tangerine
face to the sun
She is laying close to him showing him she cares in the only way she knows how, her pale muzzle tending to him. He seems to be comparatively relaxed, the tension that had seized his body is gone. But the silence remains unbroken. At first, she is content with their current situation, quiet and solemn as it is. But inevitably her thoughts wander.
Maybe he has a lover… or a Mate - not realizing the wrongness of their situation until they were at the brink of becoming more. She knew some chose to be monogamous in honor of their partner. Maybe he was celibate, or had other preferences. Just because he doesn’t want you doesn’t mean, he doesn’t like mares. That had been narcissistic. But his touch had told her he wanted more. There had to be some explanation.
Images of a lovely pure white mare with vast glowing Pegasus wings glides before her mind’s eye. Maybe his beautiful mate is on her way here to confront Tang – dripping wet, sandy, little mess that she is. She would be properly chided. She could be a Queen for all Tang knew.
Her thoughts were running away with her and she knew it. She had always had a flair for the dramatic.
He shifts, seeming to awaken, and once again his lips trace patterns on her skin. Her gaze falls from the moon into ocean. She doesn’t look at him yet, still unsure of what she will find there in his face. It would crush her to see contempt.
Bracing herself for a lecture- he begins to speak and she dreads his words. His voice is muffled and his touch tantalizing as he speaks into her neck. In a hurtful contrast the words he says are the opposite of what his body language is telling her. He pushes her away and pulls her in like a rip tide in the ocean. Suddenly, Tang begins to grow angry, she is tempted to get up and leave him there. Break the enchantment. He can talk to her when he has made up his mind. I can’t or I can. Either way is fine, but none of this agonizing teasing. She will gladly be his platonic friend, but she won’t be played with, and she has a mind to tell him.
There is a side to her he hasn’t seen yet. She is a passionflower, and she could burn just as brightly in anger as she did in joy. She had only been provoked a few times in her life into that state, but it was there. That was a story she would tell him someday.
Now it is her turn to listen as he spins a tale of family, love, and loss. “There is a legend in my family...” he begins. And like a spell, all thoughts of leaving, telling him to come talk to her in the morning, vanish. He pauses in his telling, the raw emotion in his voice causing her stomach to clench and her to forget any irritable feeling she may have had.
“…They left no trace, save for the pieces of stardust that they left in their wake.” A tidal wave of emotion washes, crashes, over her - violently sweeping away everything that has happened up until this moment.
He lost his family.
Before she can begin to react, he continues. Now that he has begun the painful words seem to flow from him. He questions why he too was not able to ascend to the stars and her heart breaks for him.
“Sometimes it is too much to bear…” her head stretches up and she uses her chin to pull his head down into her neck and chest. She holds him against herself. “…I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
A tear glides down her cheek and another quivers in her eye, but she doesn’t notice. She is only thinking of him. “Warrick,” she says quietly. There are no right word for such a situation. “The only thing I can say is, I am so… so sorry for you… your heartbreaking loss.” She knows those words are not enough. But she hopes the fervor in her voice makes up some of the difference. She momentarily thinks of her family, the family she voluntarily left, and knows there is no way for her to truly understand what he has experienced. She releases his head and brings her own face level with his closing her eyes as she takes a deep breath.
For his sake, she wishes the beautiful white mare, her minds idea of his mate, would show up and run her off. Take her wayward man under her wing and he would stray no more. It would be so much easier. That was such a simple problem.
But the tragedy is that this is his reality. She hadn’t known him at all.
She grasps for the one, tiny, glimmer of promise she can see in the dark. Maybe it isn’t the right time for optimism, but the words form in the air between them before they run threw her mind... because she believes in the so wholly.
”I think you were chosen too. I think you were chosen to stay… because you are strong, and good, and if they took all the honorable horses this world would not be worth keeping around.” Her voice grows less passionate and more solemn as her mind catches up with her mouth, and she realizes the implications of what she is about to say. “And I think they will take you too... one day.” In theory, this should be a happy thought, but it puts an ache in her chest.
Subconsciously she pushes her body closer to his, as if to make sure there is more than stardust beside here.