02-18-2016, 01:14 PM
She cannot fathom why he apologizes.
The scars are not his fault - she assumes she was born with them because she knows they didn’t happen after the snow and her father saved her with his wings and his warmth.
She can hear the sincerity behind the sternness of his voice and it steadies something in her - something that she has felt brewing since their first conversation. Something that she swears she will not name to herself because it is too holy to think or say but she feels it. It feels a lot like the wings and warmth her father showed her only it comes in the nearness of him - the way their sides touch comfortably, the way he calls for her whenever he returns to the Tundra from his forays outside of it.
Anger sparks in him; she can almost feel the heat of it before she hears it in his voice. It is a quiet fury that would have frightened her if she didn’t know him better. If she is afraid, she is afraid for those that would trifle with her simply because he vows to never allow it and the justice he would deliver them would be swift and terrifying. She almost tells him that she doesn’t know if anyone really hurt her. There never was a mother that she can remember - just father and his wings and the Tundra. She can remember the pain of her healing-hurting skin and the terrible cold that came before father saved her. It was almost easy to give in to the cold, to just lie there like she did and sleep forever and very nearly had but she is glad the cold lost out in the end and that she triumphed over every challenge that came her way because it all came down to this - him and her and the vast tundra around them.
The Tundra is home, always has been but not in the way that his side is fast becoming home to her. She could stay there for all time, she realizes or maybe the realization is something that she has always known but never really let out of the shadowy secret part of her because of just what it entails: love. It doesn’t surprise her that this is what has happened in so little time but what else could it be but that? They are too comfortable in these skins, standing on these legs beside each other, and the touches from their lips to necks and ears that communicate so much more than words ever really can.
“You couldn’t see before?” She is surprised even though she knows that if she reflects back on their earliest moments together, it makes sense that he was just as blind as she was. Strange isn’t it? That out of all the horses in the land, the two blind horses find each other and fall in love and somehow he can see again and she can’t but even she can’t fault him for his luck - instead, she is ever so grateful that his eyesight has been restored because he was deserving of such a feat in her humble opinion. Then she realizes that he says he is better because he can see her now - really see her, all of her, and she feels like she can just melt at the very idea that all this time, he’s been looking for a way to look at her and the world and that whole silly-sweet idea of love comes back to her with a hurried thump of her heart and she can only tuck a smile in the skin of his shoulder as her lips lay there.
Her ears - every upright and vigilant - detect a noise familiar to her, the beat of wings on cold cold air and she cannot help the way her face cranes upward expectantly, nostrils flaring to catch the scent of the horse that wings his way towards them. She almost thinks it is the current king but the scent is all wrong - it is too familiar, too… “Father!” she cannot stop the shout that leaves her lips as her whole body sings with the taut awareness of him and her immediate happiness at his return. His voice is wrong - rough with disuse but it is him, she could never mistake the scent or sound of him as his lips touch her neck and he sidles in close. Her own nose is persistent in touching all the familiar places on his body like the marks on his haunch and his shoulder, the throatlatch that she used to stand tippy-toe on just to nibble at with her baby teeth.
She breathes him in ragged happy breaths and trails her nose along his neck until her cheek rests against his shoulder and her breathing slows to a more normal pace. “Dad…” she sighs happily and then everything changes in the worst possible way - she can feel Brynmor stiffen at her side and the hostility in his voice shocks her stupid and silent as he angrily accosts her father. They posture and bristle like bachelor colts cast out from the herd and she is caught between them and her own ire mounts by the moment as they jostle and bicker around her. “Guys…” she says softly before pinning her ears back to her head and shouting at them, “Stop it! Please!” She cannot bear the thought of the two of them fighting like this and for what - her?
“Brynmor, this is my father!” She barks from somewhere in between them, small but squaring herself up as they snap their teeth and act like colts still at their mother’s flanks. “Dad, this is… well…” Embarrassment shadows her face as her head swings frantically between the two of them and her voice grows terribly quiet in its whisper-pitch as she says, “I love him.” and once said, she cannot take it back but she knows it is true - all their moments together have been building up to this and she wants her dad to be happy for her and for both of them to get along for her sake because they are the two most important horses in her entire life.
