"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
11-29-2018, 12:29 AM (This post was last modified: 12-04-2018, 01:37 AM by despair.)
i could dig myself out of the loneliest of graves for you, could be taken down like a dog that got itself a mouthful of blood and liked the taste, could give myself up belly-up. crane toward you like a heliotrope in the sun.
Mama says he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her, but then why does she cry when she says it? He’s too young to comprehend why her smile breaks around the word love but he wants to understand so badly. For now, all the boy can do is kiss her cheek and say how much he loves her too. Despair doesn’t know that he’s got his father’s eyes, that his smile frames his laughter just the same way. And how could he? Vulgaris never visits. He wasn’t there for Despair’s first steps or even his first words. There was only Mama.
He’s too young to feel this depth of emotion and so he lingers on the very edges of the playground. Shiya told him to go make friends but he’s got no idea what to say to any of them. Instead, he idly digs a little hole in the dirt with his tiny hoof and hums quietly to himself. The tune isn’t anything special, just something he thinks sounds nice. Maybe he heard it in passing once, he figures.
The ink-colored boy sneezes and a ripple of scales shimmer along his body, all glimmering like an oil slick for a fleeting second before they give way to his dark coat once more. He hasn’t learned to control it yet but he doesn’t seem bothered by the change anymore. After all, Mama has lots of scales on her and he thinks she’s pretty, so looking like her couldn’t be a bad thing. The feeling tickles when he accidentally shows his serpentine features and there’s still a faint smile on his face as he continues to dig.
A little beetle scrambles from the dirt as he accidentally unearths it and he flicks it into the grass with the very edge of his little hoof. Despair lowers his head and follows it curiously. Its body gleams just like Mama’s scales and yet it is not a snake. But he quickly loses track of the insect, causing him to snort softly in frustration. When he lifts his head, there’s a strange man standing close enough that Despair can make out his strange body. It’s twisted all wrong, but then again he doesn’t know what wrong is just yet. Instead Dovev just looks different, and different means fun.
His knobby knees and gangly legs carry him closer, close enough to bump his nose against the stranger. He smells like Mama, like the place she comes home from every morning when the dew is still heavy on the leaves. Was this his father, then? Is that why she snuck away when she thought he was asleep? He smiles up at the man, pointed teeth all glimmering like freshly washed pearls as his legs march in place excitedly.
“Hi, Dad!”
here is the field in my heart that bears your name. here is the whole country, aching and tender, i named after you. here is my whole entire heart.
He was only here because he wanted to walk with her, get some space so they could be alone. There would be no other reason for him to leave his cage in the Pampas. He had no intentions of trying to escape. Wasn't his style. He knew he deserved the pain anyway, the punishment of seeing her so happy with her family.
She should've been his, but he'd fucked up and let her go. To save her from the curse that he is.
He hadn't saved her. He still hurt her anyway.
His muzzle reached out to breathe over her scales on her shoulder, still hating them. They were hers though, and so it was less of a displeasing thing to be near them, touch them. They were only acceptable because they were hers. And she was his.
He hissed and stepped back, pressed her to the side as a little nose reached out to explore him. His scowl settled on a small boy, prancing happily in place with his fangs showing in a big smile. "Hi, Dad!" What the fuck? He frowned harder, his black eyes looking over the kid. He definitely hadn't slept with anyone but Heartfire in over a year. And no one but Dizzy before that. This boy was fresh and little, as small as his quadruplets. Of a sort. He shook his head.
"I'm not your dad. Haven't you seen any other black bastards around? They're not all your daddy either." He scrutinized him, his head tilting to the side a little. Adna was too little to have her own children and he'd never seen anyone but Vulgaris to have that face. His eyes narrowed and he glanced at Adna to see if she recognized who he suspected must be her brother. Had Leli had this kid? Hadn't she just had one? So, like, twins then?
"What's your name, boy?" he asked as he turned back to him, his eyes hard.
It had been her idea to bring him to the playground—to get away from his prison and her home for at least a little while. She has suspected the tension beneath him being there. The way her mother seemed to be on edge and distracted, the way her father was both infinitely proud of himself and annoyed, the way that Dovev seemed to vacillate between fury and hurt. It was too much for her to fully comprehend, the roots of the problem deeper than she could dive, and she instead only focuses on the pleasure of his company.
Whenever she could sneak some time with him.
They walk together and she smiles up at him when she feels him reaching over, his breath rippling over her gleaming scales. She doesn’t see what he sees when she sees them—doesn’t know the hurt beneath it. She just sees her father, her hero, and she bursts with pride that she looks so similar to him. Still, she beams beneath his attention, shifting to bump her scaled shoulder into his armored one and grinning.
It’s a smile that only shifts when she is suddenly thrown back against his side, the stallion suddenly harsh and hissing. Adna frowns, craning her neck so that she can get a better look at the boy in front of them. “Oh!” she cries out, mouth dropping slightly. She frowns when he calls Dovev dad, swinging her head between him and the boy, mouth opening and closing several times as she works through her confusion.
