"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
your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine. i don't love you, but i always will.
The sun is overbearing, its unabashed sheen of light blinding to the eye and unforgiving to the skin – and still, beneath it she remains, punishing herself with its white-hot heat. The atmosphere was beginning to shift, as the humidity of midday no longer lingers long after the sun had set beyond the brightly painted horizon, leaving a gentle and soothing breeze in its wake. The volcanic mountain rumbles and stirs beneath the surface of fallen ash, its weaving and winding streams of oozing lava exuding a scalding heat as it slowly travels along. Long, wavering stalks of grain burst through the fertile soil many months ago, once vibrant in color, now dry and painted as gold as the sun itself. It gently caresses the length of her legs, brushing against her skin the way a wanton lover might do, but she does not pay it any mind.
A long, weary sigh echoes, or at least it seems to. The sound of rustling wheat is almost deafening, and she succumbs to the white noise, her heavy lashes and eyelids hiding her hazel eyes from the merciless light. The once perfectly preened white feathers flutter as the soft updraft of air weaves its way beneath her wings, stirring her from her silent reverie. Restless. She had become restless, longing for something more than the stagnant, hot heat and long, dull hours wasted in silent thought. She was anything but diplomatic – her sharp wit and biting tongue would hardly forge alliances, and so she shied away from the idea of extending herself beyond the border, but she was undeniably bored and growing agitated with her own indolence.
The time had come to rise from the ashes; to move away from the shadows. She had grown tired of her own complacency and in turn, she had grown irate with the contentment of others. There was much to be done, and too much time had gone by. Finally, her long, fluid legs shift, carrying her forward, her bright hazel eyes searching the wavering horizon for a familiar face. Her stomach felt uncomfortably tight and taut, but there was no use in hiding away from the painful and obvious fissure that had grown and festered between she and her superior (though he had never treated her as anything but her equal). She could not elude his presence for much longer, and though she had hidden away to shield her own heart, to fortify it and calcify it, she knew it would do her no good.
He was the father of her children; one of her closest companions.
One of the few who not only understood her, but accepted her, wholly.
She could not allow her heart to get in the way any longer. It was foolish, to allow herself to become so vulnerable, to permit her heart to become so weak when she had known all too well that his own was fragmented and defective. It had been a fools’ errand, but she had brought it all unto herself. Perhaps that is what infuriates her most – but the rage never lingered long. Without him, she would not have any stability at all. Without him, she would not have her daughter or son, a thought she simply cannot bear to even entertain.
Quietly, gently, her shoulder brushes against his, her hazel eyes averting away from his own as her gaze peers across the plain. A soft sigh passes her whiskered lips, her wings tightly coiled to her sides as the feathers brush gently against the solid mass of his muscled physique.
”Tell me. Alliances – have we forged any?” Ellyse murmurs, her voice meant only for him. ”I would like to assemble some semblance of an army, Magnus. With alliances, come enemies. We need to be more prepared, and I need to know what I have to work with. Perhaps I can set up mock battles; perhaps teach the basic principles of battle. What are your thoughts?”
She had been avoiding him. At first, it had been irritating—frustrating, infuriating even. He had seen the faintest glimmer of her coat in the distance, the sheen of her, always moving away, always orbiting in the opposite direction. He hadn't understood why she was so purposefully ejecting him from her life, why her face was so guarded, why she was removing him with such surgical precision. It had been something under his skin that he could not scratch, a vexation that he couldn’t fathom. Old rage ate away at him.
But then, as suddenly as the sun rising along the horizon, she returned.
Her skin touched his, brushed against him casually, but she was reined in, her eyes inscrutable, and her voice carefully light. That flame burst forth in his belly again as he curled around, his mouth claiming the edge of her jaw, teeth pinching the flesh there lightly. “Ellyse,” he murmured, discontentment simmering in his blood even as he curled and then drew her into the scarred angles of his body. “You’ve decided to deign me with your presence again.” Teasing melded with tension, coiling around his dark desire.
For another second, he traced the angles of her beautiful, pale face, lips roving, pushing her forelock to the side so he could look at her hazel eyes—the one his children carried. He held them, studied them, his own gaze an unveiled mask of emotion, before he turned it off, taking the turbulence and locking it away deep within him. His face went carefully neutral, as he stepped to the side, their bodies still touching but the heat having dissipated. He wouldn’t force himself on her; he wouldn’t force her to be touched by him.
