leaves all sinking, fever dreaming; ANY

[magnus]

Disappointment is a familiar sensation. It wraps itself around his bones, presses into his veins, branches out and through him. He can feel the way it crawls up his throat, the pressure. He is used to it. He is used to the bitter taste of it on his tongue. The feeling is no stranger; it makes itself at home in his chest, curling into the curves of it without hesitation. It is almost comforting to sit with the weight of it, a stone in his belly as the autumn breeze begins to lace across his back. It is almost comforting to recognize the old friend come home to roost, the anguish rooting and flourishing, strangling whatever hope once lived.

Of course he had disappointed them.

Of course he had vanished, dipping in and out of time. 

He was at once steadfast in his stability—a guardian carved from stone—and as fleeting as the first snow, melting even as it made first contact. And how could he ever explain it? How could he tell them of the ways that this world only felt half-real and too-real all at once? How could he tell them about the way that time had lost all meaning, moving in and out of focus at dizzying speed? Once life had bled from your veins and then been poured back into it, it was an impossible task to try and wrap your mind around what you were left with. So he didn’t try. Excuses fell back into his throat, never once meeting the open air.

In some ways, it felt like he had only been here yesterday, the sulphuric air of Tephra still hot in his throat, and in others, it feels like a lifetime ago, the same taste ash on his tongue. It makes little sense to him, and he is too tired to grapple with it. Instead, he nearly buckles under the weight of the expectations, his golden face carved from his regret and sorrow, the handsome lines pulled taut. He moves to a part of Beqanna he had yet to visit, a seemingly impossible thing to consider, and the froth of the river and the roar in his ears is nearly enough to drown out the howl that is building inside of him.

How many times does he have to live this same cycle? How many times must he create a home, only to break it apart? How many times must he love to leave—disappearing into an abyss that’s all too willing to swallow him up? Without thinking, he begins to wade into the river, the water coming up to his chest. His legs anchor to the slippery ground, and he feels the tide pulling against him, a threat of the end and a promise of relief that he nearly gives into. He closes his gold-flecked eyes and exhales, the gold of his coat darkening as the water continues to thrash against him. Perhaps he should have stayed away.

Perhaps, this time, he should have simply let his absence grow permanent. 

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

[Kagerus]

kagerus

and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times

To a far, far lesser degree, I too can speak to being absent. Perhaps not as some can in this land, I am no relic or legend, no Brennen or Scorch or Prague; but I have done my fair share of disappearing acts. In the wake of the dream which taught me of humans and courtship and war, I found myself withering in the reality which truly belonged to me. At the time, I hadn't the magical abilities to transport myself back to that place, and other places I could only fractionally make up with my imagination, and even less reliably, dream of. Although Kavi left his position as the Chamber's High Priest in order to take me to the Jungle where I could better recuperate and grow, it did little to help...

By the time the Reckoning came, he and I had been separated. I am reliving that time now, as I tread amidst the mossy and log-strewn forest floor which lead to the river. It had been here that I awoke, some years ago now, alone and afraid and completely unsure of how to comport myself after such an absence. But being Queen now has shown me how little that absence had truly been, compared to those of others; I'd not died, I'd not been gone for centuries.

But it was still enough to shake me.

Fog rises from my lips into the below-freezing night air; autumn is here, whispering of winter when all the creatures dare to sleep. In the dark sky above, the moon shines brightly; and where it hits my mahogany coat, filtered in by the half-naked trees, leopard markings shimmer. My body itself is a tribute to the family we had to leave behind, in the world before the Reckoning.. but as my gaze snags on something gold and familiar and ancient, I know that though my body is a glimpse into the past, his is a walking treasure brought back from times of old.

"Stranger," I call, feeling suddenly pressed to know this ancient one before he slips back into an absence of true permanence. His body is no larger than mine, and the colour of his coat reminds me of my beloved and blessedly immortal father, himself being something of a relic, too. Without thinking, my feet pick themselves over logs and fauna, hurrying me closer until us too absentees are so close, that there's no chance that either of us could escape back into the ether.

