Golden eyes watching our every move
Losing time without the sun or moon
She’s so incredibly beautiful, her face alight with maternal love and encouragement as she nudges her son to play. When she turns her gaze to Harbinger curled in a gentle sleep nearby, there is nothing but heartfelt concern in the lovely lines of her face. It does nothing to expel the deep-rooted longing in his heart, or the soul-wrenching ache that watching her brings. At the understanding of what might have been.
A fantasy perhaps, but he cannot seem to help himself.
“He will be,” he answers firmly, though his voice catches faintly in his throat as he turns his gaze to the peaceful form of his son. It pains him to know Harbinger suffered, but he had stubbornly determined that nothing would harm his son the moment he had met him. They had all been smaller at birth, born perhaps a little too soon when they had run out of space to grow. But Harbinger seems to have suffered the brunt of it. Still, in so many ways, he is the strongest of the three. He had fought to survive, and each day he grows stronger, proving just how badly he wished to live.
Ether could not help but find inspiration in such determination.
His attention is returned to Briseis then, as the hesitant question hangs in the air between them. He cannot quite seem to meet her gaze, though his entire being is closely attuned to each small movement she makes, the very breath as it leaves her lungs. He nearly vibrates with it, needing to hear what she has to say almost as much as he dreads it.
He goes absolutely still as she begins to speak, his dark form nearly disappearing into shadow as he listens intently. Her words however, cause his heart to drop and his lungs to seize. Had he needed breath to live, he might have expired there on that very spot.
The wrong attention, she says, each word that tumbles from her lips more damning than the last. His father is a monster. He had known she thought him a mistake, but to hear such a thing spoken about what had been a life-changing experience for him frays every thought and belief about reality that he’d ever had. He’s so coiled in his own misery, his regret and self-flagellation, that it takes a moment for the words to register. Misfit’s father. Was he? Could he be?
His gaze jumps anxiously to the gray and blue boy where he had joined Haunt and Harken, desperately latching onto the thought. But as he studies the colt, his own doubts grow. He looks nothing like his other children. Though they sport brightly colored locks, they had inherited that from their mother. So where then had Misfit’s blue come from?
I would choose you, every single time.
It takes a moment for the words to register, and when they do, he straightens abruptly, bright gaze swinging sharply back to hers. A wash of confusion stumbles through, followed by disbelief before the faintest kernel of hope blooms. He takes an almost involuntary step forward, but as he studies her curiously empty features, he stills. Until understanding dawns, a name falling from her lips like a poisonous root.
As he had known it would, clarity brings him no relief. Instead it turns his world entirely on its head, reversing everything he thought he knew until he fears it might bring him to his knees.
“You didn’t…” he manages to stutter out, his too rapid thoughts trying hard to overcome the confusion of his tongue. “He didn’t…” He glances at Misfit again, taking in the gray and blue. His sire’s blue, no doubt. Only then does his mind finally grasp the word she had so carefully avoided saying. One that leaves a horribly bitter taste in his mouth. Rape.
His heart stutters in his chest just before the weight of that reality crashes down around him. She had made a mistake, she said. He had thought that mistake him. Thought her rejecting him. But she hadn’t been speaking of him at all. And he’d left her there. Alone. Unprotected. Inadvertently rejecting her as thoroughly as he had thought she rejected him. But what if that mistake (that monster) had come back?
“I’m… so sorry,” he finally manages after what feels like an eternal silence. His yellow eyes are anguished as he looks at her. He wants nothing more in that moment than to go to her, but he is not certain she would welcome him now. Not after he had so cruelly abandoned her.
But as the monumental reality of the situation settles, his riotous mind latches onto the only tangible thing he can find in the sea of painful turmoil her revelation had brought. From beneath the regret and sorrow, anger begins to surface. Not just anger. Fury. Tunnel. He had taken her choice from her. Had brought her pain, suffering. Had haunted her nightmares (nightmares he had watched, no inkling of their cause).
Ether had failed her horribly. But he knows nightmares. He is a nightmare. He might be good for nothing else, but he could battle her nightmares for her. He could make sure she would be safe, always. His entire bearing straightens as he swings his head around, eyes gleaming with an unholy light, teeth baring in a silent, unconcious snarl, his intent all too clear.
First however, he needs to return his children home.
ether