"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
It had been quiet for a time.
When the sun returned and he’d grudgingly had to let Casimira return to the life that best suited her. (What he would have given to accompany her back to Hyaline! But there had been a darkness gathering there and, as much as he loved her, he could not leave Tephra.)
Not even when the frightful king had taken the throne, spreading nightmares through his home. But he had not known how to stop it. What power does a dragon have against things that live inside the head? The nightmares had been troubling, fearsome, but he’d slept beside his daughter for months. (Strange that something so beautiful could have such an effect on those around her.)
And now.
Now he looks to the throne, newly abdicated by a pale green mare who’d stood at the helm so briefly that he hadn’t even learned her name.
What will come next?
He draws in a long, shuddering breath and turns his gaze to the horizon.
As if he might divine Casimira just by wishing for her.
(He misses her so fiercely now that she must be able to feel it.)
YOU REMIND ME WHO I WAS AND WHO I WANT TO BE
YOU REMIND ME THOUGH NOT WHOLE, I’M NOT EMPTY
Things kept changing quickly, in ways that caused the tension in her chest to continuously grow tighter.
She had often kept to herself in Hyaline, with the exception of occasionally visiting with her mother. The behavior of Mazikeen and Gale had left her uneasy, and though she would not claim to know Maze well she thought she knew her well enough to understand that the way she was behaving was not within her character. It’s why she had been relieved when Gale had left, though the relief was short-lived after realizing he had moved to Tephra.
Tephra, her first home, and where the other half of her family lived.
To know that Savior had to stay there, that he was tied to this land by an intangible tether that nothing could break, was enough to twist that knot of tension even tighter. She had gone there, of course, to ensure that he was truly alright—Gale seemed to grow increasingly more chaotic, and she did not know what his plans for Tephra were.
Though his reign had been brief, that did little to soothe the unrest in Casimira’s chest. The murder of her mother had caused a ripple of shock to spread through her family, and while she had her suspicions—a few of them, truthfully, because her mother had a tendency to linger too close to the dark—none of them were confirmed.
She leaves for Tephra, thinking that perhaps if she left behind the turmoil that was Hyaline she stood a chance at clearing her mind.
That maybe if she could simply curl into Savior’s side she would not have to feel all of the things she feels right now.
When she finds him she is momentarily struck, as always, at how stunning he is; the way the sun glints off his fire opal skin, glancing off the hard angles of his body, and she is again left in disbelief that he is hers. Once she is at his side she presses into him with hesitation, her pale muzzle finding his mane and the familiar scent that clings to him, and she breathes a tremulous sigh. “I missed you,” she tells him softly, and for now, she says nothing else.
She comes swimming up over the horizon like a mirage.
For a moment, he thinks he’s fallen asleep and has dreamed her.
(He has often felt this way because his thoughts reflect hers more often than either of them realizes—she is so beautiful that he cannot always believe that she has chosen him, certainly the most beautiful thing he has ever held.)
And what a sweet dream it would be after the plague of nightmares.
But she presses herself into his side and she is solid and she is real and her forehead is warm beneath his mouth when he presses it there. It is no dream and this makes it even sweeter.
There has always been a sort of melancholy to her, a kind of darkness in her brow that has made him want to excavate whatever it is that haunts her. If he could take it unto himself, he would without hesitation. But there is something deeper now, something darker. He can feel it in how softly she speaks.
For a moment, neither of them speaks. He waits, holding her, until his heart orients itself around hers, the patterns of their pulse matching. It is only then that he lifts his head to try and catch her eye. “I missed you so much that you appeared,” he says with a rueful smile, aching for her own smile.
“Something’s troubling you,” he murmurs, reaching out to brush her cheek, exhaling a warm breath against her skin.
YOU REMIND ME WHO I WAS AND WHO I WANT TO BE
YOU REMIND ME THOUGH NOT WHOLE, I’M NOT EMPTY
She had not always believed in destiny or even soulmates, but she thinks there had to be something larger at work to bring her and Savior together when she had needed him most.
He had come at the perfect moment, that fine line that existed between the moment that she had realized Badden was gone and that she could not keep trying to love someone that was not there, and the other side of the grief where she would have surely hardened and convinced herself that love was not real. Savior, true to his namesake, had found her before that armor ever had a chance to fully form, before her heart became a fortress that she isn’t sure she could have ever let him inside.
He found her before she became so lost that she would have never let herself be found.
But there are parts of that old wall that will never disappear, crumbled and eroded though it may be. It has a way of trying to rebuild every time she is met with sorrow or pain, and she does not even realize that he can read her so well that he sees the shadows that such emotions cast across her face. It would be a relief to know that he could; to know that he sees all these things she does not know how to put into words.
