"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
Is it the worst thing I’ve ever felt? Brunhilde thinks while lipping at a tender and freshly scabbed cut. It sits just above the bend of her front left knee; so she finds it terribly easy to pick it open when anxious. She is nervous often these days, the new gash destined to never heal. It will fold into mottled flesh eventually, and Brunhilde will peer at it in disgust.
Such markings remind her of the imperfections, the fights, how she can’t even be good enough for the most base desires.
This one especially—for it was not given by a scorned lover; no, this one she drove into the rocky earth of a riverbed and gasped when her flesh split. The memory is like a cold rain to wake one from a once sunny nap: Brun mirrors the memory’s exhale as her eyelids violently fly open. The image of her minced skin sends her long legs into a dizzy prance, wintery leaves and twigs snapping as she tautly escapes her nest’s hold.
The winter’s moon is silent: no chirping crickets or sleepily cooing birds. Brunhilde hates the silence, hates that she has to fill her head with her own noise. Her voice, when unbidden by company, is broken and savage, lacking the supple texture of the bratty princess she grew up as.
Brunhilde’s misery has long surpassed the point of exasperated sighs, and when her mind and lungs feel like they might need a break, she simply holds her breath. No sign of relief will escape those saccharine lips, not when she has years of rotten honey to hide behind her teeth. She does that now—holds her breath—and stares blankly at the yellowed grass of the meadow.
The moon’s glow and Brun’s depression dims her magic’s light; so, when Brigade is clearly in front of her, she hardly takes notice. Her legs brush through the dry grass and her nose tickles the sharp blades’ tips—neither unpleasant sensation drawing her from her reverie.
“Uh,” Brunhilde whispers with a start, rearing her angular head just in time to keep from running into the wine-stained stallion. At first, she does not recognize him, and only thinks this must be Bub, and oh god he’s found her out wandering again, and what is he going to do this time, and and—
Brun lifts frantically remorseful eyes to find the moody gaze of what her delusions might consider an old friend. Those delusions die hard, though, and Brigade is greeted with the same crassness Hildy has always offered him.
I was a poor boy; you were a bright light I was a sinner and you were a snake
Brunhilde has none of her mother’s softness—none of her coyness—and yet there is something about her that always reminds him of Kensa. Something that strikes at him like flint whenever he is near her, whenever he studies her openly. He isn’t able to quite put his finger on it, but it exists there between the spaces of his ribs regardless, an itch that he can’t scratch and yet persists, constantly biting at him.
He is not surprised when she nearly runs into him, she isn’t difficult to see coming after all, but neither does he move out of her direct path. Instead, he raises an invisible brow, his face stuck in that same stormy expression that he always wears, his wings folded dark and red over the wide expanse of his back.
“Me again,” he says for not the first time and certainly not the last. He catches the blood on her leg and the scab that has recently been torn away, but he doesn’t mention it. From their few encounters, he has been able to surmise a few things about the mare before him and none of them led him to believe that she was the type who eagerly accepted unrequested advice. He certainly would have several pieces of it for her—including, perhaps, most urgently that she cut ties with the man he had met with her before.
But it’s not his problem and he has little habit of taking them and making it his own.
So he just shrugs.
“Luck or curse, I guess.” His voice is dry and husky, running through his mouth like river stones tumbling over one another. “Why do you always feel the need to make a man feel so welcome?”
This at least accompanied with a ghost of a smile, although it leaves before it can fully perch.
shook like some old souls when our bones broke swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame
Handsome, Brunhilde thinks, staring hard at the moody face of Brigade. Longing sits in her chest, not aching like longing should be, but cold and lonely. She wonders what it would feel like to let Brigade in, to offer him the redeeming kindness she used to offer up slightly more freely. That mean streak in her (though can it be called a mean streak anymore?) twists her kind words into underhanded insults, and perhaps she doesn’t want to be so cruel. Perhaps Brun simply cannot help herself when she has the opportunity to project her misery upon others.
And, perhaps, she is so very tired of being alone simply for cruelty that does not come naturally to her.
