"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
There was a solid knot in his chest. No matter how he tried to massage it away -with his nose, with his magic- it never seemed to relinquish its hold in him. Like a heavy lead ball, it sat there inside him, tightened his shoulders in tension and added a wild uncertainty in his eyes. He had done something wrong. He wasn't sure what or how, but he still felt the guilt of it, the sting of fault. He was always screwing up. Half the time, he felt he wasn't even aware that he had until it was too late. He hoped this wasn't one of those times.
He hated how Jinju had looked at her, had turned cold and brief towards her with a pointed glance at him. It confused him, that interaction, so uncharacteristic of the friendly girl he'd raised, always so sweet. Circinae had been nothing but kind and caring toward his daughter, towards anyone, and he couldn't understand how he had managed to change it. How it was his fault. He didn't know what he was supposed to apologize for, but felt that he should.
And now his brows always seemed to be creased in worry. Because he hadn't seen Circinae since the meeting. Not her, nor her wolf. As though she did not want to be found, not by him. The vise in his chest only gripped harder, digging in and clawing at his lungs, stealing his breath. Was she avoiding him? What had he done this time?
He hated this.
No longer was he waiting in the places he thought she might show, searching for her scent and hoping she'd come in her own time. He didn't want to call for her, didn't want to hunt her down. But he couldn't live with this tension, this thick and heavy curtain he felt drawn between them. If he had any friends, she was it. She was a source of strength, of support, of comfort. Of joy. She was... Not here either, he growled in frustration, eyes glittering with the pain of it.
He sighed, his dark face bowing and shoulders slumping. Everywhere he looked, he failed to find her. Maybe she hated him. Maybe she had left. Maybe he could wish that thought didn't sting so much. As the emotions built and twisted in his gut, pushed and pressured, his head lifted and tilted back, lamented from a wolf's throat a mournful cry of loss. Then his head ducked low again, and his body sank to the ground, expanded and grew into his spotted horse hide.
He closed his eyes and lay there, just for a while longer.
“Oh Ruan …” She thinks wistfully as the wavering note reaches a pitch and then fades once more to silence. If she had known that her casual distance would be the reason his worries would multiply, she would’ve sought out the purple-flecked stallion long ago and told him to relax. He always seemed so troubled when he entered on hooves, not paws, and it seemed likely to crush or enrage him at any given moment. Was this what it had been like for her? “Remember why you had to leave the ‘other’ Ruan and Raeg’n?” She reminds herself, thinking back to how close she’d come to killing that poor, innocent colt in the Meadow. “Not my finest moment.”
But all of that had changed because of him, so she finds it easy to slip back into the forest of Beqanna and head for home where he waits. Lucky for her, the journey wasn’t as arduous as it had always seemed. With her nimble toes and a slender tail for a rudder the winding paths and tangled underbrush posed less of a hazard or hindrance. And talk about the smells! To know exactly who came previously and in which direction, understanding miles ahead where the path would fork or bend, it all came quicker and easier than before. With each shift, Circinae almost began to understand the allure of it all. Maybe Lupei hadn’t been completely out of his mind.
The river rises up to meet her and with it, her thoughts fall silent. Her fine, brown nose tips upwards to search for him, ears flicking softly every which way to catch any movement that might be nearby, and then she has him - the smell of his wolf slowly mingling now with horse. It takes only a twitch of that nose to turn herself again, sprouting up and out while she begins to ford the waters. The ice bites deep into her flesh, despite the winter coat she’s managed to thicken, but her hooves soon find purchase on the opposite bank and she climbs numbly from the border of their home to continue her search.
When she finds him, with ice frozen into solid droplets that pepper her hide like pale, milky gems, he’s a breathing statue: eyes firmly closed. A despondent smile lifts the corners of her mouth, followed by a gentle “I didn’t go far.” that tumbles from her lips. She doesn’t hesitate to close the distance between them, doesn’t even think twice about bumping her velvet green nose against his forehead in casual familiarity. This was the only way she knew how to be with him, the only way she wanted to be with him. “Your heart sounded heavy.” She murmurs against one of his upturned ears, remembering the undulating note he’d loosed.
Her lips tug tenderly at a wisp of his inky forelock and then she stills, letting her head protectively overshadow his own. “I can always help you carry it.” She tells him, “All you have to do is ask.”
Circinae
I need the crack of a whip, I need some blood in the cut
He could smell her, almost like a dream, a fragrance of the wilderness just barely wafting in. Forest, earth, water. Wolf. Her wolf. Maybe it was a dream, but it still had the same effect; the tension in his body eased and he breathed deeply. He didn't want to think what it meant that the beast in his mind sighed. Maybe it was nothing.
It was probably nothing.
I didn't go far, the voice of shadows dancing through the trees, soft and intangible. He almost smiled. He wanted to. But it didn't quite reach his face, only the face they couldn't see with its fangs and sharp eyes. Circinae.