"Your eyes..." I murmur, amazed by the gold flecks found therein, leaning ever closer. "They have seen more than you care to think about."

@[magnus] this is terrible bad, I am so sorry

[magnus]

The water thrashes and churns around him, and he closes his eyes, letting the river beat against his war-hardened body. It was tempting to simply lose his footing and give into it, to slip underneath the current and float back out to sea—to the sea that had been his grave for so many decades. Even the thought is enough to cause him to flinch internally, his tongue practically tasting the salt. He shakes his head to rid himself of the memory, but the ghosts remain, carved into him and pressed for all eternity.

Thus, he welcomes the distraction when he hears her approach. He takes a steadying breath and begins to withdraw from the water, the air cool against his dampened flesh. It is impossible to deny that he still longs for it, some part of him never quite settled into this new immortal body. There is a part of him that will always long for that relief, the sweetness that comes with the unknown, with the abyss.

But today is not the day for him to give in.

Today is not the day for him to lose his grip on reality.

So he pulls himself onto the bank, his dappled body darkened and the sun-bleached edges of his mane dripping. Foilage wraps around his scarred legs, the hooves splattered with mud, but underneath the mess, he remains the same—scarred and golden. “Stranger,” he replies in kind, the barest hint of rust in his throat. There is something of her that feels familiar, some part of him responding to the jungle in her, but it’s not enough to dislodge the information in his mind, and he’s left with an unrooted feeling of kinship.

When she peers into his eyes, he doesn’t flinch away. Instead, he holds onto her gaze with the same genuine care he had exhibited in all aspects of his life, unblinking as he memorizes the own variations of color in her own eyes. He does not even flinch at the observation, the words piercing to the core of him. “I have had a long time to see many things,” is all he replies, one corner of his mouth lifting into a crooked, charming smile. “I’m lucky enough to have seen plenty that I do quite enjoy thinking about.”

Nevermind the ghosts. Nevermind the memories of his own body bleeding out onto the beach. Nevermind the memories of Joelle’s skull cracking in front of him. Nevermind the wars, the tears of anguish, those he loved but could not save—those he swore to protect that he had not been enough to carry home.

Nevermind the fractures that spiderweb throughout him.

They are not for here. Not for now.

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

scuse. your words are never bad.

[Kagerus]

kagerus

and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times

He hears me coming, leaving the waters which so call to him just in time to meet my approach; his coat is darkened considerably by the waves that so tempted him. I watch for a moment, in the wake of my question, as water drops from his figure, sparkling here and there in the far-above moonlight. Strange, to notice such a small thing, such an odd detail, but I do; strange, this man before me. Detailed himself - odd. War-hardened. Life-lived.

Stranger, he replies, and I can't help but feel otherwise. Our gazes remain carefully intertwined, each of ours glowing with a kind of reserved understanding that neither of us are willing to indulge. The way his lips turn slowly up in just one corner makes me stomach flip, sends my mind reeling back to a smile that is entirely different, but eternally more familiar. My own lips flatten, ears pressing just slightly back, brushing against my antlers as I painfully remember the quarrel that Solace and I have so recently had. I haven't been home in some days, haven't seen my babies... But I must go to the Mountain before I can return. I need to prove to her that she will be mine - forever.

This - this stranger - he is simply a detour... A distraction. I swallow; my lips pull a small grimace. But he is answering me now, and I force my ears back into an alert position, my mental self breaking her nails against slate as she attempts to crawl from fragility back to a place where she can breathe without crying.

"Lucky indeed," comes my voice, sounding far more sure than I'd imagined it would. In the gentle night breeze, my tail brushes against my hocks, the only movement between the two of us. "Tell me then, such that I might forget my woes for an hours time... Tell me of something you do quite enjoy." I try a smile, but let it fall instantly. "I can make it worth your while, if only you'll trust me."

