardly made sense to the burly stallion except that he knew she was beyond lying now. The bits and pieces of story she was extracting were nothing but the truth, as aching as it was to hear them. Silver Cove. A place he knew little of, except that now he was aware that it had housed Warlight and Clegane for a time. It was where she had labored and given life to their son. "I wish I had been." He breathed, and once more felt the failings of a mate who had not been there to support her through it.
The impossibility of her dying was a hard truth to reconcile besides the very much living mare he now breathed in. That she had ever been anything less than whole and well seemed like a laughable thing. Yet he had seen her in the plague days, when they had both of them walked very near death's door. Every night he had worried that he would wake the next morning to find her cold and stiff beside him, his little magic finally too weak to fight off the inevitable end.
It was an undeniable miracle that she stood here now. He could never repay the ones who'd seen fit to return her to the world he lived in, because that world had been set off its axis the day she'd left. He nuzzled the crease of her spine with a gentle touch, feeling the strength it had cost her to admit the decisions that had taken them so very far apart. He kissed her there, and hoped as he always had, that she could take the strength she needed from him.
"He is a strong and healthy young stallion." Raul spoke after a moment, pride in what they had created together radiating from the words. "I will be forever in debt to the powers that granted you life again." That granted him his heart again. There was more to say. Declarations of undying love, and ardent promises of forever. Words that meant only what the actions that followed would uphold.
He would not say them. Emotions ran too high as it was, tearing them into their most basic shapes. It was enough that she was here now, and that he knew at last what had become of the bravest girl he'd ever known. With luck, the next steps would be ones they could take together.
The fragments of her story are hard to understand and even harder to tell. Regardless, he doesn't question. Simply, he holds her, and for this she is grateful. Soothing kisses, as good as a promise, warm the places she hasn't been touched in so long and Warlight allows herself to drawn strength from him once again. But she hopes the exchange is mutual.
The brief mention of their son is enough to send another was of emotions rippling across her leopard-skin frame, but she bites her teeth and only nods. It was enough, for now, to know that the boy was young and healthy and striking out on his own. Health would never be something either one of them took for granted.
Her breath begins to slow as she eases into his hold, and his few words convey his meaning well enough to her.
"Nikkai, that was her name," she replies, before a ragged breath fills her chest as she lets a silence fall between them. Actions, not words were their language, and her pink and freckled lips reach to trace the iron-stained marking of his face. She feels like a shell of the enraged, posturing woman she had been moments before. But there is peace in the emptiness. Most of what had left her she had not needed to hold. Taking a step back, she sinks to the earth with a grunt, never doubting that Raul would follow suit.
It's too soon to smile, she feels as though she can't express another emotion for a week. But as he settles beside her she feels a sense of clarity and comfort and her throat has shaken away the tightness of her anxiety.
"I think I can talk about it now," she begins, kissing his damp cheeks and closing her eyes. "I want to tell you everything. "
"No more secrets."
@[Raul] A little closer like we talked about <3 you can assume he is up to date on her quest experience and death. Hope it's ok that I power played him a little to wrap it up neatly, of course let me know if you want that changed!
![[Image: Warlightpageddoll1.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/NMPHtrtV/Warlightpageddoll1.png)
