all the weight of my intentions; magnus

[magnus]

I wanna give you wild love, the kind that never slows down
I wanna take you high up let our hearts be the only sound

Magnus would never have guessed that his life would turn out this way.

He would have never guessed at the many times his path has been broken—at the way that it has been lost underneath his feet. When he had been a boy, life had been nothing but the adventure of the jungle. It had been nothing but the reckless joys of his heart; the way his mother encouraged him to life free, to laugh and play and discover the most wild parts of himself. Then, he had served under his father and he had learned the responsibility that comes with a kingdom. He had learned what was expected of him. He had learned what it means to be a prince of two kingdoms, that his life came with work and servitude.

And then there had been Joelle, and her father Liefde.

He had learned love and sacrifice and turning a cheek to your own nature for who you love.

In his first life, he had known what it means to build a family. He had loved Joelle with the entirety of his heart. He had failed—her father, her kingdom, but most of all, he had failed her.

In his second life, he had thought he could find that again. He had been wary, slow to love, but he had tried with Minette. He had felt that slow and painful rush of it when she had told him that she was expecting, when another would join their adopted daughter Amorette. But she had disappeared.

He had failed again.

And then there was Ellyse. So sharp and wild and young—so painfully young. He had loved her without meaning to, despite everything that told him she deserved better. He had warned her so many times that his heart was a battered and bruised thing—that he was pockmarked with his history. So much had been taken from him time and time again. So much had been carved from him—and she hadn’t listened.

In the end, he had failed her too.

It is a weight he carries with him, even when he does his best to ignore it. It is a stone in his chest that settles in when sleep does finally claim him, something so rare and so fitful. These failures that he has collected over the years. The failures that have, recently, turned his life into something more reckless. Children with mares he barely knows. Children with mares he considers friends and nothing more.

Children he adores with his whole heart but children that he cannot provide a family to.

It haunts him, leaves him aching as he watches these children that are not his—not the way that the others have been, raised by and with him—leave for new adventures. Watches them care so little for his involvement in their life. And how could he blame them? He has so little to offer them.

But this is different.

She comes to him with something unreadable behind her gaze, bruises he can never quite discern, and she reaches to guide him forward. He doesn’t resist. Doesn’t try to hold back. He lets the soot of his muzzle reach forward and brush against the gentle curve of her stomach, feels the life that begins to bloom within it. His heart clenches in his chest, something like joy and fear and uncertainty rising in his throat.

He remembers being so young and so thrilled with the arrival of his firstborn.

He remembers the recent pain of watching children who are not his children.

But she doesn’t hide this from him. She doesn’t tell him and then dismiss him. She tells him and then calls them parents and it unlocks something in his chest. Unlocks  a fierce and painful joy that rushes through him—a relief. His handsome face is raw with emotion and he reacts, crushing her to him, pressing his lips to the beautiful curves of her face. “Parents,” his husky voice is thick as he continues to kiss her, continues to touch whatever piece of her that he can reach. “We’re going to be parents.”

I wanna go where the lights burn low and you're only mine