She’s too absorbed in seeing him to really see him at first.
She doesn’t notice that he’s lost weight. She doesn’t see that the wilderness hasn’t fully released him yet, as it clings to his mane and tail in the form of burs and twigs. She looks past his tired eyes (though she wonders what they’ve seen besides the curves and rises of the Dale – where he’s been besides where he’s supposed to be). All she can see is Tiberios, familiar scars, hints of gold and all. All that matters is that he’s alive and in the flesh before her.
It takes a while before she sees the rest, but eventually she does. Her face falls as she looks him over, noticing his gauntness and the way his skin seems stretched across his body. If she cared about him any less, if she was a petty, scorned woman, she would have been glad to see that he has suffered. Karma for abandoning us, she might have thought. Instead, Talulah clicks her tongue in an admonishing sort of way and shakes her head. She doesn’t need to ask why he looks so ragged – she won’t go down that path just yet. And as it turns out, he’s none too worried about it himself. She can feel the weight of his gaze across her body, and for the first time, it makes her shiver with understanding of its source. She knows she should put a stop to it – there are others for both of them back in their respective homes (hadn’t that always been their problem?) – but she finds herself unable to.
She laughs, a loud and bitter sound from her throat, when he says she looks well. Well is a woman who knows her own limits. Well is not running at the first sign of trouble, not clinging to the helping hand of a stranger, folding yourself into their embrace to forget your problems. Well is the strong mare she used to be, back when she made a choice she thought would mean forever. Now, she’s a liar and a cheater; she hates herself because she’s also never felt freer. She has enough shame to look away when he says it, though. Her throat burns with all the words she wants to say, each one a pinprick of heat on her tongue. She wants to spill all of it, all at once. She wants to confide in him like a friend (though their relationship is more and different than that simple definition) but she can’t. Everything she says will hurt him. And even if he thinks they are long passed the ability to hurt one another, she knows it isn’t true. Time has only honed and sharpened their words to a point. They’ve exposed their most tender nerves to each other time and time again; the damage they are capable of inflicting could be irreparable.
The silver mare is quiet longer than she intended, longer than she realized, even. She turns back to him, trying to erase some of the sadness and confusion from her features. Of course, she can’t hide herself from him. Tiberios tries to lift her spirits, smirking and complimenting her like the young stallion he’d been before it had all gotten so complicated. She rises to the challenge, or tries to, smiling faintly. “Are you sure you’re not just looking at your own reflection?” She teases him lightly, referencing her mirror-esque skin glinting in the daylight. “I did look rather fierce that day, didn’t I?” She remembers charging through the forest, intent on defending the Dale from a would-be spy or attacker and finding a returning member instead – the son of the king, no less. The memory will always make her smile a bit brighter. Talulah realizes his sincerity, but can’t bring herself to counter it with praise of her own. The way she is now, the way she’s changed, she might not be able to part from him ever again.
She moves closer to the sabino stallion once more. She steels her heart for the smell of the Falls, and isn’t surprised when it reaches her on the wind. “You’re always leaving, Tiberios,” she says, her voice softer now and her smile faded. Then in her mind, “how do I make you stay?” But she knows that answer. She knows she had a chance to keep him, could have locked him away inside the bars of her ribcage for her own. She needs him, knows she has reserved a part of her very soul just for him. Talulah presses the flat of her forehead against his burned and wasted shoulder, breathing in his new scent. She’s done holding back any truths with anyone, but especially him. “I don’t want to lose you forever.”
t a l u l a h
metal woman of the dale