"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 is something that reveals itself in Fyr’s molten eyes as she names him the embodiment of fear. It’s only visible for a moment - she is lucky enough to catch it on the tail end of her eye roll - but whatever it is behind that special gleam, it’s enough for her breath to catch in her throat and for the distant coyotes to disappear into the background like long-forgotten music. In that moment, there is only Fyr and the glow they share.
When it fades in his eyes, Lillibet can still picture the expression in her mind. Her earlier blush threatens to rise against her alabaster cheeks once more, but their conversation suddenly turns and it is no longer a moment fit for coquetry or humor. She feels drawn to him, teetering there with indecision as she gazes upon the area of his shoulder that she might press her ivory frame against in comfort, were she bolder. The desire catches her unprepared. Their shared trauma creates a connection that the bygone Sylvan princess may never have experienced had the Southern kingdom not perished beneath Beqanna’s sea.
I know who you are.
He says it so knowingly that Lillibet can’t help the smile that returns to her face, pressing up the corners of her pouted mouth the tiniest bit. Part of her had expected him to know of her family, of course. The South was not as large as it seemed, and her mother had held the crown for many years. But to hear him say he knows of her and not just her parents fosters a bit of pride in the alabaster woman. “Oh?” is all she inquires in response, granting him the opportunity to build on the statement as the flames that linger along his spine and in the air around them flicker and roil.
Her offer is met with a question dripping with the banter and jest that has swiftly grown familiar, allowing them both to slip back into playful grins and away from their brief vulnerability. She will tell him about her own family and their absence in time, but for now she cannot bring herself to say the words aloud. She has done it many times at this point, as reiterated their absence to all who would listen in hopes they had seen any of the three. But no one had. And now she is tired, so tired, of searching and searching.
Their shared trauma can wait.
For now, she debates briefly on telling him why she is here, exploring the canyons in the middle of the night. It doesn’t take her long to decide, though her response to his inquiry does not lack amusement. “A princess may request you live in this place when she makes it her own.” Her golden eyes watch his reaction carefully, for he is the first she’s voiced her intentions to aside from Herrin. The first who could hold it against her, or try to steal it away.
And with the flames that surround her, she knows he could do just that.
“Lillibet,” she finally grants him with a tuck of her chin to her narrow chest.
I do not want to move mountains;
I want the mountains to see me coming
and to crumble.
”Lillibet.” He murmurs, feeling out the way it sounds. Does the name fit her as his fits him? His gaze lingers on the delicate curve of her moonlit cheek, pale like a lily, before settling back to her sharp gold-flecked eyes that are watching him carefully. As teasing as she had been so far, he doesn’t doubt this Princess could also make her words sting. “Lilybee.” He says in a wry tone, that small smile back on his pale mouth as he finds it does fit her after all.
All the while he is digesting her request, trying to not show his surprise. He hadn’t expected that, far from it. The young jaguar stallion had never truly thought about his future. He had been content in the Pampas, had never expected to lose everything he had come to know and care about. He supposes he would have left eventually, as all children do when home becomes stale and wanderlust beckons, but he had still been so young when the South had been destroyed. They all had thought they had more time to figure it out. As for her own worries about him… There had been wisdom in how Aela had placed herself behind Obscene instead of beside him or taking the full brunt of it herself. He has no desire for a target on his back. Not yet.
What would living here be like? He supposes he needs somewhere to stay and the land his mother adored would be fitting enough. What was the catch though? He lets the silence linger, watching the lazy orbit of his fire revolve steadily around her as he considers his options. It seems he might stay quiet forever until suddenly he asks, “Why this place?” The question is genuine, for he’s not sure what she sees in these dusty canyons and dry open valleys. Before she can respond, he levels her with his strange stare. “Am I to be your royal furnace?” Faint amusement sparkles in the depths of tawny eyes but he is curious to where he would belong here. What he could be here. What she would want or expect from him and if he would be willing to give it. “Do you ask every stranger you happen upon in the middle of the night to stay, Lilybee?”
Under the microscope of Fyr’s saffron eyes, Lillibet thrives. She meets his analytical gaze directly, her amusement ever-present as she remains silent in the time he mulls over her name. Lilybee, he finally decides and she lifts a brow at the nickname and his accompanying smarmy grin. She’d never been given a nickname - from someone outside her family, at least. It feels more intimate than she would have expected, though she assumes that is regularly the case with the moonlit stallion. There is an intensity to him that could only ever feel passionate, intimate, and vulnerable. She thinks to herself that she could grant him a nickname in return if only Fire and Fear were not so perfect for him already.
If the fire-wielder is surprised at her confession, he does an impressive job of hiding it. He would not be the only one, though, if he were - her intentions surprise even herself. The thought of ruling has never called to her. It has not ever enticed her with the promise of a crown and throne. Diplomacy, all in all, is boring. Of course, her parents had always coaxed her and Link to follow whatever path they had wanted, though she knew Oceane held a certain amount of pride in navigating politics.
It’s not that deep for Lillibet.
Fyr questions her again, this time with a trio of inquiries that grow more and more philandering. A small bout of laughter falls from her lips as she shakes her head, causing her lilac-accented mane to dance across her neck. “Only the dangerous ones,” she responds coyly, ‘And I would only require a furnace in the winter months. You’d be free to roam the rest of the time.”