I blink, lower my eyes, bring them back up to his; gold-flecked; odd; knowing.

"I'm Kagerus."

[magnus]

It is easy for him to recognize the hurt in another—the familiar anguish, his own personal brand of sorrow. It is easy for like to call upon like, and he can easily see it in her eyes, in the shifting of her ears. It’s enough for him to almost call it out. To almost ask about whatever hurt has burrowed beneath her skin and made its home, whatever has pierced her heart, leaving her open and bleeding beneath it.

But he knows that it is difficult to find the words to describe such hurt and opening it up to fresh air has a way of amplifying the pain. So, for now, he pretends to not notice—the same way that he pretends his own wounds do not sit just below the surface, threatening to rip open at the slightest movement.

“Kagerus,” he repeats her name, syllables dripping in whiskey, letting it sit on his tongue as he watches her. He still cannot put a finger on what about her is so recognizable. He cannot put a finger on what of her pulls at his heartstrings so deftly, reminding him of the ghosts that sit on the peripheral of his vision.

It’s an itch between his shoulder blades, distracting enough to cause a frown to furrow his brow, but he chases it away, smoothing out his face with a quirk of his lip. “My name is Magnus.” A name so often lost to the winding paths of time, buried beneath the pages of history and then dragged once more to the surface. “And are you sure you have the time?” He winks. “I have been known to be quite verbose.”

A not wholly accurate truth but close enough that it doesn’t sit unwell.

“Because if you do have time,” his voice breaks off for a second, his eyes glazing over as he sees that which no longer exists, the visions rising in the air, the edges hazy, “then I would gladly talk to you about the home of my heart.” His smile grows slightly sad as he focuses on her again. “Of the home that I ran as a young boy and walked as a young man. The jungle where my mother ruled, where the trees grew thicker than you and the vines were as alive as us both.” He doesn’t mention that this same memory that brings him joy also brings sorrow—of those who no longer lived, of the memory of the floodwaters rising to claim both of his parents. That the home of his heart was also the grave of his soul.

Instead, he just smiles, watching her curiously.

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

[Kagerus]

kagerus

and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times

Recognition blooms in his eyes as flowers do in spring, though these flowers bear more sadness and empathy than those which we walk among. A part of me urges him to ask, begs him to pierce the thin veil which hides the true reason for my night wandering, for my lingering around this place which first saw my return to Beqanna. Although his lips remain shut (pleasantly lilted, but shut), I almost open mine, nearly telling him about my marital problems, nearly telling him about how I'm procrastinating the most important woman in my life, nearly telling him about it all.

But my breath catches, and my secrets remain just that. He says my name, spins it anew, rearranging the syllables that make up my soul as easily as if they were but leaves strewn across this autumn floor. He frowns, readjusts his smile. As he says his name - ancient and familiar all at once - I take a step closer, still intrigued by the crystalline droplets slipping from his coat, still watching those gold-flecked eyes. Magnus. It suits him.

"I have until the morning," I reply, somber still even in the wake of his wink and his waggling tongue. "And though I am not short-winded, what takes up most of my time isn't speaking." I pause a moment, considering whether to elaborate on what I've said... But in the end, I lower my head in deference to this Magnus, not yet ready to reveal the dreams which I already weave for us in the background of my mind. I have asked him a question, after all; and I will hear his answer.

He begins with a prelude, mentioning home, causing my own eyes to glaze over as I too remember that place. Of course, home now is Hyaline (home is my wife and our children, our kingdom and our subjects), but before, home was something else entirely. Born in the Chamber, yes, but Kavi didn't keep us there long; instead, he chose to raise me where he and his siblings had been raised, among the warrior women of the Amazon Jungle.

He refocuses on me, and I do the same. His breathe billows around his dark muzzle in the cool autumn evening as his words come, and as he reaches a young boy and walked as a young man, something strange happens. My eyelids flutter, lips parting; and, although I'll never be able to explain how, I whisper  beneath my breath the exact words he says, as he says them. "The jungle where my mother ruled, where the trees grew thicker than you and the vines were as alive as us both."