Dovev contradicts him though and while that eases one aspect of her confusion, it only serves to stir up the rest. “You look just like me,” she says softly beneath her breath, studying the safe green eyes that so clearly mirror her own. She glances back up against, face wide open and confused, looking to Dovev for answers even though she has no reason to believe that he would know anything more than she does.
howl at the half moon, radio queen. she's all smoke. she's all nicotine.
i could dig myself out of the loneliest of graves for you, could be taken down like a dog that got itself a mouthful of blood and liked the taste, could give myself up belly-up. crane toward you like a heliotrope in the sun.
He tilts his head like a little puppy when Dovev denies his paternity, and the wheels are turning in his head as he tries to make sense of it. Why else would he smell like Mama, then? Perhaps the fact that this is his father is a secret of some sort. Yes, that has to be it, since this other stranger also smells like Shiya in the morning and looks vaguely like her. It’s his duty to help his father keep this secret, then. Mama had told him to avoid his father, after all, if he ever met him. Despair begins to slowly nod with a knowing, mischievous smile as he reaches this conclusion.
“Riiight, you’re not my dad. We’re just really good friends,” he says, little pointed teeth all gleaming in his sneaky grin. When he asks his name, though, he remembers what Shiya said the day he was born. “Mama says I’m her Despair!”
And the expression just keeps on shining from his little dark face, proud to be called hers even though he still doesn’t quite know what his name means. His bright green eyes travel to the red woman then, examining her face curiously as he looked over her scales and her teeth. She looks like his mother but a little different, and not just because of her age either. He blinks slowly as he tries to make sense of it but the puzzle pieces just don’t quite snap into place for him. Perhaps this was Mama’s sister?
But then she speaks and his ears perk up, delighted that she agrees they look alike. His legs tap in place again and he spins in a tight circle as he laughs joyfully. How wonderful to meet someone so similar to him! Perhaps they could be good friends then.
“You look like Mama, but you’re not white,” he says as he bumps his nose into her shoulder, testing the texture of her scales against his skin. Yes, she is just like his mother somehow, which brings him a strange sort of comfort. Despair wastes no time as skitters around behind them and then squeezes in between, his shoulders pressed to each of theirs. “What are your names?”
He keeps his chin lifted to stare up at them, hope and wonder glimmering in his kind eyes as he watches them. The armor along Dovev’s shoulder isn’t soft and warm in the way that Adna’s is, but the bone makes him feel safe and protected somehow.
here is the field in my heart that bears your name. here is the whole country, aching and tender, i named after you. here is my whole entire heart.
She looked up to him for answers, subconsciously asking him why this boy looked a hell of a lot like her and her daddy. His jaw clenched and he turned back to the boy. He was gonna fucking kill that guy, goddamn. What the fuck had he done to Leliana?
"Riiight, you're not my dad," the little boy agreed as if to help hide this secret. "We're just really good friends. Mama says I'm her Despair!"
That was definitely not a Leliana name either. He was suddenly faced with way too much knowledge and it was stirring the start of a boiling rage inside him. He never should've let her go. At least then she never would've had anything like this happen to her. Never. He'd fuck up and push her away, but never this.
"You look like Mama, but you're not white," the boy added regarding Adna before dancing around them and shoving between them. Dovev grunted and scowled down at him, black eyes hard. So his mom was a snake-thing too? Maybe that meant he wasn't from Leliana's husband then after all. The doubt eased a furious knot in his chest just a little, and he continued to stare down at the dark child.
Their eyes matched though, Adna's and the kid's. And her dad's. But green is just green, right? Could be anyone. He hoped.
"Where do you live? Where's your mom?" he questioned him. Dovev didn't give his name, he never did. If anyone wanted to find him for his services, they would. And if anyone wanted to find him to kill him they wouldn't.
Her head swings and she leans a little heavily against Dovev, trying to sort everything out.
When he mentions that she looks like his mother, her frown deepens, the shadows reaching her eyes and lining the edges of her mouth. The little boy scoots over and then shimmies between them, and Adna shifts to give him space. She doesn’t turn from him, doesn’t shiver or dance away, even though all of the nerves in her body are on fire—every edge lighting up and telling her that something is wrong.
She struggles to keep that from her face. Struggles to maintain her composure, and she is positive that Dovev will be able to see through her flimsy mask. Still, she looks down and attempts a smile for the bright, jovial boy—someone who certainly didn’t ask for this and didn’t ask to be born.
Dovev asks for his mother’s name, the same question that trips off of her own lips, and she bites it back. She reaches across Despair and presses her nose into the curve of his neck. It is a brief touch, just a soft reassurance that she is still here and that they are okay and this is going to be fine.
“My name is Adna,” she finally says, the words tripping off her tongue and into the air. Her brow furrows again and she takes a deep breath of air. “I look like my dad.” She thinks of Vulgaris and something in her chest twists, something unknown taking root in her. “Isn’t that strange?”
If only she knew just how strange a thing like this could be.
Looking down, she finds his sage-green eyes and wonders at how it is like looking at a mirror.
At a lineage that carries her back the generations to the root of it all.
howl at the half moon, radio queen. she's all smoke. she's all nicotine.