Her nose tapped his forehead, and his head tilted to briefly lean into it, seeking more of it, before settling again. Before pushing the wolf back, and back. Stop, he told it -himself, she is not yours to reach for. We are not hers. I. I am not hers. But wolves are affectionate with their pack, weren't they? And he was not disloyal to his mate by finding comfort in her presence. Circinae made him feel stronger, steadier. Those were good things.
Your heart sounded heavy, she pressed quietly to his ear. His skin twitched, and an electric shiver zipped down his spine. He rolled it out of his shoulders with a quiet sigh, unaware of the shimmer of borrowed magic producing patches of black fur across his body before sinking back into him again. Her lips teased at his hair, sending another quiver through his muscles. It had been a long time since he'd been touched, always keeping himself so distant, so isolated even from his family.
I can always help you carry it. All you have to do is ask.
He had never been good at asking for help, had never been good at accepting that he ever needed help. But he finally opened his eyes and rolled to sit up, turning a calm blue stare to her. Calm and steady, with her return. Probably best he kept that to himself, though.
Circinae, he greeted quietly, spanning the short distance to lightly touch his nose to her neck, feeling a warmth spread between them at the contact. After another breath of her scent, he retreated from it, but not before he noticed the glittering light catching on droplets of ice on her back. He was tempted to melt them from her but realized he liked them there. They didn't seem to bother her, and they certainly didn't bother him. He pulled himself back to focus.
I'm sorry, he began, his eyes settling on her face and then turning to the forest around them, I didn't mean to call for you that way.It was the wolf. It missed you.
Maybe I can't control it anymore.
Maybe it is too conscious now.
He shook his head at the thoughts, remembered the mess of his emotions only minutes before; the mindless panic, the fretful worries so unlike his calm nature. He didn't want to burden her with his problems, especially when he didn't know what they were. I thought.. you were avoiding me, he admitted softly, hoping that was some form of explanation, but not sure that it was. Or maybe he was seeking the reassurance, that it had all been in his mind. That it was just him, and he was crazy. Nothing new.
She’s glad that she wasted no time in returning home to him. Her head, hanging once over his, rises as she allows him room to finally stand and greet her properly. “Nonsense.” The green girl tells him, in rebuttal to his idea that she might have been avoiding him - and for his paltry apology over calling her back. Neither needed explanation, she would’ve come to him willingly whether it had been a demand or lamentation. Her eyes, at first soft in understanding, harden as they sweep across his body. Circinae isn’t satisfied with the slump of his shoulders, or the weight he now seems to carry. “You’d do the same for me.” She finalizes, wiping the slate between them clean with one effortless motion.
“I still remember the first time we met, years ago.” She says with a warm grin. Her tail, frozen hard into crystallized, sapphire tendrils, swings outward to slap heartily against her downy side, causing the ice to break free where it drifts down to her hooves. A step forward, then she’s pressing her nose into his dark, warm shoulder where she lingers, drawing concentric spirals in a mind-numbing motion to help still his endless worry. Another smile and the words come easier, “There you were, like some wraith from the woods, with Jinju tucked beneath a wing and the rest of Taiga to stand behind you.”
Her head shakes, gently, while her eyes close with the freshness of that first introduction. “It seems like so much has changed, doesn’t it?” She ponders, letting her lips slip free from their routine to glide up and over his withers, down the curve of his spine, to where the scars begin. She won’t touch them - not without his permission - so instead she lips him once more, leaning into the weight of their casual embrace. Simply enjoying the presence that they create, together. “But no one ever really changes, Ruan.” She sighs, confident in her own assessment of the world around her. “They just make the wrong choices. They decide to do the wrong thing, or the right thing, that’s all.”
Perhaps it’s youth (or spurned affection) that leads her to this conclusion, but it’s one that’s held true all of her short years. “You haven’t changed.” Circy rumbles, feeling the presence of her other self, “Still the same black wraith I remember. Still Alpha. Still my King.” The words fall, each one more poignant than the last. “Choose what you know is right.”
“Sadness, anger, pain …” She thinks, knowing the emotions like old friends. “Don’t choose them.”
Circinae
I need the crack of a whip, I need some blood in the cut
Nonsense, she soothed, and he felt both reassured and foolish for feeling that way in the first place. Why would Circinae ever want to avoid him? He didn't know what he'd been thinking.
I still remember the first time we met, years ago, she said, a small smile trying to match hers. He remembered too, but he'd been so different then. Did she see it? All the changes. He'd been so warm and open, still cautious but so easily loving, so very giving of affection and care and kindness. And now... Maybe he was still the same, in some way. But yet so very different. Stand-offish, distant. And so cold. Isolated. Something.. a little darker. Something dangerous.
His eyes snapped to the ice as she flicked her tail, the glittering dust unintentionally throwing him almost bodily into a memory. A time when he was exactly that: cold, numb. Unfeeling. Almost feral after the demon had attacked him. He'd stood there in the forest, his eyes on the thick and strong tree in front of him, staring so hard at the bark as his mind was elsewhere. As he was trapped in a frozen rage.