As both of our voices trail into bemused silence, my lips stretch into an unbelieving smile. I want to dwell in this moment for an eternity, in the intrigue and the revelation as to why there is such a sense of familiarity between us; and soon, I will be able to suspend us in our nostalgia and longing for the jungle. But for now, I drop his gaze and laughingly clear my throat, head shaking from side to side as I attempt to understand how we'd managed to say exactly the same thing.

"Well, it was my grandmother who ruled, but I am her namesake, so it is nearly the same thing." With the words, my nutmeg eyes float back to Magnus' gold ones. Despite the sadness that I'd found the stallion with, a newfound light has been struck in the depths of my stomach; as I'd brought Rodrik back, as I've brought Kavi back, so too can I bring this stallion.

It's been some time since I've brought someone with me. I've been home for so long...

"If you could go back for just one night, would you?" I tilt my head, step closer again, though the movement is not sexual or tense. "Even if it was only in your dreams..."

I wrote this while people were talking so my poetics make no sense at all, enjoy. also why is it so fucking long, someone stop my insanity, bleghj
@[magnus]

[magnus]

magnus

howling ghosts, they reappear
in mountains that are stacked with fear

She breathes the same thing that he does, and the air between them becomes taut with something unspoken and unknown—something that is entirely its own. His heart trips against his ribcage, and his gold-flecked eyes darken and then sharpen, tracing the lines of her face in more earnest. There is something beneath her surface that errs to the magical, and he wonders how he has not noticed before.

For all of the magic that has permeated Magnus’ life (dragging him to death and then back again), he has never been one who had it buried in his bones. Once, he bore wings to defend a kingdom he had served (they had been large and clumsy, and he had not mourned to lose them), and now immortality laced through his veins, an unspoken magic that kept his body young despite the years, the decades that have passed since he was first born. But, still, it does not compare to the magic that now runs rampant.

He has no command over the elements.

He has no command over the supernatural.

He has no superior command over his own form.

He has always been an utterly normal man, forced to face a world that pitted him against magician and demon alike with nothing but his own hard-earned muscle and grit. He has persevered through it.

For now, at least.

Still, despite this lack of true magic in his veins, he has enough sense to pick up on the buzzing sense of it in the air, and it is enough to pique his interest. It is enough to cause his breath to catch in his throat at her question, shadows growing behind his eyes. “Without question,” he replies quickly, the whiskey of his voice growing nearly hoarse. It does not matter that to see the jungle again would tear him apart at the same time that it knits him back together. It does not matter that he would imagine his mother, his father, the flood rising. It does not matter that he would see his sisters, both related and not, or the memory of when he finally left to serve a kingdom he did not love for a woman that he did.

None of it matters as he takes another step forward, drawn like moth to flame.

but you're a king and I'm a lionheart

[Kagerus]

As the space between us continually lessons, I watch the way he blinks and then refocuses, sending his gaze across the minutest details of my face as if seeing them in earnest. The air around us grows taut with the promise of something else, something otherworldly. I have brought many others with me to the dreamscape before, and not once have I had my skin pricked up in the doing of it; the magic that sparks between us is not borne of me alone, but instead is a product of our intermingling souls.

Sometimes, it's not the true magic itself that lends an individual something more. I'd been born with but a cursed strain of immortality; the other gifts followed almost two decades later, and nearly all at once. The antlers and Panthera - she who even now roams not more than ten miles away from us, perhaps even watching now as I get closer and closer to Magnus - are more physical than magical. It's the dreaming that lends itself to my mystique and to my wonder; but I am only a spinner, the host, the gatekeeper between this world and the next.

Without question.
He speaks as if entranced, though unlike Ivar, I hold no powers in the realm of hypnotism. Still, he steps closer to me in turn, leaving us only inches apart. My heart trips over itself at the intensity of our anticipation, though I've returned time and time ago to the place which he so longs for. Something about the gold of his eyes; about the whiskey of his voice; it alights my flame anew.

