"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
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
In Hyaline she stares at her reflection, watching the multitude of life beneath the surface pass under the transparency of her wavering likeness with mute worry. Down there, where the water muffles sound and cocoons the body on all sides, it would be easy to ignore the way Jah-Lilah and Canaan threw sidelong glances at one another. Down there, she could forget that soon her union with that golden boy would be eclipsed by the electric pull of another. “It was what you wanted.” She reminds her reflection, each corner of her stoic mouth pulling slightly deeper into a frown. “It was right.”
Circinae’s left fore jerks free from a standstill to land squarely in the water, dispersing minnows and her reflection with the finality of a single step. She sighs, expelling a tense moment’s worth of breath while closing her eyes before summoning an unhurried portal. The bicolored mare is as of yet undecided on where this gate will open - If she searched, perhaps a puddle of some leftover summer storm might bring her closer to Crevan? Or maybe, just maybe, she could sneak once more onto the shores of Nerine, find her brother? “No, and certainly not.” She reasons with the gentle shake of her head. Crevan was rogue now, she knew it. Wyrm? Ehhh …
A spark of inspiration touches her, causes her thin eyelids to flutter open and widen that mesmerizing blue stare. Circinae no longer needed to ponder where she’d go, the gaping mouth of water is open wide and ready for her. Down she glides, up she crawls; through the surface of Hyaline’s crystal waters and back out into the rapids of the lonely, outstretched River. It takes only moments, enough time to soak her through and leave her refreshed while the Summer heat warms her back, and then she’s free of the great blue landmark - working her way with leisure through the spindly outcroppings of pine and oak before the gentle brush of grass is all the eye can see.
Out here, she can breath again and she does - deep lungfuls of golden light and playful winds that fill her chest and clear her mind. Nothing seems as complicated as it had before, the moment winding into quiet contemplation as the sun lazily reaches its crest. Midday gives her repose, dries her coat and soothes her muscles while the thoughts swim in convoluted circles through her mind. Hour after hour is simply taken for herself, selfish as that may seem with a new babe at home, yet she feels nothing but the necessity of it. Somewhere, out there in the great expanse of their world, two lovers are uniting for the first time to shatter expectations and boundaries alike and she … well, she is here.
Circinae succumbs to weight on her shoulders, lowers her head, and weeps.
And maybe, I'll find out a way to make it back someday. To watch you, to guide you through the darkest of your days.
His mind is heavy with memories, enveloping his focus and carrying him elsewhere – like a gentle breeze, weaving its way through the deepest and darkest recesses of his mind, unlocking glimpses into his past. He is lost within his own reverie, with dark, finely preened feathers held tightly against the golden swell of his barrel, brushing across the brittle bark of old, aging pines and low-lying branches of youthful maple that become entangled with his taut wings. The woodland is dense, and there is an echo of quiet that draws him in deeper to the south – as a prickling of sunlight pries its way through the thick canopy, bathing his golden skin in its warmth and light.
He is alone – as he so often is; even with his heart captured by two he is not tethered. His heart is taken, completely, but there is so much left to be said of their unorthodox union – of a love built of time and of space, as wondrous as the celestial sky that so often drew out the intimate memories of lovemaking, of gentle caresses and softly spoken promises.
It was different than the far-distant instinctual need of his ancestors; he did not yearn for a harem of broodmares to feast before him and to bear his young. He longed for family, for kin and for young birthed from love and tenderness and affection – much like he had himself had been (so long ago – he only remembered the good of what Magnus and Ellyse shared; he had shied away from the tension and heartache that had followed it).
He had found it – a white-hot, burning star, born of intimacy between he and she, and she and she, and then – full circle, it had come, and his heart had never felt so full in all his life. And yet – yet, there is still a tendril of envy, a pining ache – he knew it well, each time scarlet met emerald, with a fervent kiss placed in the sensitive curve of a hip, or a warm breath nestled within the withers of another. He never stayed to see the entanglement – he loved Circinae so deeply, he wanted her happiness, and if her happiness lies within the breast of another, who was he to stand in her way?
