"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
Don't put my love on your back burner. Never let anything that hot get cold.
He is a shadow across the frothing seafoam of the shoreline, gliding to and fro on a gentle breeze born from the hearth of his chest, carrying him from end to end of the tropical island. A quiet, but steady presence – unwavering, but with a wanderlust humming deep within his veins that never quite seems to fade with time, try as he might to swallow it down. His heart is heavy, nearly whole and yet, the emptiness that does remain is almost enough to stifle his glee. He had fallen deeply, unequivocally in love with a wildly imaginative, ambitious creature, as vivid in her aspirations as she is in beauty, wit, and heart (and her lover, too - their lover, Jah-Lilah) – but he can see so much of his mother in her.
Powerful, a force to be reckoned with – but deep within, yearning for influence, for control, and there is a small piece of him that cannot ignore the knot of discontent within his stomach. He had seen his mother fall further away from his father; he had seen what had developed between them fall away as ash and dust into the hungry and ravenous tide – so different, at the core. His father could not be what his mother sought, and his mother could not chase away the shadow of doubt from his eyes.
He is left wondering if he is destined for the same heartache.
He is left wondering if the same uncertainty in his own heart is the same that Magnus had felt with Ellyse.
Was he enough?
He does not want to lose her; he does not want to let her slip like granules of sand between proverbial fingers –
Can he be what she desires, beyond the heat of his kiss across the column of her neck, or the warmth of his body coiled around her own once the sun has fallen beyond the horizon? She is reaching higher, and higher, but he has never craved power, and he does not understand the desire. Still, Circinae is a part of him, she carries a piece of his heart with her, and so he would stand beside her, against whatever force might resist her might – would it be enough?
In the end, he is lonely for her, but he is careful not to stand in her way. She is striking, charming, desirable, and sociable; he can only watch with admiration as the depth of her affection for those she loves deeply becomes a higher purpose for her, knowing that she is striving for victory – for triumph, and he would never expect any less. When he does find her alone at last, he cannot suppress a smile from tugging at his pale lips, as his hazel gaze traces the delicate curve of her hip from behind his two-toned forelock. His heart hums against the confinement of his rib cage, drawing him closer to her, to where his mouth presses a heated kiss along the curve of her spine, trailing up to the tousled indigo tresses that lay haphazardly over her viridescent neck.
His teeth rake slowly along the ridge of her neck, tasting her pulse within her throat before placing a warm, affectionate kiss to the crease of her jaw, and then to her cheek, while his feathers bristle in delight at the sensation of her feminine physique against his own.
”I miss you,” he confesses softly, as the jagged edge of his insecurity is made known to her, while the golden flecks of his eyes seek out the piercing blue of her own. ”I want you to know that I am here for you; that I couldn’t be prouder of you – but I miss you, terribly.”
And if you ever change your mind and want to leave my love behind, Just let me be the second one to know.
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
Is it environment that shapes a foal, or their parentage?
A slow dissolution of watching one’s parents divide hadn’t been Circinae's childhood. Syl had been an attentive, reclusive dam that hid her filly in the golden dunes of the Deserts while Lupei had visited less and less as the days wore on.
By the time the Reckoning had come for them, Circinae had long been independant. She had siblings, (with a father like Lupei how could you not?) but only one had been ghosting in and out of her life with some consistency. Not that she could blame him for the absence, either. Her half brother Wyrm was not a creature she enjoyed having around.
So, in turn, her last few days of youth had drifted by without much of anyone around to witness them, except for Raeanne. These days Circinae’s little chestnut girl had been sneaking more often into her dreams at night, leading her on wild chases through dark woods. The Keeper of Ischia would wake in a fit of soft whines and slip from her warm burrow to pad softly down the shoreline, much like she does in the early dawn light of this particular morning.