"Then close your eyes," I whisper. Carefully, I pick my way around the log-strewn terra, coming alongside the stallion in near silence. Breathles, I lean my body closer to his; and when the sopping fur of his skin presses to mine, my skin twitches. Feeling erratic and utterly controlled by the electricity our union creates, the velvet of my lips finds the crease of his jaw. With the sound of my own words echoing in my mind, my eyes close, and the world drifts away.

---

It's a calm transition from wakefulness to sleep. Still, as our eyes open on the other side, our stomachs feel as if we're falling, only to realize that we are standing perfectly still. What he feels next in response to our surroundings I can only guess at; but as my eyes meet the grey nothingness that envelops us, groundless and skyless and without shadow nor light source, I feel at home. In our chests, our hearts are still; where we ought to hear the clanging of our organs, an eerie silence plays instead.

"Magnus," I whisper, the sound paper thin in this featureless dreamscape. My eyes search for his, and a pressure weighs down against the stallion's ankles, my attempt to ground him and to reassure him of this alternate reality. I blink. Simultaneously, it's as if we are still skin to skin, as well as two hundred feet apart. I look again for his eyes, and when I find them, I release his ankles from the weight I'd placed there.

"This is the Abyss." Where I conceived my firstborn son; where anything is possible; where the end of the world starts at its beginning. "I'm going to let your memories guide us back to the Jungle... I want you to experience as you would, not as I would." I tilt my head, swallow in a heartbeatless throat. "I will be right upon the cusp of your consciousness... And if I sense the dream becoming a nightmare, I will retake control."

Stomach rolling, I shut my lips; and, in the vastness of the Abyss, I nod my consent of his guiding our dream.

@[Magnus]

[magnus]

magnus

howling ghosts, they reappear
in mountains that are stacked with fear

All he can feel is the steady rhythm of his breathing, the sound of his scarred heart pounding against his ribcage. He doesn’t move when she does, his gold-flecked eyes ablaze with hope and a feverish need to see home again, despite the pain that it would bring to the surface—the blood welling to a fresh wound.

She presses her lips to his jaw, and a shiver races up his spine, the skin flinching against the contact.

The rest of the world disappears, melting away, and he exhales—

Letting it fall away without a fight.

***

When he opens his eyes again, they are no longer near the river, but neither are they at the jungle. He turns his heavy-jawed head toward her, but the motion is slow, as if performed underwater. He can feel the otherworldly fog curl around him, grounding him, and he wonders at the magic that does this.

It is nothing he has ever experienced before.

Perhaps, nothing he will ever experience again.

His breath catches in his throat, sitting unused like stones in his chest, and so he just nods at her words, the explanation drifting away like smoke—as quickly as it arrived. Then, again, the hope catches fire in the back of his mind, and the leaden motions dissolve as he reaches out to grasp control. Strength floods him as he grabs onto the dream, white-knuckled and powerful as he feels it move beneath his command.

He inhales the fog and the magic before leaning back, letting the currents carry him away.

***

The Abyss fades.

It is quick. One second. Two seconds. He closes his eyes to the grey and opens it to the jungle.

He trembles with the sight of it, tears stinging his eyes as he realizes that he is no longer the hardened stallion but instead a knobby-kneed colt. He glances up at the watery light that filters through the canopy, the cries of the birds echoing, and he breathes in deep, his lungs rejoicing at the humid air—the richness of the vegetation exploding around him. When he tips his head back down, she is there—

Plain and scarred and strong.

Twinge.

Mother.

He races forward, his heart exploding at the sight of her, but the second that their bodies collide, she explodes in a torrent of water, and it washes over him—the flood that claimed her life carrying him away.

When the water finally subsides, he is coughing, sputtering, and he recognizes that his body has aged. He is no longer a colt, although he does not carry the age that he does now. Instead, he is just reaching adulthood, the beginning of maturity reaching his form, his hide carrying the beginning of his scars.

