"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
well, the good ol' days may not return, and the rocks might melt, and the sea may burn.
The sun has already begun its descent beyond the hazy horizon, as the once vivid sky gives way to a gradient of auburn and ash as a cluster of thick, feathery clouds loom overhead, rumbling dangerously. His deep, gold-flecked hazel eyes observe the ridges and curves, noting the darkness of its shadows – the atmosphere is heavy and damp, drawing beads of perspiration to the surface of his deep pallid skin. The scent of sulfur envelopes him, and though his head is soon overwhelmed and pounding sorely from the stench, it reassures him that he is amongst the volcanic ash and magma once more. Home, he muses to himself, the faintest uptick of a smile tugging at the corner of his whiskered lips.
It had been too long since he had left, yet not much had changed. The same wavering stalks of dry brush ensnared his lithe legs, and the same dense humidity laid across the slope of his spine as if it were a hefty blanket. The jagged edges of a too-still volcano settled somewhere in the middle; a pillar of force and might tucked away neatly within the center of the isle – a gentle glow of the white-hot, bubbling lava pooling along its perimeter in thin, winding rivulets.
The memories return to him, of warm evenings stolen away beneath a starlit sky, of the carefree afternoons spent bathing in the sea – of the many hours wasted away in the presence of two of his closest friends; a squandered youth of which his wild heart often pined for. The long summer days had long since passed, giving way to a smothering autumn and a frigid winter, and eventually, the blistering humidity of summer had returned – but he had not. A year had already passed since he had last seen them – his Exist and Leliana. He wondered if either of them still called Tephra their own; and if not – do they still long for its ash-stained, sultry borders as he does?
A long, wistful sigh emerges from the darkened line of his parted lips, tongue tasting the salty brine of the sea as the golden rim of his eyes search the vacant plain, yearning for simpler times.
I waited for something and something died so I waited for nothing and nothing arrived
She had been by herself that day—wandering as she had become apt to do. Silence had become a welcome companion in Leliana’s life, a time for her to contemplate, to simmer in her own misery. It had become a chance for her to think about the tangled web her life had become, and all of the choices she had made that led her there. It was also a chance for her to heal, although if she was being honest, she did not feel like she was making much, if any, progress on that front. She still felt raw, exposed, vulnerable.
So it was not surprising that Killdare’s death hit her as hard as it did. She had not been particularly close to her grandfather, especially with his memory as fragmented as it was, but family was family—and he had been one of the few ties she had to her mother. To have one more piece ripped away from her?
It was almost more than she could bear.
But, before she even knew was what happening, Canaan was there, in all of his soft gold glory, his wings carefully folded by his side. She cried out softly and rushed to him, her wings transforming by her side to match his own, her slender body colliding with him, chest to chest as she closed her eyes tight. It was so good to see him—so good to stand there, clinging to him, knowing that he was steady, that he was certain.
For a moment, she stood there like that, saying nothing but soaking him in, before she peeled away. Taking a step back, she gave him a shy smile, hazel eyes peering out from the tangled mess of crimson. “You have no idea how good it is to see you, Canaan.” She studied him for a second, turning her head to the horizon and subsequently exposing that small scar. “Exist will be here soon.” She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew in her bones that her twin would find them here to make their trio complete.
it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end
while collecting the stars, I connected the dots. I don’t know who I am, but now I know who I’m not.
She is alone in a far corner of Tephra, hidden away near the northernmost shores where few ever come. The islands beyond are hazy in the distance, have always seemed wild and unlivable, forgotten, and so this near corner is quiet. It is peaceful, too, with so much ocean around her, with the spray of sea-mist to keep her damp and cool when she is always too hot, always exhausted. More often than not her days are spent in this water, waded out until the ocean carries the weight of her belly, until, when she turns her head to look, she cannot see the swollenness of her barrel sunk beneath the surface.
It had been subtle at first, confusing when the weight first started sticking. There were no seasons in Tephra, no winter, no reason for her body to store so much fat. But it had, and had continued to do so for many months until finally she began to understand. She had hid it at first with her wings, full and feathery and pressed to her sides when eyes were watching, shy in her uncertainty, in her youth, but not in regret. She even hid it from Leliana though, her sister, her twin, the better half of her wild soul.
