"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
09-24-2018, 09:27 PM (This post was last modified: 09-24-2018, 09:27 PM by Scorch.)
WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT
Besides a single venture to the field and an accidental run in with her great-nephew, Scorch's winter had been uneventful - outwardly, at least. Inwardly, the turmoil has been as a supernova: a gathering of celestial dust around a mass of energy to the point of explosion. In this case, the explosion is less of stardust and more of... Child. A bastard child specifically, born of a man who was not her husband: and that man in large disappearance these days, his opinion or even knowledge of the fact of her infidelity hanging in the balance. Her whole world - for what was she besides a mother? - felt turned upside down.
But gravity and time, the less cool space things, they kept on keeping on; and on this fateful spring day, an all too familiar crushing of her innards told her that there could be no more procrastination. She'd always been a worrisome mother, and straight up bad without Hestoni by her side - her relationship with her eldest daughters showed that clear as day. As the contractions gradually came with fewer and fewer hours in between, a sort of frenzy overtook her: what if this child was also a daughter? What if Hestoni stopped lover her once he found out?
What if she lost the strength to be a Leviathan, an Amazon, to be Scorch?
She didn't regret sharing what she did with Brennen in one sense (in the sense that they knew each other intimately, and that he was her best friend, and that they trusted each other, and they knew each other's hurts and secrets and dreams) but in the other, there would never be anything she regretted more. She'd never, ever considered being unfaithful to Hestoni - he was her rock, her shield, her lifelong flame, her lover, her warrior, the father of her children, her everything. How could she have been such a fool as to forgo that?
Another contraction came, reminding the age-weathered mare that now was not the time to be considering these existential and ultimately useless questions. Blinking, she realized that that her legs have been busy beneath her while she panicked: before her, the channel to Ischia lay neatly between the receded ocean - whether by magic she had arrived here at the perfect time or by luck, she would never know. Sucking in a breath of tropical air - a perfect mix of her jungle and her seaside cliffs - she steadied the feeble bleating of her heart, forcing herself to surge into the kingdom, to the very thicket where their child had been conceived.
Brennen would find her there when the time came. She wondered, as the chaos of birth took hold, whether he would bring his queen with him.
The shadows of the palm trees stretched as she brought forth the new life - the life the faeries forbade - the life made possibly only by an unbidden magic.
"Blue," she whispered when at last the child slipped from her at last, her eyes reflecting the very colour and her heart reflecting the very feeling, "My baby Blue."
She heaved herself up. Found the child's skin, and began clearing it of debris.
"I love you, my baby Blue."
Scorch
Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle
@[Brennen] SAHIOJAOIROIAOIEJ THIS IS A MESS I'M SORRY.
09-25-2018, 10:11 PM (This post was last modified: 09-25-2018, 10:11 PM by Brennen.)
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
He has no idea.
Over the long winter, he has thought about it. Of course he has; It was a stolen moment they should never have had, but in his mind it was still right. He knows she might not feel the same way – her relationship with Hestoni is very different than his with Galilee. They’ve always been exclusive and completely monogamous; Brennen is…not. And he hadn’t told Galilee that he and Scorch had trysted – he never thought anything would come of it, and they don’t discuss it when he occasionally dallies with other mares, because it has been quite rare and because it is Galilee he comes home to each night.
Like now – he’s watching over her, and their four (four!) youngest children. Taeryn and Raeva are a few feet away from their mother, tucked up together, half hidden in the deep foliage. He’s intimately aware of every breath they take, ever restless twitch, and he’s learned enough of dreams and magic to reach out and chase away even the faintest bad dream. But his eyes are locked on his mate and their youngest sons, twins again, entwined with each other and tucked against their mother. One bright, one dark, both lovely in his eyes. And he can’t join their nap, can’t sleep half the nights even, because there is a deep-seated fear for them. He can’t lose another child like he lost Khaeli.
But – there’s a ripple in his net across Ischia, and he tears his attention away from his family to reach out, his consciousness flowing in the water around Scorch as she crosses the channel. She’s welcome anytime, and her presence wouldn’t necessarily compel the bay King to leave his little clan, but she’s clearly distressed and so he draws quietly away from the sleeping group, turned to silently cross Ischia with the peaceful warmth of dappled sunlight filtering down through the trees. By the time he reaches her, she’s well into labor and he hangs back, curious as to why she’s come to Ischia for this but not wanting to interfere with her efforts. They’ve been avoiding each other, consciously or unconsciously, but perhaps she was on her way to see him or Leilan and the time came unexpectedly.
There’s something else, though, at the edge of his awareness. It draws him closer, step by creeping step, enthralled by the process of creating life and by the filly who has appeared. Going with impulse he reaches out to the foal, expecting to find the very familiar (Scorch) and the vaguely familiar (Hestoni). He’s gotten quite good at finding his own bloodlines, but everyone else is murkier, requires more concentration. But the baby - Blue, Scorch is already calling her – the baby is not murky or unfamiliar. She’s Brennen’s. Uncertain whether to be baffled, or excited, or in love (and ending up with a little bit of everything), Brennen steps fully out of the undergrowth and shadows. “Hello, Blue,” he murmurs, and reaches out to touch her baby down so softly as to almost not touch her at all.