Let it burn, let it all burn, he'd thought viciously. No.
Let it freeze.
All the leaves for as far as he could see had solidified, fully encapsulated in ice. Without thought, without feeling, without caring, he obliterated them all with the ease of a blink in a shower of glittering particles. A darkness had entered him, and it was so tempting to fall back into that, where the pain couldn't reach him. Into the embrace of his unfeeling Winter. So cold. So powerful.
He was dimly aware she was speaking again, and fought to bring himself back. Feel the pain and the hate, the hurt; welcome it back, feel it, feel it. Shutting it off was bad. And he slowly came back, came aware again with his eyes still on the icy dust she'd shattered to see that he'd formed it into a lethal point, so sharp. It could have sunk into her so easily, he knew, so very little resistance and rimmed in warm blood, red against the perfect green of her. Or curled into a shackle, an iron of solid ice to hold her in place. His head tilted, eyes distant and almost glowing.
It was the foreign beast in his mind that woke him fully, as though bitten. It didn't want her hurt. Of course he didn't either, he snapped silently at it. He dragged in a shuddering breath, his eyes sharpening and focusing on her again. He blinked, drinking her in, letting her steady him. That was not a burden she should carry, but for now it would have to do. He was so different from the man she'd first met, wasn't he? So much had changed in him.
It seems like so much has changed, doesn't it? He could almost laugh at how she always seemed to speak his thoughts, except that he was so disturbed at where he'd gone, what had passed through his mind. He glanced away, guarding her from the guilt sitting so heavily behind his bright, blue eyes. Then he was aware of something else, another something new, and his gaze came back curiously to see her more fully.
She swirled little patterns gently into his shoulder, then her lips swept up and over and along his spine before she settled against him. Suddenly breathing became a chore and his heart reacted to her tender touch. He frowned, couldn't seem to speak, and shook his head in a silent and tight No as he shifted a step out of her embrace. She didn't mean anything by it, he was sure, just comfort from a friend. It didn't really mean anything, maybe not to her. But it meant something to him, to be touched and cared for even on this shallow level, and he retreated from it. It wasn't right to him, even as friends, not when he was with someone else.
It meant too much.
"But no one ever really changes, Ruan. They just make the wrong choices... You haven't changed...
Still Alpha. Still my King.
Choose what you know is right."
His face softened, his tension eased, and he turned much warmer eyes to her. He ducked his head and pressed his forehead against her neck, tangling his hair against her coat as he dragged across her briefly, a playful nip at her skin as he retreated. A wolf's affection in a horse's body. Perhaps it was easier to give touch than to receive, he didn't really think on it as he met her gaze again with a disbelieving little shake of his head.
I've never been called King, he admitted with a crooked grin, eager to bury his earlier tension in shared smiles. It's easy to forget in other lands that is what they would see me as. Here, I am just another of the pack, of the family. Only a steady guide when it is needed, a protector. Is that strange?
The sadness, the anger, the pain. He must choose them.
The alternative is so much worse.
The alternative would kill her.
It saddens her that even when they seem to find the right path together, he refuses to follow or be led. “Fine.” Circinae thinks as he pulls away from her touch, her warmth. She can only do so much and after all, she’s not the grey mare, is she? But the sting is good for the woodsy girl - it reminds Circy with a sudden clarity that he’s not hers to be lost in, not in the way that she can lose herself to the golden stallion. No matter how much she wanted to suffocate in the watery depths of that hard, unforgiving stare, it was nothing she could decide on her own. “Perhaps it’s not a chain you want to be linked to anyways.” She reasons, ears tilting upwards while the dim light of the forest ripples in a soft, passing breeze.
Of course, his lips are upon her then: teasing briefly after the soft touch of his forehead against her neck. Her eyes return to him, a playful smile budding over her serious features, blooming wildly after he speaks. “You like that, huh?” She chuckles, a high note to cover any hint of disappointment. “Old habits die hard and I was born in the old world.” She offers, shrugging before turning to peer at him with a curious gaze. “No, that’s not strange.” The green mare says, though inwardly it makes her feel like an outsider. Family, the word she’s not been a part of until he’d found her in the Field. The one thing she still cannot touch or immerse herself in while she remains here. “I can understand the Pack and it’s needs, if anything.” She reasons, voice lowering.
For a second she mulls over the thought, knowing it to be wholly true, but Ruan seems to be forgetting something that she certainly is not. Her head tilts, slender neck curving so that she can offer him a rather out-of-character serious gaze before softly asking, “And Reagan, she guides and protects us too, does she not?” The words tumble out before she can retract them, ending with the sharp snap of her jaw as it shuts tight. “Stupid.” She chastises inwardly, but the comment couldn’t have been helped. It was Reagan, after all, who had revealed her second trait and led her on the hunt too. Together they had equally brought her happiness and confidence, lifted her when she felt so incredibly low. Credit was due.
It just seemed so unfair to her that after everything he already had, Ruan still seemed to hold power over her emotions.
Circinae
I need the crack of a whip, I need some blood in the cut
