"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
she said “oh, I know that love is all about the wind how it can hold me up and kill me in the end”
She dreams of electricity.
She dreams of blackness.
She dreams of endless days in isolation, in quiet, in a place once home and now prison. Perhaps part of her had known what had been to come when Vulgaris had found her on the island, wrapped tight around their daughter. Perhaps she had known that she walked straight into a trap, into a cage that would shut swiftly behind her. Perhaps she even wanted it, she wonders, when she is staring into the horizon. Perhaps she had hungered for a reason to be close to him and their children; a way to pretend all was well.
But she cannot pretend now and that numb emptiness only spreads further through her.
Her children do not spend much time with her here, and she is glad for it. She is glad that they do not have to see her like this, and it is more and more exhausting to pretend that all is well when they are near. She does her best, always. She smiles for them and tells stories and presses kisses on their forehead and into their jaw—tells them that she loves them, that they are beautiful, that all is well.
At least, she does with two of them.
It has been weeks since she has seen Adna.
It is just one more thing to plague her, one more thing to trouble her. One more thing to chase her dreams as she spends her days in Loess, watching her serpentine once husband from afar, the crown resting so easily upon his handsome head. Once, she may have brimmed with pride for him. Now, she just fears.
So today is a day like any other. She wakes when the sun has barely crested the hill, her eyes gritty with lack of sleep and her lovely face thin, slack. She gets to her feet and her wings shift to the color of sage green eyes and bone armor and heartache. She pulls them close, a frown crossing her features for a moment—a brief second of clarity—before it drains from her and she can only inhale slowly.
He normally only snuck into the dungeons in the dead of night, when no one could see him standing in the doorway. Every part of him screams and smashes itself into a wall with the want to remember her but nothing ever changes. It always aches and it is agony to stare at her face for too long but all is misery when she isn’t near. Today he misses the color of her eyes but he knows that he has to face her if he ever wants to see that beautiful stare again. Would it hurt her to see him? Would it only serve to twist the knife if he approached? Vulgaris sighs as he stands over the spring, watching his reflection as the questions come flowing through him.
No one could ever love a monster.
The words feel like an echo of something he has heard or said before. He spits at the mirror image of himself so the ripples ruin the perfect surface. The serpent king takes a deep breath and lifts his head as he prepares to descend into the cool depths of that prison. Shoulders back, chin high, he slips forward with long strides that proclaim his strength and confidence (all false, all lies). He steps through that doorway once more and stops when he sees her standing there in the shadows of the artificial cave. Even with that haunted look in her eyes and the thinness of her cheeks, she’s the queen of everything he has or will have.
He takes a step closer, then another. He pauses. There is a thought to flee and leave her alone, as he should have before. He swallows and moves closer, their chests pressing tight together while he leans his face into her neck. Not even the idea of heaven persists if she is not with him. But the flowers in her hair smell of anguish and misery, of betrayal and false lovers.
“I don’t remember anything before going to the mountain. I don’t know how I got there or who you are,” he mumbles weakly against her skin. “I only know my name because everyone keeps saying it to me. But every time I see you, my heart hurts and I just want to stay with you forever.”
For the first time, he laments his lack of lips to kiss her with.
she said “oh, I know that love is all about the wind how it can hold me up and kill me in the end”
Her heart cannot decide on an emotion when she sees him.
His presence is an immediate electric shock and she feels that immediate, instinctual flood of love—that feeling of home, that feeling of belonging. But it doesn’t last. Not alone, at least. Because his presence isn’t one of safety anymore and that feeling of comfort is immediately chased by a deep-rooted fear. It is terror that she feels next as it works its way through her, chased close behind by a cacophony of horror and empathy at the sight of his mangled face, an inhale at the desire to do what she could to heal.
But none of it shows in the blank canvas of her face.
Nothing shows because the true edges of her have been dulled by heartache and her time in isolation; she is nothing but worn smooth, exhausted by the effort that it takes to continue breathing. She doesn’t notice the crimson dahlias that have begun to bloom in her mane and tail, their sweet scent captured in the small quarters of the cave. She doesn’t notice anything but the sight of him walking closer and closer.
Once upon a time, she would have met him. She would have stepped into his embrace and pressed her lips into the curve of his neck, would have explored the smoothness of his scales and the muscles beneath. But now she can only tremble, her legs locked as his chest comes to rest against her own.
Her wings curve and pull into her closer and she closes her eyes.
Tries to find some balance in her hitched breathing.
She focuses so much on it—tries so hard to not think about how painful it is to remember, how easy it is to pretend that nothing has happened—that she almost doesn’t hear his voice. She almost doesn’t heart his confession. But she does and her head spins with it. She blinks and takes a deep breath, her body still shuddering slightly, the physical contact painful when it had once been only sweet.
“Is this a trick?” she finally asks, her voice small. “Are you just trying to hurt me more, Vulgaris?”
Was it so easy to forget her? Forget their love?
Was he just trying to find another way to break her?
She closes her eyes and feels the familiar saltwater on her cheek.
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