Facing the sea, (to the side that shows only water, no hint of Beqanna) Circinae stands proudly out of reach from the churning waves and shifts smoothly to her horse skin. The weather has kept her sleek coat from filling out and her mane and tail have begun to grow accustomed to the constant assault of sea and sand. Ischia suits her, but even trouble can find its way to these quiet shores.
Today, it comes in the form of her golden partner. With his lips twisted into a fanciful grin and a bold, wordless claim, Circy melts into the welcome embrace Canaan offers. The joints of her hip, her shoulder - they lock smoothly into the dips of his own body (just as they should) and it is nothing for her to lean against the pillar of familiar intimacy they’ve built over the years. Their relationship, queer as it has been, has always been a source of clarity and trueness for her. Jah-Lilah and Canaan are the halves of herself she feels she can never be, which is why she tilts her wanton face in his direction as Canaan adorns her with feverish kisses.
She needed him; she always would. “It won’t be forever.” She promises in response, burying the narrow line of her green nose beneath the cover of his colorful mane. “And you know that if it weren’t for you and Jah, I would never be here.” She murmurs, feeling the pressure of his stare though she avoids it.
So much scares her these days. “All my life I longed for what you gave me - a family.” She begins, withdrawing from the safety of his protection. “When the twins were born, I swore I would destroy anything that threatened our lives together. But no amount of preparation could stall what the future had in store for us.” She mutters darkly, feeling the blame of missing out on whatever it was that had come between her eldest sons. “Now our family has grown threefold, our friends outnumber the stars, and still I fear for the knife at our back.” Circinae explains, free to lay her worries on the shoulders of another who had always been there to support her.
Her eyes dart out to the rolling sea and she pauses for a moment's time, worried that she may see a flash of smoke-and-bone scales underneath the water. “Canaan,” She starts, turning her attention back to him with a worried edge in her tone, “have I made a mistake, by coming here?”
Don't put my love on your back burner. Never let anything that hot get cold.
It won’t be forever.
Forever is all that he has – unyielding, time was, slowly stealing the youth away from the soft and feminine curve of her cheek, away from the ridge of her brow, and the crease beneath each eye. She is beautiful (as beautiful as she had always been – vibrant, pulsating with raw energy) and he is captivated, as if time merely stood still, as if time never meant to remind him that his time with her is fleeting. That his time with her is wasted on political obsession; that his time with her is lost on others. Jealousy does not boil within his blood; it never has, and it never would – but envy?
Envious that her heart is so full, that her mind is so restless, that her will is so strong that she is consumed by the compulsion to push further, harder. Envious of those who attract her attention; envious of what fierce endeavor so often takes hold of her heart. She is searching for some sliver of wholeness to fill whatever void lay within her heart, and he is left wondering if she can even see it. He had thought himself enough; he had thought Jah-Lilah enough. The love shared, the love made (his loin stirs at the thought of it, remembering the undeniable chemistry).
Was it enough?
Would it ever be enough?
When she presses closer to him, his heart aches. He only desired her happiness, but would power be enough? He is reminded again of his mother, of her tireless effort to make something of herself, to be something - to someone! But to whom? He cannot make sense of the desire to carve one’s name into history; history so often fades away with the ravenous tide. Gone with the wind. Forgotten in time.
But he, pressed against her, languishing soft and affectionate kisses along her spine, feeling her tremble and shiver beneath his touch – that would not be soon forgotten. Forever etched into his mind, forever drawing out a soft and contented sigh from his breast as the wind urges her closer to him, as if he can somehow consume her and keep her for his own.
”Is that so?” He murmurs at last, pausing as his dark lips hover over her neck, but she is pulling away. Always pulling away. His lips seek out the warmth of her skin again, cheek brushing along her shoulder as he becomes parallel to her, gazing for a wistful moment out into the endless sea. Knowing that beyond the horizon, where the brilliant sky becomes dark and hazy from the endless plumes of volcanic smoke, the land of his upbringing lay. ”I think you might be mistaken, my love. If it were not for you, Jah-Lilah and I would not be here.” He muses softly with a chuckle, but the humor is lost in the storminess of his golden flecks, gazing into her own of soft blue.
