"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
He waits for her, as he always does. He wakes earlier and earlier these days, although he loves nothing more than sleep, but he finds that ie eludes him. It rips itself from him in the early grey morning and leaves him alone, cold and awake, watching as the stars begin to fade into the night sky and the sun begins to wash its thin, watery light over the landscape of Beqanna—leaving them here.
Cher is not here this morning, which feels imbalanced and odd, and Obe makes a note to ask him later where he had wandered off too. It leaves him feeling even more obligated to sit and watch Altar, turning his heavy gaze from the early dawn to her sleeping form—studying the galaxies that coat her in awe.
He has not seen much, but he knows that she is the best of them.
Knows that she is something special, something to be revered.
He does not know much, but he knows that.
So he remains, pulling himself finally to his feet and resting his youthful hip against a nearby rock as he watches her sleep—occasionally turning his bulky head when a breeze rustles what little vegetation remains. When the cadence of her breathing changes, he turns back, stepping away from the rock slightly as though to make it clear that he was alert and ready, trying to compose his face into even harsher lines.
“Good morning,” he rasps, the sound odd and husky, touched with the slightest bit of rust.
A slight cough and then nothing.
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god
She does not dream, but if she did perhaps she’d dream of starfire.
So many of her thoughts are consumed by her preoccupation with what it might be like to burn. How terribly she aches for the lick of flame.
Her sleep is plagued by something that is neither dream nor reality. It is something Other, the cosmic traveling. It is something she discovered by accident, this magic, and it thrills her so completely that it makes her tremble even in her sleep.
She does not travel far tonight. She slinks, weightless, across the surface of the moon and back again. She is shapeless, boundless, until the soul fits itself back into her chest and she begins to stir.
A sharp breath and her eyelids flutter, the eyes flashing electric as they open and fall heavy on her brother’s familiar form. There is a beat of silence before he speaks, before she lifts her fine head, before the sensation of being shackled to the earth sets in. She studies him, her gaze sharp, and then pushes herself to her feet.
Even in the morning light, the stars wink and twinkle and a thin tendril of stardust curls out of her mouth when she exhales.
“I want to take you with me next time,” she murmurs, head tilted. She loves their brother dearly, but she does not trust him to listen to her. She reaches out to touch his shoulder, just barely, meets his eye as she draws away again. “Do you trust me?”
Obe is a simple boy and would be an even simpler man.
He knew the poison that lay beneath his skin, but more than that, he knew the strength of his back. He knew the muscles that lay beneath the skin, the strength that roped through his heavy form. He knew that his value lay in that strength and, without it, he had very little to offer this world—even less to offer her.
He knew that Cher was an element of chaos and that whatever within him could love, loved that.
And he knew that, above all else, there was beauty in worshiping the power of his sister.
So he remains still when she rises, dutiful in his stance when she comes close to him. He touches his shoulder and he cannot help the awe that grips his simple heart—the feeling of being touched by a god—and he cannot break his blackened gaze from watching her. From wondering what she has seen.
More than he could ever imagine, he knows.
Far more than he was capable of understanding.
What she asks though catches him off guard and his breath stutters slightly. His mouth is dry when he thinks of the implications of what she is asking, of what she is offering. It was terrifying, he thinks, if he was capable of fear, but the pause is less than half a breath before his mind finally clicks into place.
“Of course,” his voice rasps. “More than anything.”
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god
Anyone else might have missed the pause -- ever so brief, hardly there at all -- but she does not. She knows him better even than she knows herself, she thinks.
But there is no sharp spark of irritation. She does not gnash her teeth at his hesitation or punish him for the way his breath shudders out of him.
No, instead there is a patient smile. It lacks in warmth, certainly, but it is genuine all the same. She turns to face the sun then, lets the heat sink into her skin as she sinks her shoulder against his, a nebulous wing trapped in the space between them. And she marvels at the differences in them, her soot such a stark contrast to his deep black and Sepulcher’s, too.
“Where would you have me take you?” she asks, studying the sun-drenched horizon as she speaks. Perhaps it’s a test, perhaps there is both a right and wrong answer. But there is no indication in her expression, her smile having faded only to be replaced by something cool and passive.
She is tired still from her journey, though the exhaustion exists only in her mind. There is no reason for the body to be tired if it never left this corner of Pangea.
Only a moment passes, though, before she turns her sharp gaze from the horizon to her brother’s face.
He would be afraid of her if he were not so in awe.
Would be terrified of the galaxies that she rips apart at the seams with the steady hand of a seamstress tearing fabric for a new dress. There is never any warmth in the looks that she casts his way, but he does not miss the heat. He would bask in the cold breath of her cosmos. Would gladly tip his face up to the dying star that she breathes forward, would let it wash over him like a stolen sunrise.
But he has no answer to give her.
Nothing that would please her, he thinks.
Nothing worthy of what she was capable of.
So he inhales, holding the breath in his lungs as he watches her turn away, turning her attention to things that are far more worthy of her attention than the sullen brute of a brother by her side.