“I missed you, too,” she breathes against his neck, gently pressing a kiss to the warm skin there, and when his familiar green eyes catch her pale blue own she cannot help but to mirror it, small though it may be.
His presence is enough to ease that knot in her chest, enough so that she might actually breathe around it. Enough so that when he comments on how she seems troubled she does not immediately shy from being caught in her emotions, and instead only answers him. “Someone killed my mother,” the words don’t feel real on her tongue, and she speaks them with a strange kind of detachment, as if she is afraid of actually tasting them. But when she looks up to Savior the pain and confusion is clearly on her face, bright and sharp in her ice blue eyes, and she says softly to him, “I don’t want to live in Hyaline anymore.”
She does not smile, no matter how fiercely he wishes that she would.
(This is one thing he cannot divine into existence.)
But she is not lost to him. She does not retreat. She has come to him, bearing these burdens, and that means more than he can express. He will help her shoulder them. Or, if he cannot, he will simply give her someplace to set them down awhile.
She touches him in turn, exhales her warm, sweet breath into the plains of his neck and the heat spirals down into the chambers of his heart. Because they have weathered such terrible darkness, both during and after the Eclipse, but this is the one thing that has stayed the same.
His love for her has not wavered even with the space that so often separates them. Her touch still has the same effect on him now that it had the first time she’d reached for him. And he chooses to believe that this will never change.
But her admission pours ice water into the network of his veins, kicks the air out of his chest. As much as he wants to pull her into a deeper embrace, he gently separates himself from her, turning to face her directly. Because it spikes something toxic through him. It is grief, a chasm of mourning, but it is something else, too. Anger unlike anything he has known in such a terribly long time. Anger because someone has taken her mother from her, someone has caused her pain.
(And because he has never met the Archangel, because his loyalty lies with her daughter, his anger flares on Casimira’s behalf.)
“Who?” he asks. Before he is sidetracked by her second confession. There is no question, no hesitation. “Live here with me,” he murmurs, searching her face. “Live here with me and I will do whatever I can to make them pay.”
It is so uncharacteristic of him, this thirst for revenge, but he had always been built to protect.
YOU REMIND ME WHO I WAS AND WHO I WANT TO BE
YOU REMIND ME THOUGH NOT WHOLE, I’M NOT EMPTY
She is surprised at first when he pulls away, when the warmth of him against her suddenly disappears, and his absence makes even the humid Tephra air feel cold.
When he faces her he almost looks like someone else, the anger that hardens his beautiful something that she has never seen him wear before. It should not surprise her, knowing that she herself harbors a feral fury that tried to unleash itself any time she shifted, but seeing that such a thing can also live inside of her sweet Savior further cements that idea that he was a fire always meant for her.
He asks the question that she does not know the answer to, the one she had known was coming, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she begins, her brow twisting in confusion and thought. “I have my suspicions. Carnage seems the most obvious, except it doesn’t seem likely that he would leave her dead— not like that,” because while she did not understand the relationship her mother shared with the dark god she knew it was something far more complicated than any outsider could fathom, and to leave her dead and heartless did not seem to fit. “Some also think it was Gale,” she offers hesitantly, her pale eyes glancing around as if she expects him to still be here. “I don’t know,” she repeats again, shaking her head. “But Hyaline feels alien to me now.”
When he asks her to live with him her eyes turn to him, finding his own searching her face. A hesitant smile lifts at the corner of her lips, and she closes the space that he had created between them, unwilling to let it exist any longer. “I wanted to ask you if I could,” she says as her lips brush his cheek. “Tephra is where I was born, and you are more of a home to me than any place has ever been or will be.”
His own magic is nothing compared to that of the dark god. There is nothing he can do to exact revenge against someone so limitless.
Gale.
And his throat constricts. He blinks at her, his breath leaving him in one fell swoop.
Gale, who had terrorized Tephra with his terrible nightmares. Gale, who had tried his hardest to chase them all out of the kingdom with his darkness. Gale, who he should have been able to protect Tephra from. But he had failed at that, hadn’t even known where to begin.
(This is a darkness all its own, the fact that he could not do the one thing he’d been made to do. When a real threat had found its way into his home, he had not been able to protect it.)
Gale.
He draws in a thin breath and nods. He will have to try harder the next time their paths cross—and they will, he vows—to avenge not only her mother but his home.
He reaches out to press a kiss against her forehead. He does not know this loss. But as his resolve solidifies, his anger makes room for grief. Mourning. He cannot relate because he has not known anything quite so terrible. But he can commiserate. He can hold her together the best he can.
And it makes his heart twinge to think she felt she had to ask, the sharp sting softened by her words. He will be her home. He will be the place she comes to rest, to let her guard down. He draws his mouth away from her forehead and meets her eye again.