Have I made a mistake?
His heart clenches.
Deep down, he has asked himself the same question.
He does not show her his uncertainty; his uncertainty does not lie within her. She is fierce, vivacious, a natural leader. His uncertainty is within himself, unsure if he can be all that she desires. Unsure if he is holding her back. Unsure if her doubt is because of him.
”No,” he says quietly (truthfully). ”you are following your heart, and you are doing what you feel you must to protect those you care for. Those you love.”
But.
The hesitance is thick and heavy in the uncomfortable humidity of dusk, and from the hearth of his chest, a heavy wind is born. Sweeping over the length of their bodies, entangling itself within the knotted tresses that lay across their necks, dampened from the salty brine of the sea and the granules of sand spread throughout.
”But will it be enough?”
And if you ever change your mind and want to leave my love behind, Just let me be the second one to know.
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
“Is that so?” He questions, and for a moment it sounds to her like uncertainty. “I think you might be mistaken, my love.” Canaan purses, catching the swift rise of her capri gaze. Circinae can hear the humor in his voice, but her eyes are too adept at seeing the wolf beneath his sheepskin.
How long had he been losing faith in them?
How long has she been ignoring this?
No; she hadn’t been ignoring, as if doing it purposefully. She’d merely been ignorant of it until now. Silently, they look at each other and she can see the wall descend so she lowers her own (her heart lurches at the action, shudders at her choice) because it’s so like her to curl into the strength of herself and let the wolf take control. Behind her once bright stare the glint of ice hardens her features; she grips her second skin and struggles to stifle it though the safety of her claws and teeth scream otherwise.
It isn’t that she wants to defend, not at all. The wolf is her protection when the horse fails, her opt-out of situations that she knows will cut and hurt - a shield.
But.
She cannot, will not use it as an escape from this. Not from the heaviness that taints his otherwise tranquil reply, or from the wavering hesitance that feels like a solid divide between them. She’s a lost member of Taiga, after all. A servant of King Amet; once Protector, once Advisor, and now the Keeper of all of Ischia and her inhabitants.
Circinae will not turn away from the only man who has ever laid claim to her heart.
The stirrings of his strange power play rampant against their colored skins and for a moment, all she can think to ask him is where it comes from. Across her vivid blue eyes a few strands of dark mane tumble into her vision; Circinae blinks them softly away and hears his question as clearly as an echo through the ages. “Not if you’re not there to share it with me.” She says, hardly missing a beat in her willingness to answer.
The soft ridges of her lips reach for the comfort of his youthful face, where she knows they’ll be met with a familiar scent and taste that’s sure to set her world right. Unchanging in both body and loving support, Canaan’s cry for her heart has left her spinning madly out of control and she wants only to cling to the steadiness of him. “Will you spread those wings and leave me?” She asks, neither quiet nor timid.
Don't put my love on your back burner. Never let anything that hot get cold.
”If you want me to,” he murmurs steadily, though his heart is thrumming within his chest, thrusting itself between the timid gaps of bone and tissue. The adrenaline surges through his veins as the ache that had once been so small enlarges, threatening to fill the entirety of his chest cavity with the heaviness of it. She does not need him, she never has, and he once cherished her strength. Strong, unyielding - a force to be reckoned with, he had said once, and it still rang true. Guarded. Protected.
In the same breath, it hurt him as much as it tore a wound through his own wayward heart.
Where had the wild-eyed and wanderlust-ridden boy gone?
He yearned for her to want him, to need him in some – in any capacity! But no longer does she seek him out (had she ever? It had always been Jah-Lilah that had kissed away her uncertainty; he had been captive either in presence or in mind), and no longer is she unwavering before him. She is as uncertain as to where she her place is in his heart, just as he cannot seem to find his own place in hers. When did it begin to unravel? When did something so beautiful, so deeply touching and heartwarming become so devastatingly tragic?