But why Pangea? She debates on this question, too, and takes a few moments to gaze at Fyr, her pupils narrowed as she searches his yellow eyes. Ultimately, she decides that there’s no true harm in sharing her thoughts with this random man she’d met in the middle of Beqanna’s witching hour. Not harmful enough to deter her, anyway.
“Poetic justice, I suppose. My mother and older brother were once held captive in Pangea.” A pause, and then: “And if they are still alive, I’d like a place they can come home to.”
Because their last one rests beneath the sea, golden leaves caught in the current.
I do not want to move mountains;
I want the mountains to see me coming
and to crumble.
If she objects to the nickname he had bestowed upon her, it doesn’t show. She is quick to quirk a brow and laugh, reminding him of raindrops on wildflower petals, and quicker still to remain coy. He watches the way her lilac mane falls in waves along her neck but it is only a glance, his true focus still on her illuminated expression. Trying to read between the lines of her. There is a thread here and he snatches the end of it, unwilling to let it go so easily. “So you admit you have a habit of being attracted to dangerous behaviors.” His voice is curious but there is a sharpness in his gaze. And something else… Something that almost looks like hurt which he quickly hides behind a wall of lengthy crimson forelock.
Aela had always tried to show him options, that even if he was destined to be terrible, it didn’t have to be in the way he had always assumed it would be. The way it had been spitted at him at birth. Despite the fire that he wields, the souls (which could absolutely be malevolent at times) he summoned, he had never wanted to be considered as something bad. Evil. The memory of being shunned in the Adoption Den had never left him. The terrified looks. Too abnormal. Too strange. Despite the friends he had made since then like Lies and Sickle, the confidence his adoptive mother had painstakingly built into him, there was always that small voice in the back of his head that reminded him that no matter just how good he could be… The core of him was terrible. Dangerous. That same voice that coaxed him to burst a bird into flames just to see if he could. The same voice that had moments ago wondered what it would be like to see her skin curl and peel. And it seems Lillibet had sussed that out in him immediately.
Tossing his own dark red mane, he turns his own gleaming eyes out into the cold desert darkness just as she begins to search his gaze. Her words eventually bring him back to her and there is a solemness there, a hard resolve. He still isn’t sure what he can do here, what he can offer her or this place. Her motive for being here, though, is parallel to his own. Where else would Aela go if she was still alive? “And if I refuse?” He asks her quietly but as perceptive as she has been so far, he’s sure she already knows his answer is a resounding yes. If he was as dangerous as so many had thought or wondered and the stories of Pangea were true... Then it was only a matter of time before he ended up here anyways.
For as swiftly as it comes and goes, Lillibet does not miss the glint in Fyr’s saffron eyes or the way he swings his head just so to create a curtain that briefly obscures his handsome face from her. She is confused, though, when the tone of his question does not bite when paired with that sharp glance, nor does it foster any unpleasantry. Was the look one borne of jealousy at her jest, that she had invited others to stay the night? Lillibet doubts that very much. Or was it how easily she had called him dangerous? If Ledger had taught her anything, it was that having the capability to harm someone did not inherently mean that person was dangerous.
She wonders at its source for a long moment, neither rushing to answer his question or refusing to do so. Instead, she waits patiently for the fire-wielder to return his gaze to her where she secures it with a casual, dismissive shrug. “I’m attracted to proving that I can survive dangerous things.” That she, without magical abilities to protect her, can navigate this world without fear.
Well, without showing her fear.
Her self-imposed shame at being nearly-traitless lives on, and this is, perhaps, the closest she will come to discussing it outwardly with some who isn’t Link. And all it took was the comfort of the witching hour and a man who glows just as she does beneath the canyon’s moon. If only she had known her assessment of him had been the reason behind his change, the former Princess might have then found the courage to comfort him with the touch of her soft muzzle, and prove that she had not meant it out of fear.
And if I refuse?
Her pensiveness departs with an amused snort of her flared nostrils, thankful for the return of his intensity. “I don’t think you will,” she answers matter of factly before mulling over whether or not to leave it at that. After a moment, she decides to add: “But I will not hold it against you if you do. All I ask is that you remember me in the winter months, when I have inevitably frozen to death in a cave.”
I do not want to move mountains;
I want the mountains to see me coming
and to crumble.
There is that familiarity again, those threads of Aela’s unwavering patience when she waits him out until he is making eye contact with her. Once again, she says something he is not expecting and once again he is left with far more questions then answers. He frowns faintly, searching those gold-flecked eyes of hers for more clues. He is unaware of her lack of magic and in this there is another missed opportunity much like the one regarding Liesma. He could tell her of Obscene, how he had not been born with magic but had taken a land much like she was attempting to do. He could have told her how the Fae Prince hadn’t always been Fae and had searched for magic until he found it. If he knew her story, perhaps he could give her hope through the tale of another.
Instead, he wonders if she is implying that he is a dangerous thing she is trying to survive. It makes that warmth flicker in his belly again, both in dismay for her astuteness in his terribleness and fascination that she would admit to being attracted to him at all. “Look at you thriving Lilybee.” He finally says with a roguish smile, hiding his true thoughts and feelings in those dark places where the little voice usually manifests from.
The smile lingers as she efficiently counters him, calling him out exactly as he figured she would. His intensity remains the same as he murmurs to her, low and gravelly, “Well I can’t have that on my conscious can I?” He rolls a shoulder in a small shrug before locking his gaze with hers again. “Looks like I’m staying… Until you find a suitable heater I suppose.”
