"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
little do you know how I'm breaking while you fall asleep, little do you know I'm still haunted by the memories, little do you know I'm trying to pick myself up piece by piece
The mistake that she had made was still simmering inside of her, settled like a hot ember that refused to go out. Even in the midst of the dark it was like a nagging glow, following her even as she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. She was accustomed to not sleeping. Her nights had been riddled with terrors for as long as she could remember, since the first time she had washed upon Beqanna’s rocky shores, but now, they had changed. Previously, the nightmares had been more of a feeling; an intense, tangible fear that took hold of her mind and her legs and told her to run, to run even though she never saw what she was running from. And she always did; she ran right out of her mind and into reality, she ran until the burning in her lungs was so intense that it woke her up.
But now, almost every night, she saw him – smokey and blue, circling and pressing against her, and then onto her, and this time no matter how badly she wanted to run, her legs never moved. Every night, she missed her opportunity to escape, just like she had on that day, when she had stayed, frozen and numb, like a deer staring the predator straight in the face. Instead of waking because she was running, she was forced to relive the event every time, only waking because her heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to explode.
It happens again, tonight, where she stands buried within a thick copse of trees on the edge of the meadow. The autumn sky is mainly hidden by the canopy of limbs that stretch above her, though a river of moonlight spreads before her. She had been careful to hide herself where the light did not touch, letting her black form melt into the night. She had avoided the Forest ever since that day, and yet she also had not sought the safety of Hyaline’s borders; she was an infinitely foolish girl, it seemed, but something inside of her had finally broken – something that had already been hanging by a thread, thin and precarious.
When she finally awakes she is gasping, her black neck damp with sweat, her muscles drawn taut and trembling under her glossy coat. It takes her a moment to grasp reality, her eyes taking in the nearly bare limbs that sway in the cool breeze, her ears catching the faint sounds of night as she steadies her breathing. He’s not here, it’s not real, she tells herself, both a reassurance and a scolding. She would never forgive herself for that day in the forest, for not leaving when she should have, for letting her ignorant curiosity get the better of her – something that would have never happened when she had first come here. Beqanna was changing her, in some ways that were better than others, but she worried she was going to pay for that mistake. It was too soon for her to tell if anything had come of that day – her frame still lithe and svelte, but she knew now what to look for. She had chastised herself for being careless with Leilan, and yet Chryseis had ended up being a priceless gift; she doesn’t know what will happen, in this case.
But most of all, she is terrified of what Ether will think.
She has kept her distance from him in the days that followed her encounter with Tunnel, no matter how much it had pained her to do so. Her connection with him had been indescribable, and she would have given anything to be hidden away in his shadows, tucked against his side, instead of alone, the way she has been. Mostly, she was humiliated. She didn’t know how to explain to anyone what had happened, when surely they would just find her incredibly naive and stupid. Why didn’t you run? She knows they will ask – because she asks herself the same thing every single day. And what are the chances that he, the only one that actually mattered, would even believe she hadn’t been with someone else willingly. It sounded unbelievable, even in her own head. So she kept it from him.
Tonight, however, she can’t help herself. The remnants of the nightmare still have her pulse racing, and hesitantly she steps from the protection of the small grove of trees, into the silvery moonlight that cascades across her dark form. ”Ether?” Her voice is soft, but the night is so still that the clarity of it almost makes her cringe, though her heart flutters hopefully, praying that she will see his golden eyes somewhere in the darkness.
BRISEIS
underneath it all I'm held captive by the hole inside, I've been holding back for the fear that you might change your mind
Golden eyes watching our every move Losing time without the sun or moon
She’d closed him out, and he doesn’t know why. He’d tried to understand, but he cannot. He has never been very good at seeing and knowing, at recognizing what lay beneath the surface. Not like his sister, who could look at another and know their soul. He’d almost asked her, but he hadn’t. He’d felt too foolish, as though he doesn’t even know his own mind. If he does not know his own, how could he expect to understand another?
But he had stayed close. He couldn’t seem to help himself. The shadows wrap so comfortingly around him, ancient friends that always welcome him in their cool embrace, no matter how far he might stray. They are simple and constant, easy to understand. They do not place a vice around his heart and run rough fingers through his mind, scrambling his thoughts until he is not entirely sure he had remembered things correctly.
He’d tried to go to her at first. Quickly though (too quickly), it had become clear she had not wished to see him. She had avoided the shadows, the darkness and the quiet corners that he calls his own. Had he been less uncertain, he might have braved the light. Might have ignored the way it burns his skin and pierces his eyes just to speak with her. But this is too new to him, still too foreign. Sometimes he wonders if he even knows up from down. Sometimes he wonders if he had only been imagining things. Perhaps what they had shared had only been in his head.
Still he watches, keeping to his shadows, unseen, undetectable, hoping that perhaps he’d been wrong. It’s easier in the night, when darkness abounds and shadows touch nearly every piece of land and not just the depths of the forest. He sees her nightmares, pieces of himself dying just a little bit each time he must watch knowing he cannot interfere. She hadn’t wished to see him, and he would respect her wishes, even when it hurt to do so.
