Bound for trouble from the start
I've been walking through this old world in the dark
For a moment he wonders, as her floral musk triggers a memory, if she was the mystery girl. The one from the party that smelled of petals and dew. Surely he would have felt her heat or had that changed as well when they had all been transformed? Had that party even been real? He’s not really sure, it could just be another delusion. It happens sometimes, his dreams bleed into the pages of reality. Usually though they were unpleasant and he would panic. This had been different. If it wasn’t real, he wonders if he will ever dream of it again. If he will know her name this time.
Her fire wipes her clean, makes her smooth and unblemished. What could ice do? It collects things in it’s path. Wraps it’s cold fingers around them, drags them into a blue abyss. Freezes over to be found again in another lifetime by pure chance. Perhaps it makes sense that he collects the twigs and debris, that it clutters to his plumage and reddish coat.
Her eyes burn into him and the bear roars, pawing at the bars of his cage. What can she see? Does she know? It takes a moment to place that look. It’s intrigue. Never in a million years would Ledger think he could be thought of as dangerous or intriguing. It was almost laughable. Even in his brief kingdom interludes he festered under the side of Peace. Magnus was the warrior, the hero. Ledger had relied on intellect. Things were a little different now. There was carnage and destruction inside of him, a way to protect himself now. A shield. The one thing he had always needed and lacked.
Her breath is soft and inviting as her muzzle reaches out to his. Like slow motion, he is stuck. Unable to move as the velvet of her muzzle barely brushes against his own. Rising warmth, heat creeping into the core of his being. It’s followed by the sensation of melting, as if the mere presence of her fire will destroy him. The bear demands release, he braces himself and pulls back. This is something he’s never felt before and it distracts him. He is not in control. Her name is Spark, he catches it faintly as he battles himself. How fitting a name seeing what she had managed to spark and bring to flame within the few minutes of knowing her.
Swinging his head around with a grimace, exposing that ravaged hollow of his face to her without realizing it, to try and distract the animal within him on something else. A few seconds pass. The swell of emotion still swirls in his chest. But it doesn’t come. It roars and swipes it’s claws to no avail. It’s locked away, it can’t come out. No longer able to make itself physical. Now he is more wary then ever, throwing back his skull with flared nostrils. The murkiness of his brown iris’s clearing from muddy to russet, narrowing on her. ”What did you do to me?”
Was she a witch, a painted gypsy that roamed the land and played with others magic for amusement? The bear had been a curse, a painful reminder of a trial he wished to forget. Then why does he suddenly feel so empty that he has lost this power? This hated thing inside of him, surely he should be pleased. The soft touch of her voice vaguely registers, he smells of snow she says. How can he? The polar bear is tranquilized. And while he can’t see the constellation on his flank, he knows it’s still there. The mark of what he had become. But who was he now?
Ledger