"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
a dragon who couldn't be hurt on the outside could have so many ragged holes inside
So far this winter has been the weirdest of his life, and the most insightful.
Getting oneself involved with magic always comes with a price, he’d think. If he’d thought on it before going anyway. But that’s been exactly his problem.
The few one-night ocassions when he’d tried to get the spotted mare out of his head had been fruitless on his end when it came to mind-healing - but fruitful to their wombs, quite possibly. And he was such a mess that he couldn’t even care. Things he did, things he’d said, just to please whomever had the inclination to save him - very unlike what he’d swore maybe only a year ago he would be.
He didn’t feel like he deserved it any more. Like he didn’t belong here any more. Brothers first, family and family of choice second.
Shouldn’t it be the other way around? What good was life without a love to give it to? A family to fight for?
Sure, he’d still go to war if Brennen asked. Would give his life, because his life-giving was otherwise worthless at any rate. But should he be here on this island?
Even the mermaid was no longer that cute little girl anymore. He had the scar and scales to show for it (hasn’t looked into a reflective object to see his eye colour has changed drastically, and still changes with every mood that is strong enough to overtake his neutral feeling).
He has two questions. And there’s only one - aside from his mother who turns out to be really bad with her children’s emotions when they mirror her own, aside from his father who he doesn’t darw to look in the eye right now - only one, he knows he might talk to about all this.
The one who can judge him.
And so he calls for the warrior king.
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@[Brennen]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
There is a watchful peace. Nobody is quite sure it will be a lasting peace, but they have space to take a breath. Brennen is watching his children play in the water; the girls are soaked down to every last inch and feather, but the joyful noises they make over the splashing and the running back and forth have brought a smile to his face and he stands just on the sand side of the treeline, quiet. Half of his attention is on the land-bridge, exposed for travel, and half is on his daughters in the surf.
His name in a familiar voice diverts his attention, and he muses in faint amusement that the last time they spoke, it was also under the ever-watchful eyes of youth. Little Kypria. But he had gotten the sense from Leilan then that he’d have rather spoken in private, and it seems distinctly unfair to make him suffer through the same vague indignity twice. So the bay King steps forward and sends his daughters scampering towards the cove they call home, and their mother, with a quiet word. Taeryn is big enough to watch over Raeva in the safety of Ischia for the time it takes to travel there, but Brennen sends a little water bauble floating along with them just in case - eyes and ears on the girls just in case. In case of the worst, because he can’t live through it again.
Only after he sends the girls away does he turn back to Leilan, joining the roan man in the shade of the first few palm trees, where he can continue to keep an eye on the land bridge until the water rises, and also speak to the stallion. His friend, he thinks, at this point; despite the differences in their ages. The bay glances at his companion and lets the silence stretch for a moment, because it’s a comfortable silence. There’s something simmering underneath the boy’s skin but it isn’t something that feels threatening or exploding. “What’s on your mind, Leilan?”
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
a dragon who couldn't be hurt on the outside could have so many ragged holes inside
Comparing ages with Brennen is really not something Leilan would ever try to do. The man’s a father a hundred times over, and probably having great-great-grandkids at this point. Whereas the roan stallion feels like he’s finally breached into adulthood - though the change came not for the most pleasant reasons. Still, the winged bay is a family friend, and perhaps he could take on the role of an uncle, if not a second father. He sure as hell has no one else to try and turn to at this point, and he really needs a mentor these days, because it seems oike he’s only making more of a mess of his life, on his own.
The bay stallion is found with his daughters, though he leaves their side so as not to be overheard. Leilan’s brown ears flick in the direction or their play-sounds, questioning himself again. Chryseis was maybe unintended but why the hell had he chosen to live so far away from her?
Yet, his attention is drawn to the present quickly, at the other’s approach. The silence is comfortable enough for a moment, but he has something to discuss today, so Leilan is glad for the question. He doesn’t yet know how to answer however, and is silent a little longer while he contemplates his answer. ”One thing, and everything. Family.” he shakes his head. It’s not an actual answer and not a question either.
”I did some stupid things to be honest.” Snorts, looks away. ”The kind of things that makes one wonder if I should be calling myself a brother at all. To top it off, I figured it’d be a good idea to challenge the fairies, too.” He’d done anything at the time to get away from feeling anything at all. To make it stop. To distract himself, he’d taken advantage not only of situations but of the mares he met at that time. Girls who’d thought they might heal him. Or who’d simply thought he might be good underneath it all. And perhaps he still was, but he had hidden it away from himself at the time.
He’d killed someone (himself). He’d done things to mares that he wondered if it wasn’t bordering on rape. There was no way he could look at himself now and tell himself and the world that he belonged in Ischia as a brother. As a knight, a fighter-for-good. Yes, he was a fighter rather than trying to keep a straight face and talk about politics. But honestly he could not call himself a brother any more, when all he fought for was himself.