When she looks back, he realizes that he still has no answer for her.
Finally, something comes to him, and if he is embarrassed by the simplicity of the answer, he does not shy from giving it to her—because he would give her anything, if she asked for it. As simple as his gifts are.
“Your favorite place,” he confesses.
Because he knows there is nowhere worth seeing more than what has captured her heart.
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god
How keen he is to tell her exactly what she wants to hear. And she loves him for this, certainly.
There is power in the way he looks at her. It is this she feasts on. It is this that convinces her she is worthy of worship, because there is something in his feverish eyes that tells her she is. It is a dangerous power, certainly, if only because it leaves her fiendish and feral when the rest of the world does not look at her the same way.
He is so precious to her, her Obelisk, but so terribly bad for her, too.
She turns her attention squarely on him then, exhaling a stilted sigh as she studies the galaxy splashed across his face, down the length of his neck. A charged silence passes between them in the wake of his answer while she studies him, something like scrutiny but softer.
“Tell me the truth,” she says, plain. His answer had shot a sordid thrill through the network of her veins but she suspects he’d only said it because he’d thought it was what she’d wanted to hear.
At the heart of her, she is cruel. She is cold and calculating. She is the result of the tragedy that bore her, bore all three of them. But there is a softness in her reserved only for her brothers and though she delights in all the ways he pleases her, she knows that he does not exist only to serve her.
His answer does not please her, is the first thing that he thinks.
It was not the right answer.
There is regret, and then disappointment, and above all else, a self-hatred that spreads like wildfire through him. He should be more clever for her. Should be a better companion for his sister. Better at conversation and more able to match the brilliance of her mind, of her powers, of her gifts.
But he is just Obelisk.
He is not the wonder of Altar, nor the horror of Cher.
He is just a simple boy cast alongside them as a spare, a forgotten piece.
(He does not mind this truth, most days, does not mind being their trailing piece—
but it feels more acute when she stares at him so squarely like this.)
So he says nothing at first because he has no words to offer her. He just shuffles in place, tries to find a more comfortable position pinned beneath her gaze. Like finding shade before the glare of the sun.
“I would go to the end,” he answers finally. “To the place where it all ends.”
To the Afterlife, to the place of the quiet and the dead.
To the place he knows he is bound.
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god
It shifts something in her chest.
The heart beats sideways. Once, twice, thrice.
And then it settles back to center as she studies him.
It sways her even deeper into that terrible softness to watch him shuffle. To hear his answer. His true answer. There is a flash of that softness in her reptilian eye before it is gone. Just as quickly as it had appeared.
She draws in a long breath and shifts her gaze back to the horizon. There had been no glimmer of curiosity in his tone, thus she feels no particular sense of delight to hear it. No, she takes no pleasure in the answer when all it inspires in her is a depthless dark.
The silence stretches elastic between them until, finally, she nods. If that is what he wants, that is what she will give him. She has never attempted to travel that far and the preparation will likely take weeks. But she will take him there.
“Okay,” she murmurs. “I will take you there.”
It is a promise even if she does not explicitly say the words.
He does not catch the softness. Has no ability to discern that any would hold any softness for him, least of all her. (He is so undeserving of softness, so undeserving of anything resembling fondness.)
He just knows that he offers up the answer because it is the only thing he knows how to do.
Give unto her all that he is—all that is hers.
There is something like a shudder when she accepts his answer. When she does not turn him away or squash him beneath her thumb or, worse, laugh in the face of his simple truths.
Instead she just nods and promises him that she would take him and, were it possible, he finds that he can love her more—worship he more. She who would have the kindness to accept his dull answers.
He dips his bulky head and looks down at his feet as a thank you, before looking back up, studying her delicate face. “Thank you,” the words feel odd on his tongue—so shallow and cheap—but he offers them up anyway. For a moment, he turns his gaze away to look into the horizon where the sun slowly gathers.
“Where is it?" he asks, afraid of his own boldness. “Your favorite place?”
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god
There is no need for his thank you and she feels no impulse to respond to it.
Instead, she ponders his question.
And she wonders what she has to lose by telling the truth.
She is young, but she has so rarely been honest in her short life.
She has so rarely trusted anyone with her truth.
But if there is anyone she trusts, she thinks, it is Obelisk.
It is he who she trusts to watch over her mortal body when she leaves it behind.
This is perhaps the deepest trust of all. And she turns her head then, turns her head to touch her mouth to his forehead where the galaxy splashed across his skin begins.
She exhales a breath, hot and licked with stardust, and drags her mouth down from his forehead and across his throat. Down the length of his neck and stops at his chest. Where the galaxy ends (or perhaps this is where it starts, this place where his heart beats).
“Here,” she says and lifts her head. Steadily meets his eye then, perhaps to gauge his reaction. Or perhaps to determine if he understands what she’s said.
When she leaves, she finds this galaxy specifically. And in this way, she curls herself into his skin.
But if he does not understand, she does not offer any explanation.