But his heart had begun to open, and it had begun to see the light that she had wanted him to see, that she had wanted Jah-Lilah to see – and he had taken her as a lover beneath the pale morning sunlight, as he had his beloved Circinae so long ago. Even so, when he does find her bathing beneath the soft but warm sunlight, with the gentle and mesmerizing turn of the roiling, rumbling river echoing in the distance, his heart does fall into the pit of his knotted belly – the darkness of fallen tears drawing him closer to her.
A subtle breeze sweeps beneath his underbelly and through his tangled tresses, before weaving its way toward her, enveloping her in an embrace of wayward wind as his pale lips brush across her hip and gently again across her shoulder – a gleam of sadness hidden within the golden flecks of his hazel gaze, searching for her own, observing her – crestfallen, wounded - did she feel the same ache that he, too, had once felt?
”Circinae?” he breathes softly, awaiting her answer.
If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all, then I hope there's someone out there who can bring me back to you.
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
A passing breeze takes new shape around her, fingers of air pressing against her skin, and she knows instinctively that it must be Canaan. It had never occurred to the pied mare that these circumstances arose from his own power; she’d taken them as happenstance, just a wild, unexplainable quirk of nature that heralded his entrance every time. Now, though, with his lips adding a tangible pressure to her hip she begins to grow thoughtful on the matter. “I’m alright.” Circinae replies, the open-ended question that was her name filled with more than just a single word. Her nose passes over the soft hill of her fetlock, drawing the length of her face and then, with the angle of her head, one broad cheek across the bulge so that she might wipe the remnants of her tears clean.
“Life is more complicated than it ever was before.” She explains, finding it easy to lean against the solid weight of his body when he comes parallel to her shoulder. “I love it - of course I do - but the weight of it all has a tendency to crush even my steely constitution.” Circy sighs, eyeing his troubled face with the twist of her neck. In that glance their unspoken worry is relayed, the acute panic in his gold-flecked eyes as troubling as stormy seas. “Was it good?” She ponders, feeling a sharp pinprick of that old dog jealousy.
“I know you’re immortal.” Is all she says, biting her tongue so that she might gaze once more across the quiet expanse of grass, all the while her thoughts tumbling against each other as she tries to remain steadfast. “I knew it the moment Jah and I came across you in Nerine. You hadn’t changed a bit.”
The pinprick feels like a saber now, plunging through-and-through her heart.
“Lately I’ve noticed the same of Jah. I always wondered … her stories seemed so out of character for someone who looked so young. But being around her, being intimate with her - I know I’m right.” The shifter concludes. “I wanted this, us three, as soon as I felt confirmed by your appearance. My own mortality became a bitter, inevitable curse and selfishly I worried long nights over who would warm your side long after I was gone. Jah-Lilah was the only worthy one in my eyes and when season after season passed but she remained unchanged, I thought the solution was as simple as putting one-and-two together.”
The laugh that bursts free from her lips is anything but pleasant. “But nothing is ever that simple, is it?” She asks with a quavering tone. Gritting her teeth, Circy struggles to quiet the rush of emotion between her warring heart and mind. She pulls away, only to resettle in a manner that allows for her head to rest wantonly into the curve of his gilded neck. “I knew it would be hard at first, probably confusing too,” The pony mare breathes, “and I know I have nothing to fear … but fear comes anyways.”
Whispering, half ashamed to even be thinking it, she says, “I just don’t want to be forgotten before I’m even gone.”
And maybe, I'll find out a way to make it back someday. To watch you, to guide you through the darkest of your days.
He is quiet when her voice finally does rise above the gentle whistling of the wind, and with his sheer will alone, it is quieted, too, settling into stillness. The soft and delicately preened feathers of his wing brush across her flank, where his sons and daughter had once grown and stirred within her womb – she is a vision of beauty and he is in awe of her; time had made him so much more observant and the wideness of her hips (once slender, and sleek) remind him of the depth in which his love reaches, if only to be by her side. Gently, his teeth tug and press into the entanglement of her mane, haphazard and curled along the muscled slope of her neck as he gathers dried leaves and twigs from the mess of indigo that lay over emerald skin.