It was in recent months when the weight had doubled, recent weeks when the weight had dropped, that she reached inside with a tendril of healing magic to check the one heart, two hearts that beat inside her belly. It was an incredible kind of agony, realizing that she and Mandan had created life together, realizing that she couldn’t tell the stranger lest she add more weight to those beautiful, broken shoulders. She wanted to, would have unearthed those woods to find him again, to curl against his chest in the same way that had led her to this moment, now. But hadn’t she already been greedy enough, selfish in her affection when he had tried many times to push her away? So instead she hid from him, guilty, missing him, but with no right to find him again.
She wanders the shore today, wading in water that reaches half-way up her ribs, water that helps carry the weight that presses aches and soreness into those long, slender legs. There is something different about today, an inexplicable longing in her chest and she wanders further than she normally would, following the northwest border until it bent out into the ocean again. She should turn back – the splash of water against an enormous belly was reminder enough of that, but instead she pressed hesitantly forward, leaving the security of the ocean behind for the wildlife of deeper Tephra.
Her wings move reflexively to cover her belly, though this time it is defensively (a new instinct she is discovering) instead of to hide it. Her wings are smooth dragon leather, dark copper with hints of red and flecks of gold, marked at the bends with long, curving talons. They do little to hide the sway of her barrel, wide where it hangs visibly on either side of an otherwise small apricot figure, but they are sharp and they are menacing, and it is all she needs.
When she clears a small forest, thick and tangled with tree and vine and swaying leaf, it is just in time to see Leliana turn from Canaan to look out across a horizon and in her direction. Her breath stills in her chest, startled, and for a moment she is only unmoving, carved from copper, cold and elegant, wild in her beauty. But then those eyes find her, pick her out from the surrounding green and Exist it stumbling forward on tired legs, her belly swaying in and out beneath the cover of those dark wings.
She wants to crash against Leliana as Leliana had crashed against Canaan, wants to curl against his side as she had done a hundred times before in their youth. But something holds her back and away, something that tucks those wings flush against the deep wideness of her belly, something that forces her pale green eyes from their faces, from the judgment she deserves because of anyone, they will know best of all that she has no right being a mother. Leliana moreso than Canaan, Leliana moreso because she will understand this fear, may carry it in her own chest. Victra should not have been a mother, either.
When her eyes return to their faces, bashful and uncertain, she is silent, wordless, taking another hesitant step forward and pulling her wings up and against her back because she will hide nothing from them, not them. Not Canaan, never Leliana. “I-“ She starts and stops, looking first at Leliana and then shifting to trace the incredulity she expects to find in Canaan’s face. For a moment her face changes, darkens with something unnamable, but she catches herself and looks away again, back to Leliana and the safety of her kind, beautiful face. “It’s really good to see you guys.” She says finally, still soft, still uncertain, still desperate to be pressed against them and in the safety of their embrace, to let their light push back the shadows of her loneliness. “I missed you.”
well, the good ol' days may not return, and the rocks might melt, and the sea may burn.
The solace is suddenly stripped away from him, tendrils of deafening quiet caressing the firing neurons within his mind as he is drawn away from the suffocating depths of his peripatetic reverie. The startling impact of her chest against his own rouses him, pulling him back into the moment and away from the greedy, unsated clutches of his own memory. The hardened line of his jaw tightens as his hazel eyes, rimmed with a thick line of gold, focus on the visual warmth of mahogany and deep, opulent crimson (soon, a rich cedar, like his own feathery appendages) cradled against him, and his heart grows rapid and eager within the rigid confines of his chest. A breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding is exhaled in his moment of recognition, of realization, and the length of his neck drapes over her own – embracing her.
The stillness of the moment surpasses the restriction of time, and he is captured within the moment, savoring the way she presses against him – a fragile fragment of the Leliana he had always known, of the Leliana he had always held near to his heart. He does not question her, nor does he delve or dig beneath the surface of the uneasy, stirring storm of emotion brewing within the terse, tightened crease of her eyes as they meet his own. There is a part of him that knows, a part of him that perceives the anguish lining the pulsating tendons that piece together her pounding, aching heart – words are not needed to see, to feel her pain.