Hildy shrugs then replies, near rueful smile on her face. “What ever do you mean, Brigade? I’m the most welcoming woman I know.” It feels good, to tease him in a way that is not exactly mean. What she wants to say is I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for making it worse (because she can’t help but blame herself for what most likely is not her fault), but her last sliver of pride keeps her biting her tongue. Instead, she offers what might suffice, “Maybe next time I run into you, you can say that more genuinely.” A peace offering, maybe. Brun hesitantly waves her white flag while simultaneously wanting to stain it with the crimson of her own blood. She thinks Brigade deserves to spill it, the only man she has lashed out enough to deserve to hurt her.
Hildy casts glowing gemstone eyes up to the skies, picking out her favorite stars and wondering if one day her magic will allow her to become one. The stardust and butterflies that follow her certainly make her look like a heavenly creature; and suddenly a violent need to behave like an angel overcomes her, spilling recklessly from her mouth.
“He hurts me and that’s why I want to hurt you. They always hurt me. I’m sorry.” Even my father, she thinks bitterly, stung by his disappearance and eventual distance.
Then Brun sits in stunned silence, offering a surprised gaze to Brigade.
I was a poor boy; you were a bright light I was a sinner and you were a snake
Brigade knows what it feels like to feel a sense of kindness blossom in your own chest and to dig your heel into it before it can truly flourish. How many times has he been in a situation where he has turned to cruelty as a way to escape his own weakness? As a way to ignore the pain that stabs at him? He understands perhaps too much the emotions that run rampant through her—the need to drive others away and the sense of power it can give you unmatched by anything except the cold, ringing loneliness.
Her own mother had born the brunt of it, but he doesn’t think of her much anymore.
Does his best to drive her and their child, wherever they may be, from his thoughts.
His lips quirk at her teasing. “I have been around those more unwelcoming than you,” there is something like a knowing in his eyes when they meet her gaze, an honesty because he knows better than most that it’s not simple to feel the way that she feels—it’s not easy to soften the walls that guard your heart. “I will do my best to be genuine,” he rolls his wine red shoulders, “but it’s not something I’m well known for.”
Her confession catches him off guard and for a second, he just stands there, grey eyes steady but wide, his lips pressed hard together. There are a million things that he wants to say. He wants to tell her that he doesn’t want to hurt her. That he’s sorry that she has been hurt. That he understands. But he can’t imagine her enjoying such things coming from him—she would view them as patronizing, as cloying.
Instead he glances away, looking up at the same stars she had observed just seconds before.
“I hurt others because it’s easier than admitting to myself what a fuck up I’ve been.”
He frowns, feels a tightness in his chest when he thinks about all of his mistakes.
“I’m sorry too.”
shook like some old souls when our bones broke swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame
I’ve never been one for . . . Brun starts to think, gemstone eyes floating to the glow of the moon and then back down to the light her magic’s glow casts on the surrounding grass. Been one for what? Any sort of pleasantries? Or any kind of base happiness? She knows that from the moment she was born, she was a hellraiser. The color of fire with an attitude to match, it was no wonder her parents could barely keep a hold on her.
But even if they could, did they try? No, not particularly. And Hildy suffers from it to this day.
Brigade reminds her of such things—neglectful parents, the fluttering hope of rarely bestowed pride, and simply because she cannot help herself—she hopes he is proud of her, too. If only those stormy eyes might break apart to reveal some secret, loving man. If only she could dig down deep into his chest and pull out the rich soil feeding his jungle heart. Perhaps he could show her the secret to never truly revealing who she is. And perhaps they might wallow together, still somehow in quiet solitude, neither loving the other but understanding what it is like to shatter against one’s own rocky shore.
I’m sorry, too.
Brunhilde dies on that sword. Three words that strike through her flesh to find a home in her heart. Rarely does she allow herself to feel sorry, much less say it, and for the sentiment to be returned? Brun fumbles, replaying Brigade’s voice over and over again. She breathes away the tension of expecting some sly rebuttal. She leans just an inch closer, muscles relaxing enough for her body to fall fluidly into the motion.
Silence stretches, then finally, Brunhilde softly laughs.
“I thought I would die before I apologized to a man,” she murmurs, settling a mostly amused gaze on Brigade. “I suppose I’m glad you’re the one to prove me wrong.” She can’t tell him why she’s glad, she just knows that she is.
“Who did you hurt to bring you here?” Brun asks. Her eyes find the lightest shade of gentility, even as she assumes he won’t tell her. At least she can offer him the idea of companionship.