Her weight is against him, then, tucking within the hardened, heavily muscled lines of his own body – she is lithe and slight, fitting into the sharp crevices of his bone structure, as if she had been molded to fit alongside him. He had known, long ago, she would be the one to capture his heart – to tame the wanderlust that still stirs deep within his wayward heart, though he no longer yearns to wander alone – but rather, beside her. A fervent kiss pressed along the hollow of an exposed throat; teeth gripping gently with warm breath into withers with ecstasy writhing thought his veins and through hers – she had taken him, as he had taken her, and when her wild and unyielding heart had found him at last upon a distant shore, the depth of his love for her became known.
And with it came sacrifice.
For months, he watched as lips of blistering fire caressed the very same curve of her hip with zealous desire – he watched as glimmering ruby danced with alluring emerald, fervent whispers shared as lips traveled further and lower, as the celestial sky above was drawn into the eyes of the tumultuous and passionate storm that had become the love shared by Circinae and Jah-Lilah. He had watched as the one who held his heart held another’s, as he struggled between where he belonged and where he did not – and he can see the same fear, the same yearning within the glistening, unshed tears lingering at the brim of her piercing gaze. He knew it all too well, and gently, his lips brush across her cheek - a soothing murmur rising from his parted mouth.
”No time spent on Earth could compare to the time spent with you,” he says earnestly, as his mouth delves beneath her tangled tresses to the sensitive skin that lay beneath, his breath warm and his tongue lingering – tasting the sunlight and maple that lay there. ”whether I live for ten years or for a hundred. Nothing, and no one, has ever compared to you,” he breathes, teeth lovingly tugging at the corner of her ear, as a smile tugs along the corner of his mouth, crooked and boyish but laced with adoration. ”and I know that she feels the same way about you. Time is fleeting – I’ve had enough of it taken away from me, and if I ever should live one day without you, it would be one day too many. I will not linger on what-if, and neither should you.”
And then, gently, his lips travel along the curve of her jaw, tasting her skin, feeling her pulse under his tongue before kissing her softly, gently, with a whisper uttered against her lips.
”I am she as you are she, and she is me and we are three together,” he says softly – the very same words Jah-Lilah had spoken to him, to bind what had been created of desire, of love – of a yearning so deep, none could quite touch it without the other. ”I love you, Circinae, and nothing - no one - will ever make it untrue. I know that you are afraid – I am, too – but I am yours, and I always have been – nothing can change that.”
If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all, then I hope there's someone out there who can bring me back to you.
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
In this moment, she forgets about the space in between. Canaan is so deft at erasing lost time - does he feel the sharp sting of memories lost, or do they fade slowly into one another? Circinae’s eyes raise to view that cutting, adorable smile and she wonders, “In a thousand years, where will that smile be?”
His neck bends to her, the rush of his mouth pressing soft indentations against her skin as holy and graven as it had been that first time. She holds steady, waits for the fire to stir in the pit of her belly as his soft words take shape against her own lips. “I am yours, and I always have been -" He promises. That’s all she needs, all she’s ever wanted.
Her head tilts, both lips brazenly pressed against his own as her skin sets itself ablaze. There’s a heaviness in her actions, a fervent desire to touch and be touched - her hungry caress travels from the point of contact to the dark recesses of her heart, where unknowingly Canaan has set her rhythmic pulse into a frenzy of action. If she had fingers, they would trail through his hair, grip him there firmly; She feels an innate wish to press every bare inch of her skin against his - so she does.
Curving, cat-like, she sharpens her teeth if only to scrape them gently over his gilded fur, her tongue is useless but for the way it strokes longingly across his neck. The taste of him is invigorating. Circinae wants what she’s been denied (those languid hours of coy tête-à-tête) and she refuses to wait any longer for it. They’re here, now; what better time could they be given?
“I wanted you the first night we met.” She begins, stifling her ravenous yearning so that it might be drawn out instead. “Something about the way you looked - alone beneath that sky of stars - as if Beqanna could never touch or ground you.”
Her cheek, flush with the curve of his throat, feels the bare undulation of his pulse as it ticks beneath his skin. Circy sighs. From here she edges forward, the navy-tinged crown of her head slipping beneath the shadowy bump of Canaan’s chin. She’ll ease onward, let his own curiosity overtake him while she glides silkily ahead. Her cattish rub stops when the jut of one hip can feel his chest pushing back -
- and in response, the space between her thighs grows warm, jerks her hips upwards to where he waits. “Is it crazy,” She asks, peering behind, “that I want you more now than ever I did then?”
