like the dawn, you broke the dark - any/fam

[abysm]

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

He doesn’t want to be like his mother with a shifty tidal heart. The full force of which will sweep you under. She loves and leaves and loves again - a lot like the tide, always coming and going.

It drives him crazy to be honest; that she could go from his father and him to the pretty queen and now a passel of foals that flank them. Makes him wonder where exactly does he fit into this family they’ve made? He thinks nowhere because he is a nowhere-kind of child to begin with. But here he is, looking in from the outside as others crawl out of the woodwork to commend the queens on their children. 

He turns his elegant head to Solace when she calls his name; his head angles to give her much more regard than he’s probably ever given her - the look is half of understanding and half something else that ends up shuttered beneath the spill of forelock across his eyes. For just a moment, that glimpse might have been of yearning. He’d never say for what - the fruits he’s tasted remain in his dreams. 

“So I am,” he echoes with a hint of a smile. His teenage rebellion curbed for just that moment that the two of them share above the heads of the three little ones. His eyes move away from Solace to the foals; try as he might he cannot even envy them that they’ll know both of their mothers. in fact, he’s not quite sure what he feels towards them.

There’s no time to further suss it out because Kagerus is looking at him. He can feel her eyes on him and he turns his head to her at last. Abysm has given up on thinking there will ever be more than a tenuous peace between the two of them. Too much and not enough has happened between them to completely overcome it and he’s made his peace with that.

He tolerates the way she steps into him and even almost enjoys the smell and feel of her against him but it never compares to the mothers he’d dreamed up to take her place. 

She doesn’t stay with him long. Never has. Never will. He is instantly aloof the moment she plants herself back at her lover’s side and they become entangled in one another. His eyes are devoid of much that might betray his thoughts until his grandfather settles in beside him, taking the near-grown colt by surprise.

Abysm figures the latest batch of grandchildren would gain more favor and attention from the buckskin than a few passing smiles and pats on the head of a sort. He certainly did not expect the older stallion to acknowledge him beyond a casual nod of greeting. For the smallest of seconds passing like grains of sand through his blood, coarse and irregular, he touches the tip of his nose to Kavi’s neck.

“I’m not really sure why I came.” the admission is a strained murmur as his eyes slide to meet his grandfather’s. It seems a heavy penance to bear in seeking Kagerus’s love and brief attention. He’s not sure why he continues to do so even as his grandfather makes his confession. 

Then an offer is made and Abysm can only nod. He already knows he’ll hunt his grandfather down later for a more private conversation. Once more his eyes turn to the foals nestled between their mothers.

ABYSM