“You do not have to ask, Casimira,” he murmurs and shakes his head. “You will always be welcome any place I am.” He exhales, soft and slow. “I have never wanted anything as desperately as I have wanted to have a home with you.”
YOU REMIND ME WHO I WAS AND WHO I WANT TO BE
YOU REMIND ME THOUGH NOT WHOLE, I’M NOT EMPTY
10-14-2021, 03:58 PM (This post was last modified: 10-14-2021, 04:12 PM by Casimira.)
CASIMIRA
dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah
She can see as he weighs her words, as each cruel magician she names settles into place. She can almost see too the way his mind is trying to work out a solution, a way that he could take them on, and she feels a bubble of panic rise into her throat. “I don’t want you to do anything, Savior,” she tells him, quiet yet almost pleading as she reaches for him again. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she continues, searching his face, the worry pressed so cleanly onto her face. “If you see either one of them promise me that you won’t do anything, please?”
A tremulous sigh passes between her lips, and she lowers her head so that she can rest herself beneath his neck, relaxing beneath the feel of him against her. “If anything happened to you I wouldn’t survive,” she confesses to him, though it does not feel like a confession, but more like a confirmation of what she has known all along. She has had to watch Atrox survive without her mother, and while he wears his grief disguised as anger she recognizes it all the same, and it is a pain she hopes she never has to bear.
“I know,” she tells him softly when he reminds her she did not have to ask to live here. “I just feel…..strange, after having been away for so long.” She had told him once how Tephra had not felt like home when she was younger, despite the fact that she had died for it during the Loess-Tephra war. She had told him too how Hyaline did not exactly feel like home, either, and it was only recently that she had realized why this was — why no place ever felt like home.
If only she had learned to not be afraid of her love for him she could have been home all along.
She settles against his chest again, the weight on her shoulders feeling lighter now that he at least knew all that was troubling her. “Gale is gone from here, right?” she asks him, her lips tracing circles along his shoulder idly.
It is not a promise he wants to make.
He cannot bring her mother home, as he does not have the power to resurrect the dead. All he can do is promise that he will make her killer pay for what they’d done, the pain they’d caused.
He sets his jaw, nostrils flaring briefly as he pulls in a steadying breath, hoping to sate the anger that lingers still in the recesses of his mind.
But he would be no better than them if he caused her pain. He knows that. And it is for this reason alone that he drops his head in surrender and says, “I promise.” He studies the horizon as she tucks herself under his neck and another idea comes to him.
It comes to him in the seconds before she asks about Gale, who had fled and left someone else in his place. But his replacement had not lasted, chased away from the throne by something. He exhales a long breath and he nods and he understands where they must go from here.
“If I cannot make them pay then I will do everything I can to protect you.” He says, the words falling out of his mouth as if someone else has spoken them while his mind settles heavy with resolve. He lays his cheek against hers, holding her against his chest. “I will take up the throne and I will make sure that no harm comes for you here.”
He closes his eyes, his pulse quickening. “It is the least I can do.”
YOU REMIND ME WHO I WAS AND WHO I WANT TO BE
YOU REMIND ME THOUGH NOT WHOLE, I’M NOT EMPTY
She allows herself to feel relief when he promises her, though she can sense that it is a reluctant agreement, and she is not entirely sure if she believes him. She cannot fault him for his anger; she is always so secretive about her troubles that it does not surprise her that he feels her pain as if it is her own whenever she decides to share it with him. It was one of the many reasons that she found him so easy to be with; he never tried to pry anything from her, instead waiting for her to offer it to him. And when she did he took it, willingly, and made it his own. But this was one thing that she could not allow him to shoulder; she could not allow him to seek revenge against the nameless face that had already murdered her mother, not at the risk that they would take him too.
“Thank you,” comes her murmured reply, her slender neck curving so that she could press her lips against his jaw. It is only then that she truly settles, though they do not fall into their usual pattern of quiet as she had thought they might. She can hear the determination in his voice when he speaks, and when he pulls her in tighter she does not resist, letting herself be held against his chest. “The throne?” She repeats, turning the idea over carefully in her head, before surprising herself by saying, “I want to lead beside you.”
It made sense, of course.
They were both so intricately linked to Tephra—he being born here with a magic tied to it, and she having laid down her life for it.
But it is not so much the throne that interests her.
It is the newfound need to be tied to him, and a shared crown felt like the anchor she was searching for, as if her heart belonging to him was not enough. She is always in search of something more tangible, something that she can grasp, and this felt more real. “I don’t want to be apart from you again,” she continues, her breath catching in her chest. “Wherever you go, and anything that you do, I will be there with you.”
