Sleep does not come to him easily these days.
Not that he was ever the type to sleep soundly through the night, but now, he rarely sleeps at all. Instead, he runs to exhaustion. He takes to the skies until his wings can no longer hold him. He does anything but let the dreams come because when they do, he finds her again. She is there with her golden eyes and that fierce way she lifts her chin and all the ways that she would find to tear him apart again.
So he tries to outrun sleep.
He tries to outsmart it.
And, in the end, he tries to simply pass out instead of dream.
Today, his efforts take him to the forest. He has no rhyme or reason for his patterns or where he chooses to go and is, instead, often just as surprised to find himself as one spot or the other. So he has no reason to think differently about the tug in his belly or the way his feet drag him forward at a breakneck speed.
He does not think anything strange at all until he sees her there.
The wind is to her back and the cliff yawns open before her, leading to the ocean that churns below. It is beautiful, he thinks, and his tired heart cannot defend him against the instant ache that spreads through him. He cannot deny the way she is lovely, the way that the starlight catches the ribbons of gold on her.
He should leave, he thinks, but he makes no move to step away.
He should leave, but instead he takes a step forward.
This time, his wings are as red as sunrise as the flare and then settle across his back, and his neck is darkened to nearly black in spots with the shadows and the sweat that drenches it. But he doesn’t mind. She has seen him like this before, and he still hopes that she will not see him at all.
Except he doesn’t leave.
He doesn’t go.
BRIGADE
when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake