"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 stands quietly at the mouth of their shallow cave, a hollowed out hole in the side of a hill as though the hand of a giant had swept through it. It had been home since the moment Shahrizai noticed the swelling of her belly and the fullness beneath her hips. Even now, so many months later with Luster born and off exploring the nearby forest on her own, it was still home. Admittedly, though she loved their private little clearing buried in the deep of the woods, home was wherever Shah was. She needed nothing more than him and their ever-growing family.
When Luster’s blue silhouette slips between the trees and disappears into the white of the snowy wonderland outside, she cannot help the way her stomach knots with a worry that is both warranted and reflexive. But it was unfair to ask her to stay with them always, to give up wandering and exploring as children should do.
With a sigh, she turns to Shahrizai, stepping close enough to lay her cheek against the mottled blue of his shoulder. All at once she finds her worries eased, finds that the tension that had been buried in the hollows of her dark and white face softened until only a smile, small and uncertain, pulled at the corners of those delicate lips. “Good morning, Shah,” another quiet smile as she presses a kiss to the crook of his neck, “one day I won’t worry so much when she leaves to explore.”
But even as she says it she doesn’t believe it, and she expects that he does not either. There had been too much turmoil following this family – a war and a raid, a kingdom stolen away by the ocean, an entire world undone. She knew the knot in her stomach would stay there forever, that it was what it meant to love and be in love, to care about something so much that you would spare nothing to protect them.
It was the most beautiful burden.
She pauses and sighs again, pulling back just slightly so that those near-gold eyes are free to trace the angles of his dark, handsome face. Her brow furrows slightly, just a quirk of movement beneath the dark tangles of her forelock, and she reaches out to touch her lips to the hollow at the side of his steely mouth. “How did you sleep?” It is the ghosts she wonders about as she watches him now, the shadows she has seen swimming like fish in the back of his eyes. The things he doesn't speak of, and so she won't pry. But she cannot help but worry about him as she worries about all of them, and so, stepping close again, she moves to tuck herself beneath his neck and against the steel-blue of his waiting chest. "I love you, my Shahrizai." Then, she is quiet again, content to be tucked close against the beating of his heart.
The world has finally settled and everything is once again right. So incredibly, perfectly right. Sometimes he wonders if this can possibly last, but he refuses to dull the perfection of this new life they have built for themselves with ghosts of the past.
His family has grown so much, and perhaps they are currently far flung, but a piece of him knows they are all well. Knows they are out their, living, thriving. He misses them, but eventually their paths would once again cross. He is a patient man. And with Ilka by his side, he would happily wait forever.
This small glen in the midst of the forest has served as their home since their youngest daughter had begun to swell inside Ilka’s belly. He has been so happy here, would gladly spend their days with just themselves and their children. And without the shadows constantly swirling about him as a reminder of terrible days (and even more terrible deeds), he can pretend, even if just for a while, that everything is normal. That everything is as it once had been, back before the world had skewed sideways.
With the early morning sun filtering through the late winter trees, they stand amidst the rays. Shah basks in the glow, in the warmth of Ilka’s love, of they love they share for their children. Dark eyes watch the small roaned filly slip away into the trees, off the find a new adventure. Despite this being the fourth child they have brought into the world together, he finds his worry has never dimmed. Though he recognizes the need to allow them their freedom, a part of him struggles not to follow every time he watches them walk away.
He and Ilka share that, it seems. With a soft sigh, he presses into her touch. He would never tire of having her close, of her touch, of hearing her soft, familiar voice. ”One day,” he says in response, a faint trace of humor edging his tone.
He does not believe it either.
He can feel the way her eyes trace his features, drawing his gaze to her. He offers her a small grin, one that contains hints of the Shahrizai who had existed once, long ago. The love he feels for her fills his gaze with warmth, tenderness swelling inside him as he traces the edges of her slender frame. ”With you beside me?” he responds, a bit of charm and devilry tinging his voice. ”I will always sleep marvelously.”
He reaches out to tug with gentle teasing at the long strands of her dark mane before he stretches his neck across her, pulling her into a close embrace. She fits so perfectly against his chest. He loves having her there, feeling the beat of her heart and the warmth of her body. ”Ilka,” he breathes softly, pressing his dark muzzle against her shoulder. ”I love you too. More than I ever thought possible.”
Today is a new day, not a day to well upon the darkness of the past.
