"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
His breathing is unsteady when she touches him—when the stardust of her breath rolls over the simple flesh of his chest. He shudders because he cannot hide that he is undone by her. That having her attention on him is like staring into the sun. That having her touch him is like standing in the belly of it. There is nothing to compare, nothing that his simple mind can comprehend, and he does not even know the barest way of trying to protect himself from it; from trying to pretend that he is not as affected as he is.
He swallows at her answer, knowing what he wishes what she meant.
Knowing it is an impossible thing.
Knowing it is a tragic thing to love a god as he does.
“The stars?” he answers, because it is the only thing that would possibly make sense—the only thing that his mind can comprehend as being a logical answer. Everything else is impossible. More impossible than him not loving her, not loving his brother—not feeling the things that he feels in the core of him.
He swallows again, his throat dry and his tongue swollen, thick.
A pause as he lifts his large head to look into the darkness, peering into the endless expanse.
“I cannot imagine what it must be like to explore them,” but then again, he knows that he cannot imagine what any of her life must be like—what it must be like to be the beginning and the end, as she is.
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god
The stars.
Yes, the stars.
The smile is uncharacteristically patient when she draws away, the corners of her mouth neatly tied up in a way that suggests that there’s something she’s not saying.
And there is.
There is so much she’s not saying.
“Yes,” she answers, acutely aware that Obelisk is not being purposefully obtuse. She shifts her weight and exhales a sigh that curls stardust around their heads. “The stars,” she echoes, quiet. Like a secret passed carelessly between them. And then she turns her gaze away again, fastens the reptilian eyes on nothing in particular, peering idly into the middle distance.
Nothing here but negative space and the heat that rolls off him in waves.
Nothing here at all.
She blinks once, slowly. And then turns her gaze up to the great swath of sky above them. But the stars have all winked out by now, chased into hiding by the rising sun. She tilts her fine head then, contemplating.
“We belong there,” she tells them. All three of them. Sepulcher, too. “We do not belong here.” She turns to peer steadily at him again. “We will never belong here.”
She does not strike him down, the way that he expects. The way that he deserves.
It always amazes him when he is able to spend these quiet moments with her, when she gives him these pieces of her attention—of her time. It feels like being able to hold the sun to his chest. Like being able to swallow the very stars into his chest, more so than the simple markings that are blazoned on it.
And he does not take it for granted.
Not for a single moment.
But he does sit quietly in her presence, taking each of these moments and tucking them away closely into the very core of him. He nods as she turns her attention to the sky above them and he looks at her for a moment longer, studying the delicate, fierce lines of her face, before he too looks at the cosmos.
“I belong here,” he says, hesitant to contradict her but hoping his attention would be clear.
“With you,” he clarifies, hopeful that his meaning would be known.
Another pause as he chews on the words, trying to make out the meaning beneath the surface. There was always that with her—something underneath the words. Something clever and poignant. Something that cuts under the syllables and twists a sentence into something new entirely. He had no idea how she did that. How she managed to make something old into something different. How she did anything she does.
“But I will belong wherever you tell me to belong.”
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god
It is only when they are alone that she allows the edges to soften.
Only when it is just the two of them that she sheds the cold, unaffected skin she wears in mixed company.
And she does not know anymore which version of her is the more authentic one. If she is inherently cruel, calculated or if this is who she is at heart.
She has to believe that she is not this soft naturally.
This skin does not fit her as well as the other, which is perhaps why he cannot help but anticipate the moment when it will slip and she will return to her sharp, impatient tongue. She will cast him aside with all of her cold indifference.
No, softness is weakness and she is not weak.
None of them are weak. They were built to destroy, to ravage. They are machines of destruction.
She draws in a long breath and tries in vain to ignore the way her heart shifts when he speaks. Under any other circumstances, her mouth would have surely curled around a cold, satisfied smile. There have been and will be moments where she sees him as a pawn, something she can manipulate to suit her, but this is not one of them.
He says he belongs here with her and she lets herself, for this singular moment in time, soften to it. She allows herself to sink her weight against him, shoulder to shoulder, to lay her head against his neck.
His is the only company in which she will allow herself any level of vulnerability.
“I will take you home someday,” she murmurs, “you and Sepulcher both.”
The world is too small for someone like Altar. She belongs to the stars and the cosmos. She belongs to the things that lie beyond it. She is made of stardust, of galaxies. She is carved from the breath of comet trails and the space in between. He cannot imagine what it must feel like to be trapped here on this earth, where everything is so dull and dreary in comparison, and for a single, treacherous second, he wonders if perhaps she stays because of him and Sepulcher. If they are the reason she doesn’t free herself entirely.
But this thought is quickly squashed as he realizes how wrong it is.
She could never want to stay trapped just because of them.
He shakes his head, wondering at how the same world that feels too small for her feels far too large for him. Although he is physically massive, strong and healthy and fit, he could never quite figure out how to navigate the intricacies of this world. He is left with nothing but the stumbling hope he can follow her.
So he does.
She rests against him and he straightens, struck with the need to stay vigilant—to watch over her as she places this immense responsibility in his hands. He leans down to brush the forelock out of her eyes and stiffens as he realizes the presumptuousness of the move before he pulls back, looking out before them.
“I would very much like that,” he says in his gravelly voice, not sure how to tell her that she is his home. That he feels more at home here next to her, with their brother nearby, than he could ever feel elsewhere.
turn your head toward the storm that’s surely coming along