“I’ve been visiting kingdoms and cultivating friendships, but not formal alliances.” His whiskey voice was steady, but cool. “We have more residents than fighters, but we should offer training to those who are interested. As Head of War, I trust your judgment to do as you see fit with them.” He met her gaze again, but this time it was different; this time, his gold-flecked eyes did not spark and sizzle with unspoken emotions. This time they just regarded her as colleagues. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll
your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine. i don't love you, but i always will.
Her veins burn from the heat of her own blood, simmering to a steady boil as her heart’s steady rhythm soon becomes an erratic tremble within her ribcage, defiantly pounding against the etched bone and sinewy muscle that line her broad chest. The adrenaline crawls along beneath the surface of her tingling, fevered nerves, yet her expression is unreadable – the smooth muscle of her jaw tersely tightened as her eyes avert away from his. Her name is gentle, sweet on his lips, and yet there is something tucked away within each syllable causes an uncomfortable wave of uneasiness to stir in the pit of her belly. In the lapse of a single second, his teeth press tightly against her skin, pinching the flesh of her jaw, eliciting a gasp from her rattled lungs.
The corners of her lips twist into the faintest uptick of a sneer, her breath caught within her throat as her heavy eyelashes fall, shielding her hazel eyes. She turns her cheek away from him, drawing her skin away from his roving mouth, but still he finds her, and she cannot will herself to turn away again (and she does not know if she would ever want to). His words, though light and taunting, scald her with their fervor as something smolders within the darkened tone of his voice, rumbling against her skin, reverberating through her bone.
”Aren’t you lucky?” She murmurs dangerously, the heavy flames that pool and burn in the pit of her belly evident in her biting words – the façade of indifference faltering as her own eyes meet with his. The air, previously wrought with white-hot heat, crackles with electricity and tension. Her eyes search, the golden flecks along the outer rim of his iris entrancing her, but then the fierce inferno soon nothing but a flickering ember. Seamlessly, the emotion that had been previously apparent in his gaze dissipated, hardening into something indescribable and detached, leaving her feeling cold and empty in the aftermath.
An onslaught of emotions unexpectedly overwhelms her, wrought with disappointment, anger, longing, and shame. She had always kept her sentiments hidden away under lock and key with anyone else, stoic in one moment, and at times a blinding fury of taunting remarks and scathing words – but with him, with him, she too easily came undone, and he unraveled her with such little effort. Though she had attempted again to steel herself away from him, the emotions she’d so carefully tucked away were beginning to pool at the surface.
His voice is even and neutral, the gentle warmth gone, leaving behind a frigid frost that makes her own blood to turn cold. His words carry little emotion, bordering on dismissive and it takes every fiber of her being to contain the surge of fury that threatens to burst forth from the seams. The temptation to lash out, to strike him is nearly insatiable, but she suffocates the urge, though her muscles tremble from the effort.
Is there anything else you need from me?
She realizes that there had been more spoken in the moments before, but she hadn’t noticed, nor had she listened. The words were empty and useless; nothing but a blank and emotionless slew of syllables that meant little and nothing in comparison to what was left unspoken. He has pulled himself away, leaving a grievous wound in his wake, her chest heaving with shallow breaths as she struggles to maintain some semblance of self-control – but soon, she is collapsing, her resolve crumbling away into dust as her own eyes become filled with furious unshed tears.
”Hot and cold,” she murmurs, her voice unsteady and uneven, though her hazel eyes no longer seek to avoid his own – she bores into him, flickering green meeting with flecks of golden light, unbending and steadfast. ”isn’t that always the way, Magnus? A constant struggle between sating the natural urges while suppressing the heart.” Though seemingly poetic, there is no mistaking the biting edge to her words. A delicately woven insult. ”Useful when you see fit to sate those urges, but always kept at a distance – always kept at bay.” She muses now, the strength returning in her tone as it rises several decibels, her gaze never leaving his.
”Do not insult me by cloaking your words with diplomacy – your actions speak louder.”Her skin still burns where his teeth had gripped her possessively.
Her voice wavers again, though she swallows the wretched emotion that rises again within her throat (but she cannot quell the tears that spill over, staining her golden skin).
It was impossible for him to fight with the demons that rose in his chest—their bitter claws finding purchase in the sides of his mind, revolting against the distance between them. She was infuriating, first pulling him into the heat of her embrace, the comfort of her companionship and then expelling him from her life with as little effort. And yet. (And yet.) Here she stood with daggers in her eyes as if he had been the one to drive her away, as if he been the cause for the distance between them. Infuriating woman.
