[private] Desolation comes upon the sky // Brennen

[Scorch]

She could feel her friend's grief in the tension of his muscles, in the way he held himself rigidly and as if he were boneless all at once. Her heart ached to feel it, her overabundance of empathy bringing her more sorrow than the situation necessitated; she'd always presented herself as hard-skinned and harder hearted, but anyone who took half a second to look closer knew that quite the opposite was true. Though her youngest child was by now at least twenty years of age, being so close to Brennen made her mind go back to when they were all just babies, leaving the mare sick-hearted and in need of one whose heart ached similarly.

In need of him.

He accepts her presence as if it were as natural as the vines around them, though in truth, she'd traveled far to vist her friend. In the initial silence of their reunion, her mind's eye goes back to when they themselves had just been children, foolhardy and quick to lash out, squabbling on the open Tundra ice when she had been kept prisoner under her brother's laughing and well meaning watch. She strained herself trying to remember whether he'd been at one of her births, and smiled bitterly when she remembered the goodbye he'd said to her as she died some decades ago. This wasn't exactly matching wits, but in many ways he could not have known he meant back then, Brennen did need her; and she, in turn, was more than happy to oblige for one so dear to her heart.

He leaned into her touch, reminding her for a moment of Hestoni. Despite their lifelong connection and the undeniably potent aspect of intimacy in their relationship, she'd been avoiding him during this autumn season; she couldn't stand the heartache of getting her hopes up for a child this year, not after nearly five of being reunited with her husband and nearly five of being devastated by a barren womb each winter. Her love for her fioco was unbridled and as devoted as ever; but emotional bonds are complicated, and this new chapter of their marriage left Scorch feeling disheveled, worthless, and broken. So she pushed the image of her husband far, far away, instead burrowing into the comfort of an old friend with whom there'd never been true heartache. She burrowed into the simplicity of it; into the seeming innocence of the good feelings their connection brought.

He inhaled, and she perked her ears, ready for his answer. With his words Brennen painted vivid pictures of his daughters, girls that Scorch had perhaps seen in passing but who she'd never truly met. Alonwy reminded the old mare of Wrynn, her most nurturing and least power-hungry child, a girl who'd been gone for near decades, though her twin Leilan had shown up after a lifetime of solitude. And Khaeli - Scorch smiled to think of Sarkis, her most boisterous daughter who saw the light in everything, and who was somewhere out there in the vastness of this existence. She'd reappeared once, since the reckoning; but the little love had since disappeared, lost to the pull of the Beyond that none could say to have escaped at every step of the way.

Her eyes were closed by the end of his spiel, but she smiled gently when she felt him shift away to run his nose down her neck. He paused, asking her of her own children; and as her breath caught in her chest at the thought of speaking her pains aloud, Brennen  buried his face into the curve of her bald and scarred neck, lending her the strength she needed to share herself with him. In that touch alone, she learned to love the stallion (though in truth an unspoken love had long since developed between the pair). In his touch, she found support; in his touch, she found relief.

"Back when Kagerou ruled the Jungle, I became pregnant for the second time with Hestoni." Her eyes unfocused as her memory played back, but she leaned her head towards him absently, deepening their embrace. "I spent that pregnancy as a prisoner in the Valley, and Hestoni was, at the time, a slave to Carnage, and so could not be with me. When I gave birth... Sorry. When I gave birth, our daughter wasn't breathing; but I named her Rain for the storm that she'd been conceived in, and I. I stood guard over her body for days until the Valley's wolves became too bold, forcing me away. When they left, all that remained of Rain were her bones... And I took two of her ribs back to the Jungle with me, where they became a part of my tattoos, crossed upon my breast."

With this last sentence, Scorch disconnected from Brennen, bending her neck as if to look upon those precious bones; but of course, all that remained of her tattoos was a hand-sized red rose and a vine to match. She straightened, feeling a little sick; but when she curled herself back around Brennen, the feeling passed. It had been decades since that time.

"More recently, Ea and her husband passed from this life into the next, as Kagerou and her husband had, and as Hestoni and I had, too. I raised her from a young age to be the Queen of the Dale, and she was always serving in nature, and stoic. She held herself with a poise and regality that she certainly hadn't inherited from me, hah hah. Though it pains me that I couldn't be here with her at the last, I know that she forgives me."

Here, Scorch choked; she'd never told Brennen of her ability. Trembling somewhat, she pulled away from him, meeting his honeyed gaze with that of her natural green. "But I am lucky in that I can speak to my daughters whenever I please... A part of my grandson's ghost-magic attached itself to me when he brought me back from the Afterlife." My muscles steady as I speak, my voice turning more logistical than emotional. "I could connect you to your daughters. Let you have the goodbye you deserved."

Please say yes, daddy.
My eyes moisten at the sound of Khaeli's voice, ringing through my skull.
"They're asking for you."