Just as he will never tire of her touch, she will never tire of the way he seems to love her touch – and when he leans in beneath the soft curve of her dark cheek, pressing ever closer until blue and black are as inseparable as a bruise, there is only light in her heart and warmth in her chest. “One day, soon,” she amends with a smile, shifting to draw those dark velvet lips across the strong line of a firm jaw, “probably when she is grown and has a family of her own to worry after her.” A pause and a smile that is so delicately beautiful when it crinkles in the corners of those near-gold eyes, “that seems reasonable, yes?”
His eyes find hers when they settle against his face, drowning in the soft angles and faint hollows that are as beautiful and familiar to her as the constellations strewn across a night sky. When he grins her eyes are drawn there, too, and she can feel her mouth move in mirror, an identical smile etching itself across the soft and black. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She tells him with the hint of a laugh, reaching over to leave a kiss in the soft hollow behind the corner of his mouth. But even as she says it, even as the thought soars through her mind, she is reminded of a time when he had not been there, when the world had torn them apart and there had only been cold stone and damp earth to curl against. With a pang in her chest she noses him again, careful to hide the furrowing of her brow beneath that dark curtain of black forelock.
He reaches out to her then, teasing at those corn-silk tangles of dark mane until the smile is back and soft and true beneath the whiskers of her delicate mouth. When he pulls her close, draping his neck across the hollow of her back to draw her in against his chest, she is like clay beneath his touch, willing and easy to fill in the spaces that stretch thinly between them. In a second she is pressed to the curve of his chest, and the only sound she can hear is the thrumming of his heart and the way hers races to keep up. I love you, he says, touching his nose to her shoulder, and she cannot help the way she folds in and against him, softening to that smile and those eyes and the way his lips feel when they dance across her skin.
They stay that way for many long moments, content together while the sun rises and fills their shallow cave with watery gold light. It is only when the wind carries in the scent of near-spring and mud and thaw that Ilka pulls away from him just slightly, twisting to step outside into the light. She always loved the end of winter, the thawing part, when the world yawned and stretched from its frozen slumber, the way the mud smelled when it mixed with snow-melt, how the sun felt strangely warmer and the sky strangely bluer.
Turning back to look over her shoulder, those damp gold eyes soft and eager and still crinkled at the corners with the smile that had not faded from her lips, she says, “Shall we go explore some more?” And it was mostly true that she wanted to get to know this new world, mostly true that she craved the sun on her back and the wind in her face, but it was also true that some small sad part of her wanted to come across the rest of her family. Heartfire and Illum, little Augusta who would always be little Augusta no matter how old she grew, and even Woolf and Bright, the magician twins who had never loved her in the way that children are supposed to love their mother. Not knowing where or how they were felt like a sliver wedged into her chest that she just couldn’t shake loose.
In his eyes, she is quite possibly the most perfect creature in existence. She had been his light when he had needed her most, when his world had been the darkest. When he had lost everyone else, she had been there.
And she knows him better than he knows himself, knows what he needs before he does. Sometimes he wishes he could be everything for her that she has been for him. But for the rest of his life, he would try.
He would not betray her, would not abandon her, would not hurt her - not for the world.
Sometimes, I love you does not seem nearly enough to encompass all that he feels. Such a trite phrase to express the depths of his emotions. But it is all he has, and he would say it a hundred times a day if he must.
A smile curls the corners of his lips as her dark gold eyes crinkle in response to his his simple musing. He chuckles then, a soft, rich sound that emanates from his chest. ”Yes,” he murmurs in a humored accent as their eyes meet. ”Very reasonable.”
As her velvety muzzle places a gently kiss against the hollow above his lips, his smile softens, turning almost sappy. But then, he'd always been a bit sappy with her.
As she curls against his chest, he sighs in utter contentment. The moment is so perfect, he finds himself wishing it might last forever. Alas, nothing is forever, as he too well knows. Even so, he would take his joys where he might.
When she finally breaks away from him, following the warm light of the oncoming spring, his gaze follows her automatically. His steps shortly follow suit. When once more stands beside her, he closes his eyes briefly as the light hits him, warming his dark skin. The budding scent of spring, of crisp snowmelt and earthy mud, fills his nostrils, and he breathes deep.
The grin is back on his lips as he once more meets Ilka’s gaze, his own deep brown eyes crinkling in delight. ”Let's,” he says eagerly as he steps forward, nose brushing her shoulder affectionately as he does so.
Who knows, in this new, strange world. Perhaps they would find their missing children. It would bring him incredible joy to see their faces once more.