”Leli,” he breathes, an old memory emerging to the front of his mind of her and of Exist, painted by silvery moonlight, his own youthful voice calling out for her as he struggled to catch their slender, leaping forms in the gentle embrace of a rising tide. His eyes observe the tangled tendrils of cerise that line her shy gaze, and the flattened surface of his nose presses firmly against the rounded curve of her cheek, the warmth of his breath washing over her delicate skin. The familiarity of her is as easy and as soothing as any long swig of twice distilled whiskey would be to a tired, weary man, and her words are just as such. ”I have missed you. I have missed you both, more than you know. You look –“ he pauses, the ridge of his brow line furrowed as his whiskered lips reach out, brushing against the healing scar. ”- what is this, Leli? What is this from?”
But the moment is interrupted, and his heart seizes within his chest, sinking to the very pit of his stomach as if it were bore down with the weight of a thousand boulders. His gaze searches past her now, roving the outline of russet against waning light on the horizon – the leathery texture of her broad wings are hardly a distraction from the broad swell of her belly, weighed down and swaying along with the golden stems of dried brush. Her once wild, tempestuous eyes meet his own, and she is wary, uncertain – everything he has never known her to be, and it stirs something inside of him.
His hazel eyes trace the curve of her figure, darkened now with something undiscernible (heartbreak – the uneven seams of his heart splaying open, unstitched as the world around him becomes still). His chest is heavy, and his throat is swollen – speechless, every word he has ever longed to say caught in the middle of it, swallowed down as if it were bitter bile. Her voice is soft, a burning desire and yearning lingering in each syllable, and the faintest of smiles is drawn to the surface, pulling at the corner of his darkened mouth. His lips press against Leliana’s temple again, before a step is taken, the distance between he and Exist is closed, his mouth innocently pressed against the curve of her jaw before the broad length of his neck is draped over her own, drawing her near to him.
Though his chest is heavy, wrought with an agony he has never known, his heart is light, quivering against its cage as he becomes enveloped in the embrace of his two closest friends.
”Exist. I’ve missed you both,” he murmurs again, emotion rising to the surface, his voice suddenly hazy and rough – but the smile that remains is true, and unwavering. ”it has been too long.”
I waited for something and something died so I waited for nothing and nothing arrived
He is warmth; he is soothing. He is sinking into a hot bath, aches working their way out of her muscles without her trying. She almost collapses against him only because she knows that she can, because she knows that he is strong enough to hold her. He envelopes her, and she is reminded that there is good in this world, that there are souls that you can trust to hold your own without fracturing it. It brings a frown between her brows, a subtle tremor to her heart, but ultimately, it steadies her, and when he pulls away, she does not feel as if she is crumbling at the edges. Instead, she feels whole—feels herself returning.
Until, that is, he sees the scar.
She had just done murmuring, “I missed you so,” when she hears him, and she flushes in response. She was still so unused to the silver mark on her cheek, just as she was unused to its crescent twin upon her shoulder. Marks she could have healed, had she wanted to, but that she chose to bear instead. Marks that reminded her of her own foolishness, of what happened when you gave yourself so wholly to another. Zoryn may have been the one to rip flesh and lay her open, but she was the one who did it to herself.
“It’s n-nothing,” she stammers in her voice of fog, shaking her pretty head, but the moment passes, and she is glad for it. Her hazel eyes move to the horizon where her sister stands, carved from copper, beautiful and wild. But her wild had an edge now, something different, and Leliana frowns against it, taking a hesitant step forward before pausing. Something erupts within her, something that leaves her feeling opened and hollowed out. A desperate longing for the same curve that Exist not wears, a hunger to be a mother, to feel that warmth swell within her, that life grow between her bones.
The jealousy causes a deep and bitter self-loathing to stir, and she shakes her head to rid of it. Now was not the time to think of all that she did not have, to think of that which could have been. She would never bear Dovev’s children, she would not start a family with him; it only brought her harm to long for it. So she moves forward, missing the emotion on Canaan’s face, tucked into his voice.