She lashed out at him, clever words with a sharp edge that she drove between his ribs. His eyes widened just slightly and then narrowed, his lips pressing together into a firm line. Was she purposefully trying to hurt him? Purposefully trying to drive him over the edge? “Excuse me?” his voice was steely, harder than it had ever been directed at her. “You fall off the face of the earth, avoid me for months, come back to ask me about alliances, and then have the gall to accuse me of keeping you at bay? Of running hot and cold?”
The coolness that had claimed his words but moments ago evaporated, leaving nothing but the heat, the anger. He tried so hard to control his temper, to not give into his rage, but she was provoking it with each barbed word, with each well-placed blow. He had opened up enough with her for her to know the places where his armor was the weakest, where time and hurt had wore him down, left him vulnerable. He had trusted them to her and yet she exploited them now, leaving him raw from the pain, from the hurt.
His jaw rippled as his teeth clenched, as he turned his head from her to compose himself, the waves of age-old hurt skewering him. He had thought she understood him, understood the way years had fractured his heart, the fact that he had placed whatever pieces remained in her careful hands. He did not have hoards of children running around Tephra, did not have romances brewing, and yet she treated him as if he had. She took what pieces of himself he have given her and flung them back. Not good enough.
Never good enough.
When he returned his gaze to her, there were tears in her eyes, on her cheek, and part of him broke, part of him ripped apart, the anger cleaved from him. He dropped his head down, a frown growing between his brow, his handsome face awash with the anguish. He glanced back up and studied her, the distance between them cold. “I don’t understand what I did, Ellyse.” Painful truth ripped from his throat, his voice husky and low, hoarse with the emotion. “I don’t understand how I could break this so quickly.”
out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll
your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine. i don't love you, but i always will.
The silence that soon descends is suffocating, leaving too many words unspoken as the unforgiving sun begins to wane along the distant horizon. The pale light of dusk casts a shadow along the plain, painting their silhouettes in lilac and auburn, burning as brightly as the fierce fire that still flickers in the aftermath of her own bitter words. A gentle breeze carries through, caressing her skin and weaving its way through her delicate, finely preened feathers, but she cannot feel anything aside from the weight of her own words lingering between them. Her heart clenches inside of her chest as an immediate wave of remorse settles into the marrow of her bones. Her chest heaves still, her breaths shallow and many, the hot sting of tears still burning her eyes – though she tries desperately to swallow her own emotion down; a fruitless endeavor.
His own words are blistering and scornful, and he is angry – he is furious. It is a dawning revelation that selfishly appeases her deepest, darkest insecurities. He is no longer reserved, or feigning indifference, which is what infuriates and wounds her most. His touch had been inundated with heat and hunger, only to be vacant and devoid of any semblance of emotion moments later, leaving her festering with yearning, loneliness and insecurity – a fate crueler than death. Her heart had always been fiercely guarded, intricately wrapped in barbed wire and iron, and yet little else could unravel her the way his apathy could.
Each of his words are now laced with arsenic, unabashedly truthful and brutally honest – but it is not his words that stir the inevitable ache within her chest. The line of her jaw clenches, taut with tension as he averts his own gaze, attempting to piece himself together – wrought with anguish and frustration, and the pang of regret stirs yet again within the pit of her hollow belly.
She had never thought of him as her own. She would be foolish to - he is but a broken, hollowed out shell of a former self, wounded by loss, ravaged by war – he had nothing left to give, he had told her so many times before – yet she knew otherwise. It is not a jealous heart that causes such discontent within her (if he should seek comfort with another, far be it for her to stop him), but a longing to see the fragmented pieces of his soul, to be let in beyond the brief, passion-laced moments of his fallen guard in the aftermath of copulation.
”It was never you,” she whispered softly, her voice unsteady as she closes her eyelids tightly, her heart weary but pounding still inside of her chest. ”it was me. You haven’t broken anything – I have.”
The confession is heavy, yet she still feels like a caged bird, confined by her own insecurities and frustration. His agony becomes her own, bearing down on her heart with the weight of a thousand suns, and the dull ache in her chest reminds her that she alone is the cause. Gently, she reaches out, her whiskered lips brushing against the hardened, rigid line of his jaw, but she recoils moments after as if she’d been burned.
