"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
oh, my love, don't forsake me. take what the water gave me ..
At first, she’d been terrified. Who wouldn’t be? The water had swallowed her whole and spat her out far away from the rest of Beqanna. She could’ve drowned, then. But she didn’t.
Thank goodness for that. Instead, she avoided the shore like the plague and yet never let it go far from her hearing. It was, simultaneously, her freedom and her guard. The only way, whether through teleporting or swimming, back to solid ground, back to the redwoods, back to Canaan. It was imperative now more than ever that she find him again. For all he knew, she was dead. But she wasn’t.
In fact, she’d gained more life than before. So, for her it was priority to at least see the gilded pegasus one more time. In her mind, she reasoned it was for tact; He should know, it was his right. Still … her heart knew better. She dreamed of this once, but the memory could not come to its fullness without him. She knew then that she needed him and this fact irked her - why should he know about her progress? He hadn’t come looking for her, had he, on his dark, mahogany-gold wings?
She’d almost forgotten to snap out of it. She remembered when she felt the shifting weight of bodies within her and it dawned on the green mare that she’d had a piece of him with her this entire time. That was more than enough to fill her air with lungs and send her down to the beach, where Circy closed her eyes and recalled the shape of his face while the water grabbed her body nimbly to pull it into the black depths.
It was like becoming a bolt of lightning. Like a mad, blue spark of electricity that was the key to an infinite possibility of doors. So many paths all at once and you have only that one, brief moment to choose.
Circinae finds him easily. She appears very suddenly near the bank: sodden, spat out once more but reeling less this time. With a shake of her inky crest the well-rounded mare quiets the feeling of hitting a brick wall with an exhale, “Hello?” finding its way out with the decompressed air. For a minute she’s afraid she’s gone somewhere wrong.
so often times it happens that we live our lives in chains,
But he had come looking for her.
The once serene ripple of the waters’ edge had coiled around her so tightly, and pulled her deep within its depths, and for hours, for days he had searched the crystalline shore for any semblance of movement – for any sign of her presence. His heart ached – she had been swallowed whole, taken from him with little else but the echo of her frightened scream left behind, ringing in his ears.
Could he have prevented it; could he have stopped it? He knew nothing of the technique of controlling a water source; he only knew how to harness wind and he is left hopeless and restless, with frustration settling into the marrow of his weary bones as the hours and days go by. A swelling of dread eventually filled the vacant crevices of his chest, stifling his beating heart, stirring a longing ache deep within – tucked within the delicate tissue, where his proverbial emotions lie.
Eventually, he managed to draw himself away from the mellow shoreline, with one final, yearning glance – he had waited long enough, and though he knew what fate might have caught her in its clutches, he refused to permit his mind to linger on it. He searched, aimlessly, for days, for weeks, and eventually, time had simply melded together – dawn into dusk, autumn into winter, and eventually he lost track entirely.
The thin and frigid air of winter had swept beneath the expanse of his wings, and the gentle blooming vegetation of spring had lapped gently at his legs – and as the warmth of the summer sun beats down on his golden skin, still, he searches. He had traversed the land, from one sea to the next, with little sign of her, but a tendril of hope is stoked still within him, like the flickering of an ever-burning flame.
He never moves too far away from water – any water. The ocean, a lake, even the smallest, trickling stream. If he were to find her, his seemingly illogical mind insisted, it would be near the very source that had taken her from him so long ago.
And it is there, nestled beneath the thicket canopy, as his gold-flecked eyes tiredly searching the roaring, unyielding waters that he is startled from his restless reverie. There she is, with rivulets of water trickling down the gleaming emerald of her skin, and wet, tangled navy tresses pressed against her neck. She is more beautiful than his memory recalled, and his heart is beating rampantly against the confinement of his rib cage.
He does not hesitate – it is only a mere two-beated stride that carries him to her, the length of his gilded body sliding up against hers, his lips seeking the curve of her cheek. He presses the flatted end of his velvet nose to her neck, inhaling the scent of her, feeling the heat of her skin against his own.
”Circinae, I thought – it doesn’t matter what I thought,” he murmurs mid-sentence, seeking her pale blue eyes. ”I looked everywhere for you;” (and he had) ”you’re here – you found me.”
oh, my love, don't forsake me. take what the water gave me ..
The first sound of her name wipes clean the countless days between them and his touch is welcomed, met with the pressure of her own soft lips against any bare inch of him that she can find. Silently, like all the countless prayers she offered to the night sky when the stars seemed brightest, tears draw invisible lines over her warm cheeks and stain his pelt. To have him so close again was all she had ever wanted. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” She says, finding the courage to joke even though the laughter comes with sharp pain, “especially not now.” She exhales.
