"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
06-08-2019, 06:26 PM (This post was last modified: 07-06-2019, 04:57 PM by magnus.)
but she's bringin' the moon and stars to me -
He is grateful, for the opportunity given him to the faeries. Grateful that they have seen inside of his heart and know what he seeks—but he cannot help the seed of doubt that it plants within him. He cannot help the way that his stomach twists at his, perhaps, misstep. What he saw as protection perhaps she would see as a prison. He had thought that he had known but maybe he hadn’t—maybe he had been a fool.
So he is quiet, intense, as he makes his way back to Tephra.
The muscles in his jaw jump as his teeth clench, and the faint glow that always surrounds him is now more of a smolder, the heat of it simmering along the edges of his gold skin. But all of it softens the second that he sees her. The second that he is able to confirm that she is here and real and safe.
Magnus closes the distance between them quickly, gathering her into his chest and pressing a kiss into her temple, lingering there for a moment to just savor the sweet taste of lilies and honey. When he takes a step back, he searches for her eyes, brushing away her forelock so that he could see her more clearly.
“I just got back from the Mountain,” he says softly. “I,” he hesitates, “I went to petition for your immortality.” His stomach twists as he remembers the faeries’ words. “I have lost so much, Isle. I couldn’t bear the thought of ever losing you…but it was selfish, to do it without asking you first.” He hangs his head a little, grief touching the corner of his mouth, bruising his eyes. “I am so sorry.”
When he looks up again, there is still that edge in his mouth, a restlessness in his limbs.
“They granted me the quest—the option to try and earn it for you—but only if someone first makes a life-altering decision for me without my input. So I am putting it all before you. You can refuse the immortality and I won’t ever bring it up again—or you can accept it and make the choice for me.”
A faint smile touches his lips but doesn’t reach his eyes.
She knows him by the music of his mind, by the soft notes of affection when he notices her and the deeper rumbles of worry that are like a constant thunder inside him. “Hello.” She says, and it is a whisper from lips that are already busy curving into the shape of soft joy that leaps inside her chest when he pulls her close. Her eyes close, and there is a new softness that smooths out the lines of tension in her jaw and around her brow, but it only lasts for as long as his lips are pressed to her dark face, and then his thunder grows.
There is already a frown waiting on her lips when he steps back to look at her - already wonder in the soft crinkles beside her eyes, and the way one ear flicks back uncertainly. “What’s wrong?’ She asks, but she is already untangling the knotted thoughts and worries in his mind, laying them out in neat lines so she can understand why it he’s looking at her with a look in his eyes that is not unfamiliar.
He’s never looked at her like that before, with almost-regret and bare apology, but someone else had.
She is used to that look feeling like a blade buried in her chest.
But she’s so wrong, so wrong, and there is confused relief as his thoughts crash like waves against his words and turn so muddy that it takes a moment to let things settle again. “My immortality?” She asks, whispers, doesn’t quite understand because it is not something she has ever wanted for herself. His grief is the blade she had been expecting, that wound in her chest, but it is different because he points it as his own chest, and with a kiss she can make it disappear.
She slips back beneath his neck again, content against the warmth and the glow of him, at the reflexive way his body shifts to hold her when she settles against him. “That is not a thing to be sorry for, Magnus.” Her lips are the brush of wings against his chin, his jaw, the corner of that tense mouth. But then he continues and her brow furrows beneath the tangles of dark forelock, her eyes finding a shape along the horizon to focus on.
She wonders if he understands this weight he settles on her shoulders, the weight of making such a decision for the sake of this man she loves so quietly, so much. It is not a bad weight, but it is heavy, and she feels it immediately as she rests her cheek against the side of his muzzle so that she can close her eyes and think.
“It has been a long time since I’ve thought about being immortal, Magnus.” She is certain she doesn’t need to remind him for who she would have wanted it with, or why. He would know, and that reason did not exist anymore. Did not matter or hold any weight. “I’m not sure I want it anymore. I know what true loss feels like now, and I don’t want to outlast this love. I don’t want to outlast you.” She pauses, leaning into him because this is an ache she knows all too well, one that carves her hollow more swiftly than any blade could. “But for that reason I can understand why you would want for me to be like you. I understand what it is you feel in that beautiful heart.”
She pauses again, and it is not quite a hesitation, but certainly something distantly similar. “My choice,” she begins softly, never stepping away to look into his face because she will hear his truths as loud as anything in the thunder of that wild, beautiful mind, “is to never outlive you.” She pauses again, so slow as she organizes her feelings into thoughts and those thoughts into words as careful as she knows how to make them. “My life will be tied to yours, Magnus. If I am to be like you, then we will be bound together in it. I am happy in this life with you, I have no desire to live forever if there is a risk that you won’t be there too - but I will also not ask you to face what I refuse to.”