Only after greeting the child does he lifts his eyes to Scorch’s, gaze searching. “She’s beautiful,” he murmurs, but mostly he’s looking for answers. Does Scorch know the filly is his? She must, or why would she have come here for the birth. Perhaps more importantly, does she regret it?
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
is it drowning if you can breath underwater?//find a better quote
Everything was nice, before. Warm and floaty and plenty interesting, with things to listen to. Words, voices. She doesn’t understand much of it, but she listens.
And then it was scary. It got small and moving and ick. She didn’t like it, at all. The air in Ischia isn’t cold, not even chilly, but the solid ground under her body and the way the air feels different than how things were before. But she does like how much clearer the voice is, when mother speaks. And it must be mother; the girl lifts her face to look at mother and nickers excitedly, reaching up to touch mother’s skin in awe. It’s nice to be able to see her. She says something several times, and she supposes that is her. She must be Blue. Mother’s touch tickles and the girl giggles softly, arching her neck and stretching her forelegs out in front of her.
The appearance of a second person, this voice unfamiliar, catches her attention and she focuses her bright gaze on him. He touches her also and she decides this must be father. Why else would he come here now? Her stomach grumbles and she struggles to feet, snorting with the effort but falling only once before she stands between them on shaky legs, turning her back on Brennen and flicking her bottlebrush tail once before going searching along Scorch’s belly, her stomach insisting that she find nourishment.
He must have known (for don't all the magicians know?) that she came to their thicket. (Their thicket - it felt revolting to think, an admittance to the unfaithful intimacy they'd shared). In the peripheral haze of her consciousness during labour, she smells him nearby - watching from a distance as an ancient stallion would as she underwent the grievous pains of birth. They were not particularly bad though, no different from any of the other time's she'd brought forth life into this world: but for all the times that she had mourned the loss of her fertility, she was reminded now why it had also been a blessing.
Not because of the pain, necessarily - but something about motherhood, and about magic, brought out Scorch's manic side.
As the baby stretched (cleared now of debris, an automatic response to the stimulus of a newborn by her side), Brennen approached, materializing from the depths of the tropical woods to greet his daughter in both word and touch. Scorch watched as if from behind a pane of glass, eyes glazed and almost unseeing; but her lover (her paramour, illicit, illegal) turned to her next, commenting on the beauty of their daughter.
Weren't they all beautiful, children?
Especially the ones tampered on by magicians? (She'd nearly denounced Wrynn on the day of her birth, had nearly chosen one twin over the other as her true mother had in decades past on the turf of a kingdom she did not rule or even belong to - and in a way, she could repeat history, here. She could have. Could have switched Blue for Qaen or Maertin in fatigue after Galilee's birth. But it would never have worked, not with Brennen's magic piercing through each thin veil that made up the known universe: and besides, she was not Katriel's daughter, and she never had been. Katriel gave up that right - threw it away, scorned it - the day of Scorch's birth. She would never do the same to any child of her own - magically tampered with or not).
"Well I couldn't have named her Red," she replied at last, utterly incoherent and offering a foolish, pained smile, as if the joke was supposed to make her laugh but instead made her want to cry.
The girl stood then, and Scorch lowered her head to offer the usual encouragements when needed; her dragon eyes flashed a calming yellow and then an enthusiastic pink once Blue achieved her goal. Thankful, the girl moved forthwith to that which she sought, and with just a nudge on her scrawny bottom, she found herself securely latched beneath Scorch's hairless belly.
She returned her gaze to Brennen, seeming somewhat more in tune with the goings on around them, but still not quite conveying a complete soundness of mind. She spoke low, such that their suckling daughter would not hear.
"This was never supposed to happen."
A pause, and then an ache in her heart as she knew more profoundly and intimately than she knew anything else that she needed Blue, that this last daughter existed with purpose.
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
Scorch’s joke is mostly lost on him; he is rarely in charge of naming any of his children, and he certainly has no complaints about ‘Blue’. Brennen says nothing in response, though he does briefly glance at her, perturbed by the tone of her tone. It’s hard, though, for the mare to hold his attention when Blue exists. He watches, enraptured by her as he is enraptured by all of his children, as she finds her way to Scorch’s milk and begins to drink, noisily and with no though to what else is going on (as new babies are wont to do). Brennen could watch her all day, but the problems of adults interrupts his other desires, and he has to strain to hear her words.
“It wasn’t,” he agrees just as quietly, but there’s a hint of something underlying the words. His honey-brown eyes are sad, because this is the first moment he’s regretted what they did. He doesn’t regret Blue – he couldn’t – but if he steps back to a wider perspective, he can see how having Blue will hurt Scorch, and the ones she loves, and cause her pain; and he never wanted that. Just like he never wanted to regret their few stolen moments – but that was when it was just once, just a few hours, never to be repeated and never to hurt anyone else. “I love her, too,” he says, and he chokes on the rest (’I love you, too’ - because he can’t say that out loud. That must be in the past.
