[private] what has night to do with sleep; kagerus

[Kagerus]

K

oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...

Her battle-steady will to find me cuts like a blade through the final restraints shackling my mind. Were anyone to ask who Warlight received her general-esque characteristics from, I would always answer with the name of my lover; though I may have been a general, Solace was a queen. Her will yields to none. When her the world witnesses the making of her mind, it bends to accommodate her wishes. A bow at the middle; a display of untarnished respect.

The authority of her voice speaks to these truths, its unwavering power clearing the haze from my consciousness. In all the ways she and I have found to weave our souls together, it has never quite been like this; the desperation of a lifetime apart bleeds into the mix, staining us the blood-red of a battle won.

The feeling of the fall, the feeling of the high kicking in.

Oh, my love.

Everything climbs, love and joy and jubilation tantamount - and then it drops (rise and fall, give and take, my hold on this slippery magic an imperfect one). What remains of my sleepiness disperses into the surrounding night air as my consciousness slams uncomfortably into my corporeal form, one which walks desperately in the direction of my mate. The familiar caress of her consciousness fuels my haste, sending me into a mad dash through the riverlands, the uneven terrain ringing crystal against the obsidian of my hooves.

Her light guides me when consciousness insists that our dreams severe. At first, following the blue of the light is as natural as following a course of migration; it's only when the light throbs and pulsates that I realize what this truly means. Reunion, a year of coma. Reunion, after months of death. Reunion, after months of rebirth.

The child in me who fell in love with the child in her cries. Her tears are sweet and pure; she is finally coming home.

When the crispness of unseasonable frost gives way beneath me, I slow. Round a bend. Breathe in - but its not air that fills my lungs, it is only her. Cast in an electric-green hue, she stands a beacon, reminding me uncannily of the day we took our exodus from Hyaline, summoning our many many subjects to the Cove. Another sort of homecoming.

The bothersome thought of politics bothers me no more as I fold into her embrace (a seamless transition, as though we are two halves of one whole). What was and what may have been give way for thoughts only of now, only of here; the doubts and the fears which have plagued me during my time back on this earth forget themselves. With our shadows cast long behind us, we stand together, the fibers of our beings commingling to the nth degree. "Solace." Her name falls from my lips as one might utter the names of gods; a prayer. My lips find the small of her shoulder, pulling her closer to me than ever before. "Solace - I am never leaving you again." The world shifts around us, obeying for now, an environment hell bent on giving two lovers the one thing they want most.

Dawn rises in the corners of my mind when I finally pull away, though only minutes have passed. Minutes that I would stretch into an eternity were I not already aware of how harmful an eternity in one position can be. Instead, I relish in the bittersweetness of the present, preferring for now to give myself utterly over to the sweet, and to forget the bitter. Though I step back and leave her touch, something inside me is once again whole. It never clicked until now that I would always have an emptiness without her - that that emptiness can only, and will ever only, be filled by her.

My eyes turn reluctantly, then linger on the colt. He looks like her. He looks like us.

"Clegane," I murmur, voice gathering in my throat like folded fabric. "Sweet one... your mother says hello." I inhale as if to say hello, but the rest becomes knotted just below my jaw. Grief pulls ugly at my expression, bringing my head again into Solace's chest. I thought I would be strong delivering this news - but with my wife next to me, and the image of our firstborn fading into the afterlife, it is all too much to handle. My emotions run rampant; I lose myself in the fray. "Oh God, Sol, I can't believe she's gone... I can't believe... She's gone..."

@[Solace]