”I kept away because I cannot stand it any longer, Magnus – the uncertainty. My heart cannot take it. I am who I am; I am what I am – unashamedly. I have never presented myself to be anything but what I am, but you – you.” Laughter, dry and without humor, echoes in the thick, heavy air, as her weary gaze tiredly observes the way his golden skin fades into mottled blemishes. ”One moment, you allow me to see you – what lies within, your deepest secrets, and in the next moment – you are a complete stranger and I wonder if I know you at all.”
”It feels as if I am in love with a figment of my own imagination, Magnus,” she murmurs, her voice quivering still, a resolute sadness reaching the depths of her darkening gaze as her heart threatens to burst from her chest as her eyes well with tears yet again. ”I have never asked for anything more than you, as you are. To know all of you. If you cannot give that to me ..”
Everything she did, each motion, each turn of her golden head, undid him. All of the anger and frustration that had been building up within him, uncoiled, lay spent. To see her so openly hurt, so vulnerable, was more than he could bear, and when her words came wave upon wave of hurt that he had caused, he could only make a strangled sound in his throat. Why did he insist on ruining things so cleanly? He had known the damage wrought by his own hands and yet he had held her anyway. He had known that his heart had long become a calcified, ugly thing and yet he still turned to her, still wanted her desperately.
He was such a selfish, selfish man.
Her lips found his jaw and he moaned for a second, turning his head into her, but she was long gone, her touch ghosting over him and leaving him aching. Her gold-flecked eyes opened and found hers, stripped bare with emotion, his face open and vulnerable to her. “I…” he started and then stopped, mouth closing as the words fled him, the emotions impossible to put into words, dangerous and twisted as they were.
How could he possibly explain to her the lives he had led? The way he had loved before, given himself so completely to others? The way their bodies now lie as sun-bleached skeletons, or sunk to the pits of the ocean, or somewhere he could not ever visit? How could he ever try and explain that his love was but a wretched thing—poisoned and fatal? That she, so full of life, deserved so much more than him?
It didn’t matter because the words died on his tongue and he reached for her, gently this time—tentative. He breached the distance between them, but the motion was a question instead of a demand. He did not seek to devour her with heat, but to comfort her with warmth, trying to soothe the wounds on her chest, dry the tears from her cheek. His voice was low when it finally came, still raw with emotion, but low—the softness of a river after the surging tsunami it had been. “What do you want to know, Ellyse?”
It was all there, hers for the taking.
out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll
your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine. i don't love you, but i always will.
The sun in all its brilliant splendor has since dipped beyond the fading horizon, its light tucked away beneath the rim of lightly dusted mountain peaks, giving way to the resplendence of darkness as it settles into the void. Once decorated with a blinding array of colors from each end of the spectrum, the sky now lay open, painted a deep shade of sapphire and riddled with diminutive fragments of light. Slowly, the moon rises, emerging from the shadows with her radiant, lustrous light, illuminating the darkness with a gentle caress. And yet, she had never felt more exposed – she had never felt so bare.
A warmth spreads through the broadness of her chest as his cheek turns to her, seeking her touch, the white-hot ferocity of his anger dissipating into weary fatigue, his heart and mind splayed open before her. Gently, her whiskered lips touch his jaw again, traveling the familiar trail of bone and sinewy muscle to the ridge of his neck, the warmth of her breath lingering there as his throat rumbles with emotion and little else. As turmoil thunders beneath the surface of his skin, her lips place light kisses along the ridge, an unspoken apology lingering in each one. A shaky sigh spread across the length of his neck as her forehead rests for a long moment against him, the heavy scent of sweat and musk leaving her light-headed and breathless.
Her own heart had become selfish, mangled and wrung with a longing she could not satiate, but the warmth of his body so near to her own is her only reprieve. She has always known he is a broken thing, pieced together with delicate, fragile threading, yet it has only drawn her closer to him, like a moth to a flickering flame. The irony is not lost on her; her own father is every bit a moth as he is equine – and though she has not inherited his complex compound sight, or his feathery antennae, or even his thin, translucent wings, there is a part of her that wonders what small piece of her is so inherently broken beyond repair that she cannot resist the proverbial fire burning inside of him.
A shuddering breath emerges from her tired lungs as her skin parts from his own, her gaze shielded by her heavy eyelashes as her chin tucks close to her chest, but she is not without his touch for long. His voice reverberates through her bones, settling somewhere deep within the casing of her marrow, raw with emotion, unraveling her at once all over again. Her deep hazel eyes meet with his, a moment of intensity shared – both bent, verging on the edge of shattering, vulnerable and weak.