He looked in the direction Brennen had come from, indicating the children he had just left. ”How do you deal with all those children?” The question was one of several he had, and he added another just because he figured the man should know. ”How do you live, knowing you can’t die?” To him, this was even the lighter topic. The big one might be one even Brennen had no real answer for.
HTML by Vanilla Custard, picture by x-celebri-x on deviantart
@[Brennen]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
The silence stretches again between them, but he doesn’t fill the quiet. He simply stands and waits, eyes trained on the water at the edge of the shore as he waits patiently. Brennen can feel the ebb and pull of the tide, the currents underneath the surface that flow steadily, invisible. It’s soothing, and he’s let himself come to rely on that steady sensation for peace of mind, and eventually he came to enjoy it. His mind drifts on the tide until Leilan’s voice breaks the silence again, though the only sign that he’s listening is the attentive twitch of one dark-tipped ear in the boy’s direction.
He doesn’t move his head until Leilan says something about not calling himself a brother, and then he turns to look, expression somber. He lets him finish his thought, waits for him to fall quiet, and can’t help but cast a very careful, assessing, just-this-side-of-truly-worried glance over Leilan from head to toe, looking for signs that he’d come back injured from his encounter with the fae-folk. Not that he could take them on, even with his new powers, but he might have been tempted. “You seem to have come back mostly unscathed,” he drawls quietly, “So I suspect the fairies thought the same thing I do. You’re young. Young people make mistakes. Everyone does. You can’t hold yourself in contempt forever for mistakes you’ve made, you just have to learn from them.”
Brennen is no exception, he’s certainly made mistakes. And not exclusively when he was young, though he likes to think they have been fewer and father between as he’s grown older. The other stallion’s gaze goes to the shore where the fillies has been and his next question brings a little half-smile to Brennen’s face, and warms his honey brown eyes into a true smile. “I just love them,” he offers, plainly, but he knows that it’s not that simple, not really. “It depends on the child, and the mother. I raise some of them, as you’ve seen, because their mothers are willing to stick around and co-parent or aren’t interested in the child at all. Some of them the mothers don’t want me near, or they disappear, and I don’t get to be involved. That’s harder,” he admits the last though it’s difficult, and his voice is sad. “But in the end it comes down to love. I love all of them, and I’ll give them anything I can, anything they want from me, but I can’t force a relationship with ones who don’t want one.”
Harder still, to see a child he did raise go against everything he has ever believed in – he’s ashamed that part of him is relieved Astarael has disappeared before he truly had to face a child of his own who had committed such atrocities. But he says nothing about Ast, because it doesn’t feel relevant to the question. The second question draws his attention back to Leilan’s face, and he turns over the words in his head for a long minute before responding, because for a moment that warm glow as he talks about his kids becomes ash, nightmares and sadness overcoming everything else. “There is pain, in living an unnatural long time. You lose people who are close to you, but so do those who will die.” Brennen shakes his head, reaches into the rhythmic calm of the waves again and forces the sadness to begin to recede. “But you get to experience joys other don’t get, as well. Many parents die before seeing their children grow up and succeed – I don’t. And I’ve loved, several women, to match my several lifetimes. The joy and sadness is a balance, just like those with a regular lifespan.”
a dragon who couldn't be hurt on the outside could have so many ragged holes inside
Brennen has a matter-of-factly tone that is perhaps more reassuring than someone telling him softly that it's okay and all right; as he'd hoped, the bay winged man does not disappoint in the role of leader or mentor. Leilan looks at him briefly, slightly surprised by the ease with which the answer is given, then scoffs a little. "Well, I suppose it helped that I already did the scathing myself." he shakes his head, the memory clear in his head. He would never forget that day, but he supposed that was the fairy's goal.
But if he had to learn, and he supposed that he had, then that was exactly the problem he was facing. He awaited the other answers first but, when the winged man had stopped talking, Leilan had something to say, too. Brennen just wasn't going to like it.
Silent for a bit, he mused over the words he'd been given and what the best way of putting it was. "I suppose I deserved that..." he'd started with, when Brennen talks about others dying. But since the man isn't truly done like he thought, he tilts his head at the rest. Balance. He supposes he has un-balanced a lot in the past two years... perhaps he'd been put back to fix it himself. He knew that was the goal, but, it was pretty hard to do.
"Love, eh? I suppose there's only one, truly, as far as I can tell. But you know, I just ruined that too - she hurt me once, and I told her to stay out of my life, and there were others who just couldn't fill the void. I suppose I should go talk to them, though. If that's what the learning is about." he sighs, and then shakes his head again, looks at his friend and mentor. "And I have to apologize to her, too. And mother too. Ask her what she wants of me to fix it, but, Brennen - it's going to take some time. And I might be inclined to stay with them, if they'll have me."
Looking at the ground a moment, then back to the winged bay, he sighs. "You know you can always call on me, but, I might be better off staying in Nerine."
HTML by Vanilla Custard, picture by x-celebri-x on deviantart
@[Brennen]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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