She comes up on Exist’s other side, and presses the velvet of her lips to her sister’s forehead, sweeping her forelock to the side in the way she has always done. “I am so happy for you,” she murmurs, and it’s true. Exist would be a beautiful mother. Then, taking a step forward, she reaches her healing out into her sister’s belly, letting it wrap around those twin heartbeats. Her lips brush the wings and she murmurs a sentiment she once told her sister, so long ago upon that mountain, “Now they get to exist too.”
it's our dearest ally, it's our closest friend it's our darkest blackout, it's our final end
while collecting the stars, I connected the dots. I don’t know who I am, but now I know who I’m not.
She is quiet beneath their eyes, stilled by the weight of their gazes when they trace the pathways of familiar hollows across skin that is smooth and bright and copper. When those eyes drift further, fall like shadow against the curve of a belly that is too full, too wide, it is reflexive to turn her face from them, to hide her uncertainty behind the curtain of her forelock, beneath the line of a mouth that wavers between smile and frown. But she can only hide away from them for so long and her eyes drift back to Leliana, soft and brown and always so beautiful, where she settles on a face that is, for once, unreadable.
Exist’s face darkens with uncertainty, green eyes flashing like pale emeralds as she quickly tries to pick beneath the new layers of quiet and dark that she has never seen before on her sisters face. “Leliana?” She starts to ask, soft and uncertain, reaching out to brush her lips against the hollows of those dark, delicate cheeks, to coax out one of the smiles she remembers so well. But Canaan shifts at her side and Exist’s eyes are drawn to him just as quickly, darker now, deeper as she hurries to wipe some of the truth from them, to tuck away a secret before he has a chance to recognize it in the shadows of her soft smile.
Just in time, too.
She watches him shift to press a kiss to Leliana’s temple and she can feel that truth swimming for the surface of her green eyes, can feel shadows deepening in the hollows of a face that turns quickly away from them. But then he shifts again and it is to close the distance between them, to place a similar kiss against the copper curve of her jaw. “Canaan.” She breathes before she can stop herself, too much weight, too much ache, too much quiet buried in the breathlessness of her whisper as she leans into his touch. He moves closer still, draping his neck across her withers to pull her tight against his chest and she folds into him willingly, readily, easily as she had a dozen times before though somehow this felt different.
It is a relief when Leliana moves to join them, when those lips reach to trace across her forehead and Exist can lean into this too, closing her eyes beneath this moment of piece, nestled so carefully between the woman who has always been her other half and the man who is friend and something more, something harder.
Something that hurts in the quiet of her chest.
I am so happy for you. Leliana murmurs, soft as she has always been and Exist opens her eyes again, reaches out to run her nose along the crest of a bay neck and beneath the soft tangles of red. Thank you, she means to say, or maybe even, me too - and she is happy, loves the weight of them curled inside her, has imagined meeting them a thousand times. But the words that come out instead are so different, another truth, but filled with dark instead of light. “I’m so scared.” She does not, will not, cannot leave the safety of Canaan’s embrace, but she leans for her sister too, burying that beautiful copper face in the crook of a neck made perfectly to hold her. “What if I can’t do this,” she breathes, shattering, finding it too easy to fall apart when there were so many hands reaching to catch her broken pieces, “what if I’m not good for them.”
Like mom, she doesn’t add, but she doesn’t need to because Leliana will understand, maybe even Canaan will too. He had never seen the woman, after all.
well, the good ol' days may not return, and the rocks might melt, and the sea may burn.
Anguish seizes his pounding, pulsating heart as the deep, unwavering ache settles into his veins like a heavy, weighted sediment, leaving him feeling overwhelmed and empty in the same agonizing breath. Though there was an underlying sentiment tucked within the shadow of a forced smile (one of elation and bliss to be so tightly intertwined with those he cared for most), he is torn. His marred and mangled heart lay bleeding in the center of it all, with only mere fragments left of what had once been whole.
And yet, he cannot bring himself to show the regret etched into the hardened line of his tense jaw, or in the taut creases of his hazel eyes, choosing instead to tuck himself within the warmth of their bodies, allowing his mouth to press greedily against the withers of one and the curve of his cheek along the neck of another. It’s n-nothing, Leliana stammers, worry carved into the hollow of her words, but he is all too aware of how easy and effortless the lie is for her. He does not say another word – no, he will not pry – instead pressing the warmth of his whiskered lips against her skin again, willing the wound away from her dark, mottled skin.