He made sure she was never in danger. That much at least, he could do. That much he could give without her knowing.
He is there tonight too, when the nightmare takes hold. He aches as he watches her, resisting the urge to step from his shadows. To draw her close and take away her fears. He would battle her demons if he could. He’d fought the monsters of nightmares in the past and won. He would gladly do so again, if it gave her peace. But it’s not his place.
She’s not his. Not really. Not anymore.
He stills when his name escapes her lips, almost not daring to believe she had asked for him. Why now? Why tonight?
The answer to those questions doesn’t seem to matter though. He would always be there if she asked. After a moment, he releases the veil he’d used to shield himself. The shadow-dark pitch of his skin blends so perfectly into the night that, to the observer, it might appear as if nothing had changed. Only the bright, golden-yellow sheen of his gaze would give any indication of his presence, peering eerily from the darkness.
For a moment, he can only stare at her, his heart thudding inside his chest as emotion clogs his throat. Finally, he whispers her name. “Briseis.” Barely a thread of sound, almost indiscernible from the trembling notes of the music made by nocturnal creatures.
little do you know how I'm breaking while you fall asleep, little do you know I'm still haunted by the memories, little do you know I'm trying to pick myself up piece by piece
Like a lighthouse on a stormy sea, his eyes slowly appear in the dark, the veil of his shadows peeling back to reveal what she had been searching and praying for. Her name fits so perfectly on his tongue, like a secret being shared between them, and it makes her heart stop, for just a moment, before stuttering again in her chest. But there is more than just figurative secrets; she doesn’t know if he will see the way her almost-black eyes hide an anguish that she can’t describe, the burden of what she is hiding eating away at her from the inside.
There was a part of her that was terrified that he wouldn’t come – that she had pushed him away to the point that he wouldn’t even entertain the idea of seeing her. There was another part of her that didn’t know what to do now that he was here. She stands, silent and nearly trembling in the milky light of the moon, leveling her gaze with the golden ones that still peer from the shadows. In her mind she is walking towards him, she is pressing against his cool skin and letting her lips trail across his neck, like she had before. But intrusively, beyond her control, there is Tunnel’s face, his teeth pulling her by the neck towards him, and her jaw clenches tightly, and she remains rooted to the spot. Ether was perfect; he was flawless, unmarred, and he didn’t deserve someone that had been broken, tarnished.
”I...I’m sorry,” Her voice is impossibly soft, wavering with the tears that she refuses to let even gather in her eyes. She can hardly look at him, the shame and humiliation filling her to the point she is afraid it’s going to spill over, to a point that she cannot contain it anymore, and so she averts her gaze to the ground. Hesitantly, she takes a step forward, and then another, until she is a matter of inches from him. It would be so easy, then, to reach out and touch him, but something inside of her holds her back; he wasn’t the last to have touched her anymore, and she is afraid he will know. She knows Tunnel has probably left marks on her neck and withers, almost flinching at the memory of where he had drawn blood. The idea of his rejection is enough to stop her.
”I had another nightmare and I just...missed you.” The last part escapes before she can rein it back in, and for a moment her quiet and reserved guise falls and she is transparent – shattered and anguished, clearly fighting a battle that she cannot win on her own. But it vanishes just as quickly, willed away as she withdraws away from him again. She shouldn’t have called for him, when things couldn’t even be the way she had envisioned them. It doesn’t occur to her that there is a reason that he was so close; that she hadn’t ever really been alone, that if she could just find it in herself to verbalize what had happened, she would have someone to help her pick up the shattered remains of what she was. ”I’m sorry I disappeared,” she gives him that much, lifting her eyes to his, and hoping that behind the stoic image she desperately tries to display that he can see, or feel, the honesty in those words.
BRISEIS
underneath it all I'm held captive by the hole inside, I've been holding back for the fear that you might change your mind
Golden eyes watching our every move Losing time without the sun or moon
It feels like ages he stands there, simply staring at her. An eternity lost in her endless gaze, shadowed by thoughts and emotions he cannot even begin to guess at. He’s never been good at emotion, and hers are as much a mystery to him as his own so often are.
But she breaks the spell when she moves closer, an apology on her lips. She moves slowly, hesitantly, as though uncertain what her reception might be. He would always forgive her though, no matter how often she pushed him away. It is not in his nature to harbor resentment or anger. And he could never pretend to know her thoughts. Perhaps he had mistaken what was between them that day. Perhaps it had only ever been him.
He could never hold something that may have only been his wild imaginings against her. He could never try to cage her in his own ideals. Such a thing would be hollow at best. Empty and terrible, if she did not choose him, of her own volition. And she hadn’t. Still, he hadn’t been able to abandon her. Foolish perhaps, but then he’s always been infinitely foolish. He had given himself to her, and it is not something he would take back so lightly.
He feels hope though. She had asked for him, and perhaps that would be enough. His gaze remains fixed on her, longing and hope and hurt all tangled together, a snarled web of emotion he can’t seem to decipher. He remains silent as she speaks, his heart leaping erratically in his chest when she admits she had missed him. It takes him a moment to find the words, his mind already leaping at that persistent hope.
