[mature] Let the only sound be the overflow; Canaan

[Canaan]

Canaan

And maybe, I'll find out a way to make it back someday.
To watch you, to guide you through the darkest of your days.

  His mind is heavy with memories, enveloping his focus and carrying him elsewhere – like a gentle breeze, weaving its way through the deepest and darkest recesses of his mind, unlocking glimpses into his past. He is lost within his own reverie, with dark, finely preened feathers held tightly against the golden swell of his barrel, brushing across the brittle bark of old, aging pines and low-lying branches of youthful maple that become entangled with his taut wings. The woodland is dense, and there is an echo of quiet that draws him in deeper to the south – as a prickling of sunlight pries its way through the thick canopy, bathing his golden skin in its warmth and light.

  He is alone – as he so often is; even with his heart captured by two he is not tethered. His heart is taken, completely, but there is so much left to be said of their unorthodox union – of a love built of time and of space, as wondrous as the celestial sky that so often drew out the intimate memories of lovemaking, of gentle caresses and softly spoken promises.

  It was different than the far-distant instinctual need of his ancestors; he did not yearn for a harem of broodmares to feast before him and to bear his young. He longed for family, for kin and for young birthed from love and tenderness and affection – much like he had himself had been (so long ago – he only remembered the good of what Magnus and Ellyse shared; he had shied away from the tension and heartache that had followed it).

  He had found it – a white-hot, burning star, born of intimacy between he and she, and she and she, and then – full circle, it had come, and his heart had never felt so full in all his life. And yet – yet, there is still a tendril of envy, a pining ache – he knew it well, each time scarlet met emerald, with a fervent kiss placed in the sensitive curve of a hip, or a warm breath nestled within the withers of another. He never stayed to see the entanglement – he loved Circinae so deeply, he wanted her happiness, and if her happiness lies within the breast of another, who was he to stand in her way?

  But his heart had begun to open, and it had begun to see the light that she had wanted him to see, that she had wanted Jah-Lilah to see – and he had taken her as a lover beneath the pale morning sunlight, as he had his beloved Circinae so long ago. Even so, when he does find her bathing beneath the soft but warm sunlight, with the gentle and mesmerizing turn of the roiling, rumbling river echoing in the distance, his heart does fall into the pit of his knotted belly – the darkness of fallen tears drawing him closer to her.

  A subtle breeze sweeps beneath his underbelly and through his tangled tresses, before weaving its way toward her, enveloping her in an embrace of wayward wind as his pale lips brush across her hip and gently again across her shoulder – a gleam of sadness hidden within the golden flecks of his hazel gaze, searching for her own, observing her – crestfallen, wounded - did she feel the same ache that he, too, had once felt?

  ”Circinae?” he breathes softly, awaiting her answer.

If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all,
then I hope there's someone out there who can bring me back to you.