”You mistake me,” he says quietly, his gaze elsewhere – no longer looking to her, but instead to the distant horizon, alight with a splendor of color. He had seen the flash in her cerulean gaze when her doubt began to set in - there was no wolf beneath the sheepish; he had only ever been himself with her. Caring little for structure or for being bound to a single piece of forsaken territory, but he had followed her. He had stayed, because of her, because of love.
She can only see his uncertainty as doubt in her, when his doubt is within himself.
But will it be enough?, he had asked her.
Am I enough?, he had meant.
Too little, too late, and the realization of how vastly different she is from him rouses tears to brim the ridge of his eyelids, though his heavy lashes attempt to blink them away, not wanting to break before her.
”I will always love you,” he says finally, his breath uneven. ”all of me, all of my heart, my mind, my soul, will always love you. I do not love this .. Ischia; I do not love this island or the crown of thorns that you wear.” He pauses then, looking to her, savoring the caress of her lips across his cheek as if it might be the last. ”I will not leave you, but it feels as if you have already left me.”
And if you ever change your mind and want to leave my love behind, Just let me be the second one to know.
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
The only thing she’s mistaken about is his ability to be involved.
Had he even wanted her to be happy? Or had he always looked at her like this, with disappointment that she couldn’t be the person he wanted her to be? Ischia makes her happy, he makes her happy.
Perhaps she asked too much without ever really asking.
“I will always love you…” He says, though it sounds like a goodbye she’s not been smart enough to craft herself. A crown of thorns? She’s leaving him? Canaan is eager, all too eager, to take up a pen and write her story with his own hand. But he cannot take the final say from her, so she hammers the nail with a force he’s never been able wield, with a strength that has always been lacking in him.
“Thank you for the life and love you’ve shared with me, these many years.” Circinae tells him, donning that thorny crest he hated so much in order to give a command he’s sure to love. She’d held him too close, wanted him to be near when clearly he longs to be far, far from her. “Ischia has never asked you to stay, only I have. And I won’t ask it any longer of you.” The pied mare speaks.
Now, she does shift. Digging cleft toes into soft sand suits her, so with the stiff flick of her tail she draws back the sword and swings it in a clear, precise arc, (a clean cut, only felt when the hour is too late to stop the bleeding) “You’re welcome to come and go as you like, since Jah-Lilah remains. I would not seek to keep a father from his child.”
Don't put my love on your back burner. Never let anything that hot get cold.
Sadness has found its way into his eyes, when each finally settle onto her – she is no longer as she was; no longer as he thought she was. She is the wolf beneath sheepskin – how fitting it is, that she takes the form of her true self when confrontation is too much for her to handle! He can see her more clearly than he ever had now, and she is not at all what he thought, not at all what his heart desired. Perhaps there is still some small piece of her (the wild, charismatic, vivacious spirit he had fallen in love with), buried somewhere deep within, but he cannot bring himself to feel any desire to draw it out – she is gone to him, withdrawn, and he is left wondering if she had ever loved him at all.
She is rife with sarcasm and malevolence, but he merely stares. He does not indulge her in her pettiness, as each word seeks to drive a jagged dagger between the hardness of his rib cage, to pierce his heart. There is nothing but wretched melancholy to lace the golden flecks of his eyes as she becomes what she always had been beneath. How had he been so blind? His mother, scathing and biting, is standing before him, and he had been too much of a fool to realize the trope he had fallen into.
He does not say a word.
There is nothing to say; she had dragged the knife along the tenderness of his heart, just as he had reached out to her – seeking reassurance, seeking her affection. She had spurned him, turning away from him with an iciness where there had once been heat. Too consumed with her own emotion to see his own. Too consumed with herself to see anything beyond her own avarice.
He was not the one lacking.
With his wingspan outstretched and a heavy gust of wind to carry him, he is gone.
And if you ever change your mind and want to leave my love behind, Just let me be the second one to know.