He holds her close and she presses her lips to the flesh of his chin, his jaw, his mouth. She knows the rhythms of his heart—the very pulse of him—and he does not need to say the things that he does. She already knows. She always knows. It loosens the knot in his chest so that he can breathe easier. Before he even knows what is happening, she is there and he can finally relax into her. She undoes him.
He doesn’t say anything as she lets the flutter of her hands smooth out the edges of his worry and in her gentle grasp, they don’t feel such a terrifying thing at all. He would place it all within her palm, would trust her to never crush the edges of them—to never bruise. He would trust her with it all.
When she does finally make the decision, his face glows like the sunrise.
“That’s all I want,” he says, pressing his forehead into her, giving a quick twist of his head to catch the velvet of skin next to her mouth and exhaling. “All I want is to know as many sunrises by your side as I can. I want to watch our children grow. I want to learn the twists and turns of your heart. I want time.” He leans back only so that he can catch her gaze—only so that he can study the wild depths of them.
“I want knowing more than to tie my life to yours.”
Then the thunder breaks and his face grows warm, the tense lines softening in the glow of her. “How did I ever get so lucky, Isle?” Finally. Finally, he has found a love that will last—something he can trust—and it is within the oceanic heart of the woman before him, in the wind valleys of her soul.
There are flickers of moments where it does not feel possible that this is her life now, that she stumbled so accidentally across the person who would breathe life back into such broken lungs. A man who might see her damaged pieces, those cracks that run all throughout her soul and want to heal her with such gentle hands.
Loving once is easy, loving when you have not felt loss or disloyalty, when you do not know what it feels like to have that heart you gave so readily, crushed to pieces and returned. Loving a second time had been so much harder, is still so much harder sometimes. Like in the dark of night where she wakes and he is not beside her, and for a brief moment old fears are remembered. An impulse of distrust and pain until she wakes fully and remembers his name, his face, his beautiful heart.
Magnus.
His name is a balm on her lips in those moments, a word that makes warmth flare inside her chest and draws such softness to the lines of tension in her jaw. She wonders sometimes if this feeling will ever fade, ever change - because this love feels so bright and brand new every day. Strikes a shiver of excitement that, day by day, heals the cracks others have flayed into her heart. He is teaching her how to live again. How to feel and how to love, how to trust in someone besides herself.
“I love you.” She murmurs, feeling emotion well in those dark, wild eyes when his lips press to the corner of her mouth. “I think I could love you for an eternity and every day would still feel brand new.” She doesn’t let him step away for long - not even so he can study her with those molten, beautiful eyes. “You have a lifetime to do that.” She reminds him, soft and murmured and with a quiet smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she reaches out to nip at his shoulder.
“Come here.” There is such heat blossoming in the depths of her eyes when she captures his gaze, molten and wild, and it makes her forget anything but him in this moment. The curve of his cheek and the strong line of his jaw, the way his lips quirk when his gaze settles on her. The feel of his heart thundering against her shoulder when she slips beneath his neck and against his chest, bowing that delicate head to lip at the sensitive skin behind his foreleg.
07-06-2019, 04:50 PM (This post was last modified: 07-06-2019, 04:50 PM by magnus.)
but she's bringin' the moon and stars to me -
How anyone could be so soft, so wild, so impossibly delicate and strong all at once constantly eludes Magnus. She is an enigma that captures his attention again and again, revealing new sides of herself in each moment, unveiling pieces of her mind in ways that always leave him wanting more. He finds the strength of her beyond understanding; the way that she has pieced herself back together, filling in the cracks with gold and becoming all the more beautiful in the aftermath than she could ever understand.
He loves her for her selfless heart. He loves her for the way she loves her children. He loves her for the way that she fits into Tephra and yet reminds him of other places. He loves the dark wildness in her eyes and the way she quiets and stirs him all at once. The rest of his responsibilities and worries fade when she captures his gaze and he finds that the nightmares come less frequently when she is next to him at night.
She crooks a finger at him and it takes nothing for him to respond.
He is already there, is always there, his scarred mouth against the curve of her jaw and sweep of her cheek. “Isle,” he breathes into her, feeling his heart pounding in his ears, his pulse a dull roar as she brings him closer to her. She slips under his neck and groans softly in the back of his throat. “I could love you forever,” he promises, feeling the way that it anchors in his chest, so steady and sure and eternal.
“I will love you forever,” he repeats, feeling himself fall into the raging waters of this moment.
He lips at her, pulling at her forelock and then biting softly down her neck.
“Let me love you,” he asks and his voice is dark, the edges of it turning stormy before her, the pressure building in his chest. For a second, he presses his forehead into her, fighting for control over the pieces of him that threaten to spiral out of control beneath her gentle coaxing. “Let me love you, Isle.”
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