”Tell me what you have lost,” she murmurs, her shoulder pressing against his as her neck tucked itself beneath the crook of his jaw, listening to the faint thundering of his beating heart. ”the names that you call out in your sleep.”
She would never tell him that his guard falters in the dead of night while he rests, nestled beneath the stars while flush against her own body. Too often, his handsome face contorts with some undiscernible emotion – the golden hair matted with the salty brine of his tears, which she washes away with a gentle touch to lull the demons stirring within.
He is strength personified, beyond the thick muscle that lines his hardened body – it is the way he moves seamlessly between stoicism and a kind smile, and the way that he can fiercely guard so many but embrace so many more. There is so much to know, to understand – and yet, in those dark moments, cradled beneath the moonlit nights as her lips gently touch his cheek to chase his nightmares away, she does not know him at all.
The summer night is sweet and mellow, the heat of the day evaporating around them. She touches him again and he doesn’t bother to hide the shudder that races down his spine, the emotion flayed open on his face. He reaches for her again, tracing the curves of her face, her neck, the muscle that lies beneath it. She was so beautiful, but that was not why he cared for her, why he constantly found himself pulling her near. It was the intelligence, the sharpness, the fire—the very things that made her unyielding. He was helpless against the razor tongue that rested in her mouth, the gazes she sent that stripped him clean of defense.
But he is made even more vulnerable when she reveals what she wants to know, the request hanging in the air between them. He frowns and looks out into the distance for a moment, his heart thudding in his chest, the warmth of her curled there a comfort he cannot articulate. He breathes heavily for a moment before he glances down again, steadying himself with lips to her neck, to the softness of her.
“I’ve told you about Joelle,” he whispers, remembering the day they had stood in the Gates—when she asked of him a story and he had told her of his death, of the murder. “I think about her often. About our children, the Gates, the way I disappointed them. I think about watching her die and how I was there helpless to do anything about it. I think about her now—resting beneath the waves. Where I was for so long next to her.” He breathes out, lightheaded. “I fear that I have abandoned her, failed her again.”
Another pause.
“My parents, Atrox and Twinge. They died trying to save the jungle from a flood; they died there together. Atrox came back when the Chamber called his name, but my mother never did.” And she was who he was closest to—she was who had raised him as wild and fearless amongst the vines. “Minette. I…I found her in the meadow one day. She had been trapped, beaten, abused by a coward of a stallion name Gryffen. I helped her and her child, as well as Felinae, escape and find haven in the Gates.”
He swallows hard, shaking lightly.
“Minette and I had a child together. A beautiful little girl named Posy.” A girl he never got the chance to know; a girl he never got the chance to love. “But the world was on the brink of war and I was—I was ripped from it. A relative, a mage, named Woolf protected his bloodline and trapped us in another world, another dimension. By the time he released me, the war was over and Minette was nowhere to be seen.”
A dagger in his heart, but he kept talking.
“Makai. My little brother.” He closes his eyes, small tremors racing up his back. “I found him one day on the Beach—killing two innocent mares. He was so young, and he was covered in their blood. I lost control; I was furious.” He shakes his head. “I killed him. I watched my own brother die from my blows.”
There was more. More loss, more pain, but he falls silent, swallowing, trying to gain control.
out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll
your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine. i don't love you, but i always will.
He is wrought with heartache, his handsome features drawn together with unfathomable anguish and she is powerless to put a stop to it. Regret intertwines itself with her pounding heart, pouring into her veins and pooling within her blood, becoming every bit as much a part of her as he had become. Breathless, her whiskered lips trace the hardened line of his jaw, trailing down along the rigid bone, where soon her breath brushes across his own lips, which rest parted as unspoken words lay dying. Her heavy lashes close over her weary eyes, a pang of longing causing her heart to skip a beat – she had lashed out with such misplaced anger, with reckless abandon, and now he lay still beneath the starlit sky, his heart splayed open and bleeding from old, freshly opened wounds. Her own doing.
Selfish. The word echoes in her mind, and she cannot deny the weight of the truth. She was undeniably selfish, craving to touch every crevice of his mind, yearning to undress the secrets that lay tucked within – old memories deeply buried, and forgotten bridges burning still. He moves and trembles against her, the rage melting away and with it, the walls he had built around his heart falter. He presses himself against her neck, and she relishes in the warmth of his heavy breath against her skin, her pallid tresses stirring from the gentle breeze and caressing the broad line of his cheek.
