01-23-2016, 09:32 AM
If she is divinely conceived, then he is of that simple spark of life that she is so used to - that old act of copulation that results in a foal afterwards, an ancient dance of stallion and mare though nowadays, few seem to engage in the actual courtship rituals of posturing and grooming that soften a mare up and he has seen too many simply mount and take what they think is theirs. Make no mistake, he is not oblivious to these violent urges either but Scalped would take it out of his hide if she ever learned her son had not followed the natural order of things (or found love, though she herself has never known it and doesn’t dream of it) and simply acted as crassly as others do - she raised him better than that, and he owed it to her to be more than a base instinctual (he was that, to some degree) creature. But if she was divinely conceived, he was not and perhaps that was part of the intrigue that drew him close to her, like a faint smell of something old and magical that burrowed its way beneath her skin and stayed there, almost like a faint hum of electricity.
He is wondering if they will spark if he touches her when she responds to him and his eyes slide to hers, wayward and full of good nature. It is on the tip of his tongue to say that they are one and the same then, raised up on the backbone of the meadow but she is talking still and he finds that he cannot help but listen, unable to interrupt and add his own thoughts to the tale she tells because there is a measure of enchantment in her voice that holds him still and hostage in those moments, stiller than he has ever been, almost afraid (he scoffs inwardly at this!) that the slightest twitch of muscle might break the moment wide open into a thousand irretrievable pieces and he is too greedy to let that happen. He feels in a way he does not feel when he is with his beloved and her salmon-pink points and their quick fall into something he still does not understand. “The Jungle,” he muses aloud, having heard of it of course but it sparks a curiosity in him that begs to be sated one day with a peek at something so loamy and humid that it drips from her voice with the heavy thick weight of honey.
“I was,” he begins haltingly, because he gave that up for love and still doesn’t understand it. How can one give up their very nature? Maybe that is why he constantly returns to the meadow, to observe and stray (in ways Ygritte might never forgive him for) and indulge that nomadic side of him that is too inherently part of him to simply ignore. “I’m in the Falls now.” He cannot shake the roar of the water over rocks and air from his ears, the sound still thunderous and haunting even here, in the buzzing din of conversation that goes on around them and to which they are seemingly separate from, their conversation low and pleasant unlike so many that paint the air with the hum of anger and hate.
“I divide my time between here and there,” he explains without further explanation, supposing that she - like him - slips away from their respective homes to the meadow, to crest her grassy knolls and walk down her dusty trails that see so much use from more than just the two of them. He supposes that like him, she cannot help it - this place is in their blood and their background as much as anything else, like daylight and starfall, pulse and flutter of lung, the meadow is as much as them as they are it.
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