04-21-2016, 01:48 PM
She is gone and he is livid.
Just when he’s gotten her back in his kingdom, in his life, the grabbing hands of another land pull her away from him. He knows when they arrive on the borders, skittering like the cockroaches they are, that he has to honor their steal for a time. It is the decree of Beqanna, the law of the land that keeps them civilized (if only barely). He has to watch as she’s led away from the mountains that had seemed to lean towards her upon her recent return. He has to square his jaw and turn away from the ever-receding speck of the collecting party when they finally blink out on the horizon.
It is a bloodless, easy exchange that feels worse to him in many ways than war.
Because Ea has become everything he thought she might be. He remembers her as the stoic, serious girl he’d met in the meadow all those years ago. They had shared an understanding because they were much the same. Childhood was lost on them by and large; they were two souls aged long before they left the womb, too pensive and analyzing to really savor the frivolous fruits of their early years. And if Ramiel has softened marginally over the years like an apple in the sun, Ea has not. Her character has always been unquestionable, unchanging. He’s never wanted her to ease her will or be soft for him, and she’s never tried to for long.
He has fallen in love with her because of it.
The nights are too cold to sleep without her to warm them, so he doesn’t try. Instead, the ghost-man paces his home. He grows more restless and weary with every night that passes. He counts them down, a vicious mantra of waiting made worse by his self-imposed insomnia. Before she came back, life had been all right. The charcoal stallion had grown comfortable in his duties, in the day-to-day schedule of politics and policing. The Dale was as quiet as ever, but it had been all right. The mountains were at ease in their solitude, her people much the same.
But Ea’s return has reawakened a part of him that had become as dormant as the Dale. He feels driven to succeed rather than to survive; to build and grow and thrive. She is the salve to his mental wounds after the war he hadn’t known he needed. And while it’s all so new, still (their words often combative but with no tension underneath), they both feel what it can become. He’s spent many days surrounded by the ones he loves and cares for, but too many nights yearning for another kind of family. With Ea, he can see an end to those nights. He can imagine the sphere of those he cherishes expanding every year; he can see the faces of their children, each one a light to ward against the dark.
Before the sunrise of the final day of his countdown, Ramiel is already leaving for the Valley. He doesn’t care if he gets there early. He will worry their patrols and disturb the quiet as long as he needs to until the marauders show their faces. When the grey stallion toes the invisible line of the kingdom, he lets out a hoarse call. The first tendrils of red light burn their way down the mountains and into the bowl of the land. It is eerily similar to every Dalean sunrise he’s ever watched, but somehow, the light seems to die when it reaches impenetrable shadows. There is a darkness to the place that is familiar to the nights he’s spent without Ea; he pays the feeling no mind as he waits.
Just when he’s gotten her back in his kingdom, in his life, the grabbing hands of another land pull her away from him. He knows when they arrive on the borders, skittering like the cockroaches they are, that he has to honor their steal for a time. It is the decree of Beqanna, the law of the land that keeps them civilized (if only barely). He has to watch as she’s led away from the mountains that had seemed to lean towards her upon her recent return. He has to square his jaw and turn away from the ever-receding speck of the collecting party when they finally blink out on the horizon.
It is a bloodless, easy exchange that feels worse to him in many ways than war.
Because Ea has become everything he thought she might be. He remembers her as the stoic, serious girl he’d met in the meadow all those years ago. They had shared an understanding because they were much the same. Childhood was lost on them by and large; they were two souls aged long before they left the womb, too pensive and analyzing to really savor the frivolous fruits of their early years. And if Ramiel has softened marginally over the years like an apple in the sun, Ea has not. Her character has always been unquestionable, unchanging. He’s never wanted her to ease her will or be soft for him, and she’s never tried to for long.
He has fallen in love with her because of it.
The nights are too cold to sleep without her to warm them, so he doesn’t try. Instead, the ghost-man paces his home. He grows more restless and weary with every night that passes. He counts them down, a vicious mantra of waiting made worse by his self-imposed insomnia. Before she came back, life had been all right. The charcoal stallion had grown comfortable in his duties, in the day-to-day schedule of politics and policing. The Dale was as quiet as ever, but it had been all right. The mountains were at ease in their solitude, her people much the same.
But Ea’s return has reawakened a part of him that had become as dormant as the Dale. He feels driven to succeed rather than to survive; to build and grow and thrive. She is the salve to his mental wounds after the war he hadn’t known he needed. And while it’s all so new, still (their words often combative but with no tension underneath), they both feel what it can become. He’s spent many days surrounded by the ones he loves and cares for, but too many nights yearning for another kind of family. With Ea, he can see an end to those nights. He can imagine the sphere of those he cherishes expanding every year; he can see the faces of their children, each one a light to ward against the dark.
Before the sunrise of the final day of his countdown, Ramiel is already leaving for the Valley. He doesn’t care if he gets there early. He will worry their patrols and disturb the quiet as long as he needs to until the marauders show their faces. When the grey stallion toes the invisible line of the kingdom, he lets out a hoarse call. The first tendrils of red light burn their way down the mountains and into the bowl of the land. It is eerily similar to every Dalean sunrise he’s ever watched, but somehow, the light seems to die when it reaches impenetrable shadows. There is a darkness to the place that is familiar to the nights he’s spent without Ea; he pays the feeling no mind as he waits.
R A M I E L
this is a man pulling at his iron chains