“I missed you too,” he says softly, an ache nearly audible in the words. He steps closer, wanting nothing so much as the draw her into his embrace. She apologizes again, and he draws closer, nearly touching now. He wants to touch her, but he needs her to tell him she wants him to. To tell him he hadn’t been imagining things. So instead he skims his nose over her shoulder, a bare breath away from her skin. “Why… did you… “
Hide from me, he wants to say, but the words never quite leave his lips.
Suddenly he stills, inhaling deeply for the first time. There is something subtly different in her scent. It had changed, something new affecting it. It takes him a moment to recognize it, to put the pieces together. At first he knows surprise, a thread of delight, his mind going to the night they had spent together. But another breath brings confusion, and another recognition, followed so closely by bewilderment that they may as well be the same.
He withdraws slightly, as though he might erase her scent from his lungs, the knowledge it had brought, even as his gut hollows and his mind scrambles to find another explanation.
little do you know how I'm breaking while you fall asleep, little do you know I'm still haunted by the memories, little do you know I'm trying to pick myself up piece by piece
His silence when he stands and simply watches her is intolerable. She can feel her heartbeat as it thrashes in her chest, the pounding nearly rushing to her head until the irregular beat drowns out the sounds of night around her. But when he speaks, everything seems to stop, and suddenly all she can hear is his quiet voice. The confusion in his words is palpable, and it is like something has taken hold of her heart and is wrenching it mercilessly. She has already hurt him, without even meaning to do so. She had never thought herself deserving of love, had never thought of anything beyond companionship, but after their night in his darkness she had foolishly dared to think that perhaps she was worthy of such a thing. He had offered her something so beautiful, had awoken a dream she had never dared to even dream before, and already she has destroyed it.
He says that he misses her, and he is so close that she can nearly feel the coolness of his shadows, and briefly, she reaches for him. Her satin lips just barely brush the corner of his jaw, and she begins to tremble. Her resilience almost falters, and her muscles twitch like she is maybe going to move forward, into him.
But she doesn’t.
She can hear the unspoken question that lingers at the end of his sentence, and instantly she is deflated. Whatever hope had dared to spark in her heart is extinguished, and she withdraws. ”I made a mistake,” She says as she looks away from him, closing her eyes against the onslaught of anguished emotion that threatens to cripple her. She doesn’t even notice the change in his face, doesn’t realize that he has sensed something entirely different about her. Even if she had, she wouldn’t have had any way of knowing that he was rushing to incorrect conclusions.
When she looks back to him, her eyes glitter with the tears that she will not let fall, and the ache in her throat is enough to split her apart. ”I’m so sorry, Ether.” His name feels almost wrong on her tongue, as though she no longer has the right to whispering something so invaluable. Another step backwards, and it’s like she has put an entire chasm between them, even though he is still right there, within her reach. ”If I could fix it I would, but I can’t.” If she could have never left his shadows, if she would have never even gone to Nerine, perhaps she never would have found herself alone in the Forest afterward, and walking right into the devil’s snare.
BRISEIS
underneath it all I'm held captive by the hole inside, I've been holding back for the fear that you might change your mind
Golden eyes watching our every move Losing time without the sun or moon
For a few silent breaths, he can hear only the clamorous echoes of his own thoughts, his own confusion. Impossible to sort into any coherency, but still digging claws deep into the ache in his chest. He’s so foolish. So incredibly naive to believe that she might have belonged to him. To believe that there wasn’t someone else.
He takes another step back, shaking his head as though it might clear his thoughts. As though it might erase the memory of her scent, still hers, but changed. Wrong. All wrong.
Her words only tighten the knot in his chest, scraping the edges of the hollow pit in his stomach. If breath had been necessary, he would have been choking on it. I made a mistake. The words, so quietly whispered, are like a sledgehammer to his heart, crushing whatever hope he’d had left that she hadn’t been avoiding him on purpose. That it wasn’t him. That somehow, with time and patience, he could fix it.
“A mistake,” he echoes hollowly, the brightness of his golden eyes dimming, his voice, still impossibly soft, falling flat. “I see.”
He’d been a mistake for her, nothing more. A night that had changed his life had only been a mistake to her. He thought he’d known pain and loneliness before, but it was nothing compared to the weight that settles on his soul in the wake of her confession.
He takes another step backwards, his gaze dropping to the ground, unable to meet hers. Unable to bear the weight of her regret. It’s clear now he had intruded where he was not wanted. So clear now that she wished only to be with whoever had fathered her child. Closing his eyes, he takes another step back, her apologies feeling as empty and hollow as he does.
He swallows hard, fighting back the tears that threaten. He should go. He doesn’t know why she’d asked for him, but it’s clear he is not wanted here. Still, despite everything, he cannot hate her or wish her pain. She should have her happiness, even if he cannot have his. “Please be happy with him, at least,” he finally whispers, unable to hide the anguish in his voice, despite his best efforts. “It’ll be a beautiful baby, if it’s anything like you.”
His voice wavers over the last, but it hardly matters. He’s already pulling the shadows around him, disappearing into the ether. His parents had named him so aptly, hadn’t they? It seems it would be the only place that always welcomed him without question.
