"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
i’ve been training like a soldier; i’ve been burning through this sorrow
Once, he had been a soldier.
Renowned. Revered. Trusted amongst the people of his kingdom.
He had been stalwart in his duties. In his responsibilities. He had been steadfast in his conviction and the direction of his home. Where they led, he followed. Where they asked him to kill, he did so without reservation. He stained his hands again and again with the blood of their enemies. He did not question why they had such a war or what would come of it. Did not wonder at the generations of loss.
He simply picked up the sword and slashed—again, and again, and again.
But this time, it is different.
This time, when the worlds collided and his home found Beqanna. When the storm ripped through the land and brought Stratos down. When he could feel the rumbling of war on the tide, he did not feel his pulse surge forward. He did not charge toward his General. Could not fumble his way toward the sword.
There was something in him that halted his hand. Something that weighed him down. Was it doubt? Was it fear? To him, it felt like exhaustion—like confusion. It was heavy and thick, and he woke with a pounding head each day. He retreated, knowing it was akin to treason to not report every day. He slipped into the water until he expanded along it, until all of his liquid bones melted into nothing.
Until he was just cells rushing along the current.
And when darkness fell, he slipped to the surface—to that old battleground where he had fought and killed and felt his own body rip apart. He reformed himself until his feet felt solid and he trudged forward, dripping slowly onto this cursed land. There is a sigh, or perhaps just an exhale, as he comes to the edge of the ruins. A quiet clicking as he acquaints himself to the area and those who inhabit it before he comes to a stop, his hip brushing against a large rock—and then, only then, does he drop his head slowly.
She thinks she can still feel the thunder of war pulsing beneath the surface and the echo of cries carried on the howling wind, and she wonders if they—Beqanna—can feel and hear it too. She wonders if they have any idea the blood that has been shed here, if they have any idea the lives lost and the battles won. Raea does her best to push the thoughts aside as she walks the shoreline, because she hates where her mind takes her whenever she thinks of Baltia and Stratos fighting; the way she finds herself wondering which side she should be on.
She thinks of her father, and his stern face but kind eyes (eyes like hers, shark-black and cut with silver), and the way he would sometimes try to not laugh at the things she or her mother said.
Her mother, with her feather-soft laugh and colored like the dawn, lover of the stars and the peace to her father’s war.
They had found love in each other despite their differences, but it never escaped Raea that they did not actually choose each other over their homelands; not really. On their island sanctuary they did not speak of Baltia or Stratos—at least, not in front of the other. In private, though, her father would tell her stories from the battlefield, all the while seeming to forget that the enemy he spoke of is where Raea inherited her dawn-colored feathers and the faint breeze that always seemed to shift around her. Her mother was not innocent in this either, using their evening walks as a chance to teach Raea of the celestial gods and goddesses Stratos so adored, and always finding ways to subtly paint Stratos in a more agreeable light—reminding her that the rest of Baltia is not like her father, and that they cannot be trusted.
It’s why when she sees him she comes to an immediate stop, though for a moment her heart betrays her and skips an excited beat, and relief floods her bones at the sight of someone like her in this land full of strangers and unfamiliar history.
Almost like her, she silently corrects herself, and she can feel an uneasy heat rise to her cheeks even though he would never know the error in her thoughts.
A breeze ruffles the pastel-colored feathers that cascade down her neck, and she is reminded that besides her eyes and the water wings that glisten at her sides, she looks more like an enemy to him than a friend.
— i’ll kidnap all the stars and i will keep them in your eyes —
i’ve been training like a soldier; i’ve been burning through this sorrow
It is testimony to his exhaustion, to the bone-deep fatigue, that he does not feel her coming until she is nearly atop him. It startles him, and it is only decades of training that keeps that reaction in check—that keeps him from spooking or swearing or baring his teeth immediately. Instead, it is only the tiniest flinch, the smallest contraction of muscles along his back that gives him away. The black mood that immediately descends upon him when he realizes that she is delicate and female not immediately adversarial.
Not that it meant anything, he knows. He has seen the smallest of hands plunge the dagger the deepest.
His fury roars up his throat along with self-loathing that he has been caught unaware, and he tilts his aquatic head toward her, making a series of small clicks as he begins to suss out her exact location and then general feel of her. What he gets back is confusing, coupled with a scent that is both brine of the ocean and dust of the wind, and it puts his teeth on edge—not helping his current state of mind.
“What are you doing here?” His voice more brusque, more guttural and sharp-edged than he had intended. He would soften himself, if he could, but he’s not certain that he knows how to any longer. Is not certain that he ever knew how. Any soft emotions he had ever felt had been as a young boy and had long since bled out of him. “This is not a place to wander,” he scolds, unsure if it is to protect or drive her away, but knowing that it would be in both of their best interests if she did not linger in his vicinity.
She stands incredibly still as he seems to appraise her, and while she cannot be sure what he searches for, her mind does not hesitate to fill in the blanks. She is sure that he can see that her very creation is reprehensible—a mingling of blood that never should have touched each other, a shameful thing in the eyes of both kingdoms. Even once she pieces together that he is blind it is only a fleeting moment of reassurance (and immediately she is disgusted with herself for even thinking that — for being glad that he could not see her), because the tension that pulls the muscles of his body taut do not go unnoticed by her.
He has found it, the wrongness of her. It goes beyond her appearance, must be something that he can feel in her pulse and smell on her skin, maybe even hear in the very sound of breath hitching in her chest.
He knows.
Without even seeing her, without even hardly knowing her he has already seen her for what she is, and it is all she can do to not crumble beneath the weight of that.
She resists the urge to slip away, because even though there is an evident frostiness to his look she still possesses a certain stubbornness, an unwillingness to flee. He has already made up his mind about her, she thinks, but still she cannot willingly submit to the idea of being seen as weak.
“I…I don’t know. I’m sorry.” It sounds meeker than she had meant it to be, a soft waver to her voice, and she pauses. A breath in, and a breath out, and the tremble disappears. “My parents, they’ve told me stories.” There is the sound of the waves rolling against the shore, the soft hush of a breeze that stirs at the feathers along her neck, but otherwise it is silent. Aching to fill it, she adds, “They raised me away from everyone and everything else. I just wanted to see it for myself.”