His voice is rough, riddled with emotion, hot against her skin and yet, she can savor no part of it. With each word uttered, he unravels, the very core of his being frayed at the seams as the fragile thread of a life – no, of two lifetimes – becomes strained from the immense surfacing of a pain he had never wanted to feel again. Gently, urgently, her lips reach to touch his skin again, attempting to sooth the flayed wounds she had so grievously opened, that she had so greedily sought. Her kisses barely ghost across the mottled russet and auburn blemishes on his skin, tasting the salty brine of dried sweat again, a wordless apology lingering behind each tender caress.
Joelle, a name she had heard many a time – once of his own volition; but a thousand times more from a deep, dark place, muttered under his breath in a fervent dream. Atrox, and Twinge – she had never heard either name, but he had whispered for the memory of his mother a time or two, a pain she herself had never known. Minette. Posy. Her heart aches, and a soft whispered apology barely touches the crest of his cheek. She could not imagine losing Canaan, or Hawke – each had become so deeply engrained into her heart, into her very purpose for living - but the loss of her stillborn daughter (with darkened points and the rich golden fur of her father, and vivid eyes that never once opened) still weighed heavily on her heart, and she can almost feel the profound depth of his agony in that moment.
At last, Makai – again, a name she had never heard, but brother had been uttered before, all while he shuddered beside her, lost to the nightmares that plagued his weary mind. Each name, heavier than the last, entangled into a delicate, intricately woven web of despair settles heavily on her rigid shoulders, where now his burden lay as her own. I’m sorry, her once bold voice whispers softly, over and over. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, she breathes, her own mind feeling spent and unraveled with each revelation. Gently, her lips travel the length of his neck and face once more, drawing him nearer to her, cradling him closer to her.
Finally, ”You have known so much more in life than I could have imagined, Magnus.” A shaky breath. A long pause. ”I am a fool – a selfish fool; I should never have asked, I should never have pushed you –“ and yet, and yet, she is far from altruistic, her deep hazel eyes searching an endless sea of brown, gold flecks meeting with his. ”- you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. You are so much more than you know.”
The words drain him, the memories shaky as they climb up inside of his vacant mind, taking up residence. Demons he thought long ago conquered return, crawling on their bellies into the dips and whorls and he struggles to not shake—he fights to stand still as they root along, finding the weakest points and pressing there with wild abandon. This was a door he had not wanted to open; this was a hurt he had not wanted to revisit—a fight he had not thought he would have to face once more. Their faces swirl before and through him and the anguish is white hot, the sorrow branding the inside of him.
His tongue presses against the back of his teeth and his jaw clenches, inky lips pressing together into a firm and unwavering line. Those he had not mentioned press protesting palms against him, grabbing his heart with greedy hands, claws digging into him. Librette, with her frank and unyielding fierce gaze. Raaquel with blood on her lips. Ledger with fear on his face and a monster in his belly. Fiero with a misery he could not outrun. And the final one—the sight of their perfect little daughter curled up on the ground and lifeless. The sight of Ellyse hitting her knees, the keening wail that pierced his mind.
For a moment, he doesn’t respond to her touch, to the words that push against him. He stiffens and closes his eyes, brow furrowing in thought as he fights for control, to grab ahold of something. He peels himself away from her with a shake of his head and moves to the edge of a small ledge, the beach splaying out beneath him. His gold-flecked eyes are pained as he watches the lazy waves wash up on the shore, as the stars in all of their splendor reflect in teal water. With the tide comes an ocean breeze and he sighs as it lifts up his mane from his sweat-slicked skin. He twists his head back to where he had left Ellyse.
He finds her gaze but still can’t bring himself to say anything so instead he just jerks his chin and then makes his path down toward the beach, his self-assured step taking him out into the water. He does not stop until the brine of it reaches his chest, until he can feel the gentle tide pushing against him, until he can feel that pull from within—that dark and dangerous call for him to return back to its endless depths.
“It scares me how much this feels like home sometimes,” he confesses, although he still doesn’t look to her. “Immortality now runs through my veins,” a truth he had not yet told anyone, “but the place that sometimes calls to me the most, that pulls at me the hardest, is right here.”
out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll
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