Once more, the length of his muscular frame is pressed flush against each, a blend of vibrant colors colliding beneath the warmth of waning sunlight, and he is submerged within the delicate cerise tresses of one and the rich, copper skin of another. Canaan, a breathless murmur and his heart is caught within his throat. She is curled into him and with the heat of a thousand suns, he is flush with the realization of how flawlessly she nestles against the hard ridges of his broad chest, against the sinewy muscle that lay beneath her cheek.
The moment is fleeting, and soon Leliana has pressed her own lips along the forehead of her sister, pushing the tousled forelock that lay over her endless emerald eyes. Stirred from his own ceaseless reverie, he is no longer drowning in the comfort of her touch, instead brought back to the surface of his own reality.
Quietly, he observes the way Leliana falters – the ridge of her brow line creasing as a flicker of something indiscernible in her eye as she enviously traces the rounded curve of her sister’s distended belly, but it is there and gone again within a single, solitary breath and suddenly he is not certain as to whether he imagined it in its entirety. A shadow of doubt is cast upon him, falling into the hollowed ridges of his weary gaze and along the taut lines of his handsome face – but it, too, falters, when the silence is broken.
Now they get to exist too, in one breath, and I’m so scared in the next, and he draws her closer to him, tucking his chin against the length of her neck as he envelopes her against his breast, longing to comfort her and to urge such foolish fears into the darkness where they belong. They, his mind echoes, two! A longing he cannot ignore stirs within the enclosure of his own chest (“It should have been me,” a voice inside of him laments, but he buries it deep within – there is no use pining for what can never be).
What if I can’t do this, she breathes, what if I’m not - but he cannot take any more, moving back to trace the distress outlining her soft, gentle features, pressing the flattest part of his nose against her cheek. ”You can do this – you are not alone,” he utters, the syllables of his rough, ragged tone oozing certainty. ”you will never be alone, Exist.”
His whiskered lips find solace beneath several layers of rich copper locks, while his gaze shadows the movements of her sister, meeting the intricately woven gold and green of her bright, soulful gaze.
”We’re here,”and then,”I’m here.”
A soft breath pressed against her ear, a murmur – a promise.
”I will love them as my own.”
A heavy confession, one he worries is too much weight for her fragile foundation to bear, and so he finishes, ”and I know that Leli will too.”
even though we may be hopeless hearts just passing through every bone screaming I don't know what we should do
They tangle together as they had in their youth, innocent, lovingly, and warm. Leliana is almost tempted to forget the rest of the world, locked here within them; she can almost forget the bruises in Cannan’s eyes and the scars on her cheek and the soft roundness to Exist’s body. She can almost forget that they are not the youthful trio they had once been, chasing each other across the soil and down the beach, diving into the gentle roll of waves as they came. She can almost forget—almost. Because these things do not leave them. They do not relinquish their sticky hold on their lives; they do not leave them without mark.
Leliana does forget the rest of it though when her sister stammers and reaches for her, and whatever piece of her selfish heart had burned with jealousy turns to ash and falls away. Suddenly, the only thing that she feels is an all-consuming love for her sister and a sudden need to wipe away the fears in her eyes, these things that she knows so well. “Shh,” she whispers, soothing her as she always has, murmuring soft words and noises into the copper and indigo of Exist. “Everything is going to be okay, sister. I promise.”
She can practically feel the fear rolling off of her sister—can practically feel the way that it bubbles up within her, dangerous and cutting and fatal. So she is gentle with how she holds her, with how she speaks, her voice low and even, soft fog rolling out across the spaces between them. “There is no need to be scared,” she reassures her, pressing a soft kiss to her temple. “You are going to be an amazing mother.” She didn’t mention their mother, and the legacy she has left for them; she doesn’t mention the blemishes they carry from their abandonment, the hole carved out in both their chests where their parents should be.
Instead, she just motions to their seemingly ragtag family, to Canaan who stands so strong and sturdy next to them, to Magnus who watches over them, to Malis who is in the background—to these who are not their parents but who have stepped in, who have filled this gap in the twin’s lives as best they can. “They are so lucky to have you, Exist,” she whispers, her eyes lifting to meet Canaan’s gaze over her sister’s back, a silent promise, before she laughs softly. “And they are so lucky to have us, too.”
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