The scars are not his fault - she assumes she was born with them because she knows they didn’t happen after the snow and her father saved her with his wings and his warmth.
She can hear the sincerity behind the sternness of his voice and it steadies something in her - something that she has felt brewing since their first conversation. Something that she swears she will not name to herself because it is too holy to think or say but she feels it. It feels a lot like the wings and warmth her father showed her only it comes in the nearness of him - the way their sides touch comfortably, the way he calls for her whenever he returns to the Tundra from his forays outside of it.
Anger sparks in him; she can almost feel the heat of it before she hears it in his voice. It is a quiet fury that would have frightened her if she didn’t know him better. If she is afraid, she is afraid for those that would trifle with her simply because he vows to never allow it and the justice he would deliver them would be swift and terrifying. She almost tells him that she doesn’t know if anyone really hurt her. There never was a mother that she can remember - just father and his wings and the Tundra. She can remember the pain of her healing-hurting skin and the terrible cold that came before father saved her. It was almost easy to give in to the cold, to just lie there like she did and sleep forever and very nearly had but she is glad the cold lost out in the end and that she triumphed over every challenge that came her way because it all came down to this - him and her and the vast tundra around them.
The Tundra is home, always has been but not in the way that his side is fast becoming home to her. She could stay there for all time, she realizes or maybe the realization is something that she has always known but never really let out of the shadowy secret part of her because of just what it entails: love. It doesn’t surprise her that this is what has happened in so little time but what else could it be but that? They are too comfortable in these skins, standing on these legs beside each other, and the touches from their lips to necks and ears that communicate so much more than words ever really can.
“You couldn’t see before?” She is surprised even though she knows that if she reflects back on their earliest moments together, it makes sense that he was just as blind as she was. Strange isn’t it? That out of all the horses in the land, the two blind horses find each other and fall in love and somehow he can see again and she can’t but even she can’t fault him for his luck - instead, she is ever so grateful that his eyesight has been restored because he was deserving of such a feat in her humble opinion. Then she realizes that he says he is better because he can see her now - really see her, all of her, and she feels like she can just melt at the very idea that all this time, he’s been looking for a way to look at her and the world and that whole silly-sweet idea of love comes back to her with a hurried thump of her heart and she can only tuck a smile in the skin of his shoulder as her lips lay there.
Her ears - every upright and vigilant - detect a noise familiar to her, the beat of wings on cold cold air and she cannot help the way her face cranes upward expectantly, nostrils flaring to catch the scent of the horse that wings his way towards them. She almost thinks it is the current king but the scent is all wrong - it is too familiar, too… “Father!” she cannot stop the shout that leaves her lips as her whole body sings with the taut awareness of him and her immediate happiness at his return. His voice is wrong - rough with disuse but it is him, she could never mistake the scent or sound of him as his lips touch her neck and he sidles in close. Her own nose is persistent in touching all the familiar places on his body like the marks on his haunch and his shoulder, the throatlatch that she used to stand tippy-toe on just to nibble at with her baby teeth.
She breathes him in ragged happy breaths and trails her nose along his neck until her cheek rests against his shoulder and her breathing slows to a more normal pace. “Dad…” she sighs happily and then everything changes in the worst possible way - she can feel Brynmor stiffen at her side and the hostility in his voice shocks her stupid and silent as he angrily accosts her father. They posture and bristle like bachelor colts cast out from the herd and she is caught between them and her own ire mounts by the moment as they jostle and bicker around her. “Guys…” she says softly before pinning her ears back to her head and shouting at them, “Stop it! Please!” She cannot bear the thought of the two of them fighting like this and for what - her?
“Brynmor, this is my father!” She barks from somewhere in between them, small but squaring herself up as they snap their teeth and act like colts still at their mother’s flanks. “Dad, this is… well…” Embarrassment shadows her face as her head swings frantically between the two of them and her voice grows terribly quiet in its whisper-pitch as she says, “I love him.” and once said, she cannot take it back but she knows it is true - all their moments together have been building up to this and she wants her dad to be happy for her and for both of them to get along for her sake because they are the two most important horses in her entire life.