His best friend, his once-lover, asks where they go from here, and he takes a moment to consider. The world reshapes around him, possibilities and probabilities spinning around the hard realities that ground them. In an instant everything is possible, but that’s not really true. The bay Kraken has to swallow hard before he can answer, and his quiet voice radiates unhappiness. There isn’t a good solution, but there is a best solution. “We go forward,” he restates the question. “You have responsibilities in Nerine, and a family there. I have responsibilities here, and Galilee and the other babies. I think you’ll have to raise her in Nerine…but…” his voice breaks because even though he’s let other children go without a fuss, left them to their mothers to raise if that was what they wanted, he can’t bear the thought of giving Blue up. “You’ll visit? Both of you?”
It isn’t pleading (yes he is). Kings and Krakens don’t plead (until now).
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
She could see how much he loved her. Even as forlorn kind of pain coloured his expression, she could see what their daughter meant to him; and for a split second, she wanted it to be different. Without any attempt to hide her thoughts from the magician, she too imagined an alternative future and past, one where he'd found her in the meadow and brought her home, had raised children with her and raised them as princes of the Tundra and princesses of the Jungle. But the facade is far from strong, and it shatters with the slightest amount of thought.
Brennen and I were never compatible at a young age. The past holds no place for him; we bickered more often than not and found each other's lives and personalities trivial and humorous at most. I blink unseeingly as he says that he loves her too, and my lips skewer downwards; my gut twists; I have more I want to say too, but it gets caught in the back of my throat. Caught in the past, where it shouldn't have been in the first place.
And yet...
The firmness of his voice returned when next he spoke, reminding her that he'd been through enough hardships to last a life time - but then again, hadn't she too? So why was this so hard? She found herself biting her lower lip at the question, utterly panicked by the answer which came unbidden to her mind, something breaking inside of her as she realized that she would not have the impulse control to keep herself from saying it.
He spoke the name of his consort, but she didn't notice. Asked if they would visit, but that wasn't the question she had an answer to.
"Brennen - it's not that simple." Her eyes flashed a deep purple, red in pain and blue in sadness, mixing together into an uncertainty next to inexplicable. Their depths found his, and were it not for the daughter beneath her stomach, she would have stepped closer. "I can't just pretend like the feelings I have for you aren't real." For once, the ghosts in her head were silent; perhaps stunned by the words that she spoke.
"I don't know what to do, Brennen." Hestoni is gone and I'm alone with our daughter, I know that's not an excuse to let something grow between us, but I can't deny that -- "It's what I want." The mare's voice cracked as she shifted between thought and voice, mind reeling as she struggled to maintain a connection with reality.
That it's you I want.
Scorch
Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle
@[Brennen] italics indicates words she is tryna get him to brain read............... sorry i can't control her IM SCREMAMING
10-27-2018, 10:29 PM (This post was last modified: 10-27-2018, 10:30 PM by Brennen.)
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
He lets himself beg, the words dragged from him, pleading with her to visit. It’s the only future he can imagine – he assumes that she will return to Hestoni, to Nerine, to her people; he still has responsibilities here, and he can’t leave Ischia to raise a child in Nerine. He can’t leave his other children, either; he doesn’t even think about his new magics or the fact that he can teleport in an instant because he’s too worries about the rest of it. About the intense feelings he already has for Blue, and the ones he can’t admit he has for Scorch.
Her first response sends him into a total panic. ’It’s not that simple’, Scorch says, and his first thought is that she doesn’t want him to be a part of the filly’s life, or hers. Fear and something else threatens to drown him, almost as bad as when he lost Khaeli and Alonwy, and the air around them crackles with it. Thunder rolls in the distance that definitely wasn’t there before, and water seeps out of the ground at their feet. Some distance away, waves crash out of time on the shore. It’s only when their eyes meet that anything starts to steady; she steadies him, allowing him to lock down on the magic and focus on her next words.
For several long heartbeats, Brennen forgets about Blue, happily suckling her first meal from her mother, and can only think about Scorch, and their long history. He has a lot of feelings – he’s a feelings kind of guy, Brennen, but he’s always tried to be careful of others. One of those things was being careful not to step on any toes – like Hestoni’s – with his feelings. He would never have voiced anything but friendship for Scorch, not knowing about Hestoni, not until she said something first.
Circumstances have induced a poor grip on his feelings as well as his magic. Brennen has been quite careful these long months not to invade the privacy or thoughts of any of those around him, but she’s projecting and he’s not blocking. Only half-aware of his own actions, the bay stallion steps closer to the two of them, one ear flicked forward as if it could help him hear her better. Galilee isn’t gone but nothing has been the same…not since…not since they died, he allows himself to think back, I want it too.
“I love you,” he says aloud, a little quirk of a half-smile on his face, and it’s clear he’s not just talking to Blue.
The logistics of it all just aren’t important, right now.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
![[Image: scorch2.png]](https://66.media.tumblr.com/d3f8827d56fd033f445fc5aa8055947a/3778d5ee43303690-eb/s1280x1920/532e323d08dfe066db7c4d27a9277d571bf7cdb2.jpg)