He is also no longer in the jungle.

Instead, the watery light is bright and the vegetation is calmer. The vivid green is peaceful, the vines and the trees replaced with rolling hills and summery breeze. The Gates. He swings his head around and the noise he makes is strangled when he sees her rising over the hill, beautiful and serene and surrounded by all of their children. He rocks back and pushes forward, his stride eating up the distance between them.

“Joelle!” her name comes out hoarse, the wind picking up the name and ripping it from his throat.

But no matter how quickly he runs, she never gets closer.

So he runs faster, muscles screaming beneath the exertion.

But she still remains rooted on the horizon.

“Joelle!” he cries again, but it’s too late—

Because darkness is rising up the horizon and overtaking her, overtaking his children.

He cries her name, racing against a landscape that would never let him win, but the darkness consumes them, blood seeping out from the bottom of where it crashes around his family, and he hits his knees.

The howl that comes from him is animal and feral in its pain.

The dream shifts again around him, but he doesn’t notice.  

He doesn’t notice anything.

Anything.

but you're a king and I'm a lionheart

um, hi. this is why magnus cannot have nice things. :|

[Kagerus]

Kagerus

{ and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }

He wonders if he'll ever experience this again. He will, I know; in snippets of his own dreams, hazy memories of the place where dreams truly come from, bright flashes of the Abyss that will leave him breathless. Perhaps he will even master lucid dreaming, as I did before the magic awoke inside me; but, as I gaze upon the interlacing scars littering his golden body, I hope that it won't be the last true time that he experiences this.

But now is not the time to remember politics. We remember something deeper now; we remember home.

I can see the way his eyes roll back in his head, feel his hands taking the weight of the dream off my shoulders, white-knuckled in their effort. I can feel his breathlessness, and I know the exact moment that he plunges into the dream:

But as we fall, my skin erupts in shivers. It's thrilling, being powerless: but the thrill changes to dread as his dream unfolds before me.

I exist without form, watching from just behind him as he lives through the life-like experience. His eyes fill with tears, but I only smile; I visit this place often, exploring all my old haunts until it feels just like yesterday instead of like decades ago. But as I zone in on that which happens just before Magnus' now-colt eyes, the ease with which I exist here falters; something is wrong; my breath (lungless and empty) catches.

There's a mare who is distinctly mother, though I cannot place her; but suddenly he runs for her, leg bones breaking and lungs tearing and skin flaying off in the wind - or at least, he runs with the desperation of one to whom these things are happening. In my hazy sub-subconcious existence, I struggle to regain control; it's happened once where something greater took over my dream, a demon forcing his soul into this reality. Panic slows my process, irrational thoughts causing my bodyless motions to be lethargic and ineffective.

By the time I am reforming and reshaping the dream, too much has gone by. I've been an irresponsible dream-sitter, but at least he's not hurt - much. I grimace as he slams his knees into the rock-strewn landscape of the Gates, chasing after yet another woman, one whose aura screams lover. He'll awaken with that blood running down his legs, new scars to bear on a body riddled with them.

I allow a blackness to come over us. My own heart is pounding but I fear for the re-start of his at all. A part of me feels utterly disconnected from this experience, emotionally uninvolved and, at best, the connection device between two more important pieces. Where those pieces function and move, I am motionless; static. In fact, that's what fills our black dream: a warm static, soothing us both until I feel myself stirring.

"Magnus." My voice reaches for his consciousness gently, reminding it of its tether to reality, to a reality where near a century has passed since he truly experienced these memories. Pain does fade with time, and though we can't help but to remember it so vividly every so often, we have healed. I appear next to him, equine to equine. My lips find his shoulder, run up his neck, rest along his cheek so that we are resting gently side by side. The gentle static of our dream continues, sounding almost like rain; we're warm, but not hot. I press into him carefully.

"I'm sorry."

@[magnus] hey look it's my snazzy new html, someone wonderful made it for me... <3