In the dark, warm recesses of her wide belly there comes a flutter of movement. Her skin undulates, rising in soft mounds where hooves push for room in an already crowded space. The irony of their reunion is too good to be true but she reasons that the jump had finally sapped the last of her will and energy. Ripping through time to travel instantly was more work than it looked. “I know we have a lot to catch up on but these two won’t wait.” Circinae explains, letting the subtle mention of twins slip casually from her cache of secrets.
Her breathing comes in short gasps now, a hissing note following each footstep as she moves stiffly away from him. When she first discovered that she was carrying two, her fear had overwhelmed her. Now - she’s right where she belongs. Fear has no place in her mind or heart anymore. Steadily, easily, she lowers herself onto shaky knees and comes to a rather ungraceful rest. “I’m glad that you’re here.” She moans, throwing her head over her shoulder to pin him with bright eyes. An exhausted laugh tumbles past her lips and then she is prostrate on her side, shallow gasps racking her lungs while her body heaves with the effort of what’s to come.
There is only a little complication. The first foal slips easily into their world, gold and green and favoring Canaan more than she could’ve hoped for. Her second is turned backwards, a breach birth, and the pain her child gives is agonizing. Circinae cries out but never gives up, only stopping to view them with half-lidded eyes once there is nothing left to give. Both boys, nearly as similar as twins can get. One sports her green, the other her blue, and they share a tinge of Canaan between them in their color. Absolutely perfect.
Bloodied and tired she rises, eager to greet the first and check over the second as they too find their feet. She’s as proud as a newly-minted mother can be, nibbling them softly here and there while pleasurable noises erupt from her chest. The water wolf is so enraptured by her get that she’d momentarily forgotten about the father. Canaan isn’t far and with a start she remarks, “Two colts!” Looking between them it’s not hard to see that her winged counterpart is responsible for making them, but the green-framed colt is almost the spitting image of his father. Circy reaches forward to tap her nose lightly on the elder twin. “Would you like to name one?”
so often times it happens that we live our lives in chains,
She is soft, warm to the touch – and her voice, though soft and trembling, stirs emotion within the hearth of his chest, and with it, a surge of wind strokes through the basin, enveloping them and pressing them closer together. The darkened line of his mouth presses against her jaw, and once more to the crook of her neck, feeling her pulse thrum softly against his lips, savoring the moment – bittersweet, for there is a part of him that is uncertain that she is anything more than a dream.
He is a fool; a blind one, at that.
Her words are just above a whisper, laced with humor and anguish, causing his brow line to furrow – perplexed. Gently, his dark, hazel eyes, laced with gold flecks that glimmer faintly in the pale light of the waning sun, study the terse line of her face – tension and agony rippling through her soft and delicate features. ”Circinae?” he murmurs, concern bubbling within his throat, as she breathes softly across his cheek.
It is then that he can feel a stirring against the finely preened surface of his wing, and with a wayward glance, he is slack-jawed and awestruck, staring incredulously at the swell of her barrel. He had been so enamored, so enthralled to see the emerald of her skin – the familiar, rich indigo of her haphazard, dampened tresses, he hadn’t even noticed. He hadn’t even noticed, and guilt, exhilaration, and all-encompassing, undeniable fear suddenly floods him.
The moment is stolen away by the veneration filling his heart, and softly, he touches the rounded protrusion of her stomach – and he is almost breathless; but perhaps not as breathless as she. In anguish, she is soon crumbling into a heap onto the thicket floor, amid dry brush and fallen leaves, prostrate and shuddering, and a fierce urge to protect her is suddenly as present within him as the marrow of his bones.
Quietly, peering into the darkest shadow of the woodland (with the occasional glance to her, to the small, utterly beautiful life being birthed from her with every heaving gasp), he is carved out to be something more than just a wayward wanderer, a windswept drifter, a passionate lover – he is a father.
The first emerges, as vivid and as gold as he is, but with a tendril of emerald coursing the length of its spine – and something akin to pride swells within him, and gently, he reaches down to tear away at the pliable sac, wiling his newly born son to breathe. He is beautiful - absolutely perfection, and yet his reverence is fleeting as Circinae cries out in agony – a beautiful, but wretched sound, echoing through the dense forest surrounding her.
Softly, his lips press against her dampened cheek, and he brushes away the long, wavy tresses that lay across her slickened forehead. A quiet but steady strength.
And then, the second is born – another son, and he is beyond elated. He, too, is gilded as his father, yet with the vivid indigo of his mother – and she is standing, panting and bleeding and wracked with exhaustion, and if there is anything more stunning in existence, he has yet to find it.
Would you like to name one? she asks him, and though he is still reeling – his heart pounding, his mind racing – he touches the firm line of his mouth across the forehead of his eldest son, before preening and attempting to dry the shining, seemingly iridescent feathers of his soft, downy wings.
”Corvus.” He breathes, staring into the bright, vivid eyes of each of his children, and then to her, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. ”You are full of surprises, Circinae.”
