"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
01-26-2020, 09:35 PM (This post was last modified: 02-13-2020, 07:30 AM by Pteron.)
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
Pteron arrives on the northern beach, the shadows of the coastal redwoods already growing shorter as noon approaches. This is the latest he has ever returned; he has always abided by his wife’s command of: ’be home by nightfall’. The dun stallion’s heart beats rapidly in his chest as his blue hooves land on rocky shore, his olive eyes flicking through the treeline in search of watching eyes. There is no one, and so Pteron allows the invisibility he holds around himself to fall away. The best place to land is not the best place to enter the rocky waters, and Pteron picks his way down the shoreline toward a shallower cove, where the waves have beaten the large granite boulders into slightly smaller granite boulders (and a few pockets of grey sand).
As the spring nights grew ever shorter, Pteron has become less and less likely to spend them in Taiga.
By mid-spring, he spends most nights away, and this past night had been no exception. What is unusual is the lateness of his return. The dun stallion has always done his best to arrive before Adarra wakes, to keep up the illusion for her of a happy home (even if it is anything but). He would be waiting for her near their resting place, bright-eyed and often wet from an early swim in the ocean (or so he always says). He is planning such a swim this morning, making a beeline for the accessible water.
Pteron steps around a shoulder height boulder and runs directly into his wife.
His broad chest bumps against her scaled one and Pteron draws away quickly, instinctively side-stepping to put space between them. Avoiding physical contact entirely is his preferred sort of interaction with Reia, having told her that he is uncomfortable with touching anyone. Pteron suspects that she does not believe him, and surely she will realize the truth as he draws back farther still from the golden mare. A quick swim in the ocean would have rid him of the smell of Ischia’s hibiscus and honeysuckle and the undeniable evidence that he’d spent the night in another woman’s company.
no one really knows what the ocean hides but you and I, bird, we’re gonna find out
”Fancy seeing you here,” Reia snaps angrily, her cerulean eyes ablaze, mirroring the blue fire crackling along the length of her crest, ”considering you spend more time away from your home than in it.” Her nostrils wrinkle disgustedly while she sweeps her gaze meticulously across him, searching for any sign of his whereabouts. Much to her dismay, however, there is only the potent stench of salt water across his skin. Regarding the lapping waves warily, she reconsiders reprimanding him even as the suppressed fury festers in her chest.
Adarra isn’t with them, not yet at least. The girl wandered away, her thoughts aloof and disinterested in the interactions of her parents. Although young, she is aware enough to note the tension that resides in their actions. They live a lie, the daughter thought to herself when she watched mother weave through the redwoods to find father.
Instinctively, Reia glances over her shoulder to confirm Adarra’s absence before looking again at Pteron, a mixture of distress, hate, and anger fighting to take lead. ”You’re a fool,” her body bristles, her muscles trembling with effort to restrain herself from lashing out. ”Even if I did everything right, you’d still be like this,” but she doesn’t wallow or linger on how pieces of her heart flake away each time he repulsively eludes her. Lifting her chin, she slashes her words like a sword, wanting desperately to see him quiver like she has the upperhand. ”Be happy you’re still alive. I could ruin you, break you. I claimed you as mine for life, but you keep testing me,” turning her head, she glances into the shadows cast by the forest, diving into her memories before looking back to her husband, ”Keep it up and there will be no reason for you to leave me. No one to escape to.” Reia sneers maliciously as she takes a step back, debating whose scent to pursue that she remembered being on his skin years ago. ”Perhaps, it’s time for me to find one of them now.”
Taut, rope-like muscles contract as she begins pivoting away, sifting through scents in the beginnings of a hunt although right now she is only bluffing, wanting to see Pteron worry. A sideways glance finds him for a second before glancing up toward the treetops in thought.
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
Though he draws away from Reia quickly, there is no fear in Pteron’s green eyes. Instead, something akin to resignation lurks there, the knowledge that this is a conversation that he can put off no longer.
“Taiga is not my home anymore.” The calmness in his response to her irate snarl is not unusual, but the words surely are. He has always made an effort to distract her in the past, to soothe her displeasure before it erupts. Pteron had bent over backwards to keep his wife happy in the past, keeping his promise to be faithful, ensuring the safety of his former lovers by cutting them off entirely, being as good a father as he knows how, staying in Taiga.
Yet it had never been enough for Reia. It never would.
The day he had realized that was the day he left Taiga, the very last day of autumn. That certainty had solidified like the ice that winter, and Pteron’s regard for his marriage and the needs of his wife grow smaller as spring grows warmer. Ischia is far preferable to Taiga, and while his wife exaggerates her claim that he spends more time away, he does wish it were true. Aquaria tells him he must face his dragons at every visit, but it has been so much simpler to avoid Reia instead.
How long might he have continued, playing leader and husband and father in Taiga and only truly being himself in Ischia?
There is no way of knowing, and there will never be. This chance encounter, after the one the day before with Aten, has finally put an end to it.
“We’re done.” Just two words, but saying them aloud feels like shaking the weight of the Mountain off his shoulders. She threatens to hunt them down; hunt Aquaria down, he suspects, for it is the scent of her embrace that has soaked so deeply into his skewbald skin. Pteron takes a breath, watching the sneer distort her otherwise beautiful face. Pteron catches himself marveling, once again, at how well the monster hides within. Once more, he glances to the woods, but there is no one else nearby. This is what he had asked Aten for, he reminds himself. Time to deal with his wife.
“I have resigned leadership of Taiga. I will be gone by nightfall, and I will not be returning.” Short, firm, to the point. He’s practiced a dozen times. He’d even briefly woken Halcyon with his quiet mutterings the night before, but Pteron had soothed the boy back to sleep. “I would like to take Adarra with me, but if you will not allow that I would like at least to be able to visit her.” The demands he makes will be unacceptable to her, he suspects, just like most of the things that he has done, but he makes them anyway.
“What will that take?” He finishes, knowing that it is well past time to brace himself for her fury and instead forcing himself to be still. Destroying him is probably what it will take, Pteron knows, but they are both aware that doing so permanently is impossible, at least for Reia.
