"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
with tremulous cadence slow, and bring the eternal note of sadness in
Deep inhales of clean air, devoid of dust. The sun on her opaline back. Summertime thermals keeping her afloat. Powerful strokes of her massive wings.
By the time she slows ─ by the time they slow, Oceane is breathy and tired. And yet, she feels rejuvenated. Nearly a year has come and gone since the pegasi woman had followed Draco willingly into the confines of Pangea. A year since she has seen anything outside of the wasteland. A year since seeing her son.
It's in the Forest that the pair alights. Oceane folds her balefire wings to cradle her frame, registering the ache of those unused muscles in the back of her mind. She is thinner than when she left Loess, having found that being a captive came with a noticeable lack of appetite, but not unhealthy. If Castile listens closely, though, he will hear the way she nearly wheezes as she tries to catch her breath. Neither the lack of flying or the dust that coated everything in Pangea had been kind to her lungs. Oceane coughs once, over her shoulder, before turning her gaze back on the familiar piebald stallion.
She has many questions, and they all vie for position in her mind. How is Alcinder? Why did you abdicate? Why Icicle Isle? But none seem like the correct first question to ask. She knows that Castile will give her the answers that he deems are most important to her, but first ─
"Thank you."
Intended to be confident and airy, her thanks comes out as a whisper. Her throat tightens, and Oceane wills the emotion away with a simple clearing of her throat before turning her bright amber eyes on the gold-banded stallion. Starved for affection, she closes the distance between them and wraps her neck over his in a warm, but brief, embrace.
"Thank you," she repeats, before looking to him expectantly.
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
”It’s time to go home,” he had said when finally retrieving Oceane from Pangea’s grip. Although excitement riddled his veins, it was masked behind a stern face that spoke of the urgency to leave. They immediately took flight.
Castile hears her labored breaths and occasionally reduces his speed in order to keep her close and monitor her. He has already looked her over multiple times, noting how her hips peek out more strongly now. The muscles that rippled across her bones have thinned; although not emaciated, she is still returning to him – them – less than when she had left. Of course, he says nothing of this as they make the final stretch into the forest. They spiral down, folding their wings the instant their hooves kiss the soil and grass.
Hearing her cough unnerves him, but Castile appears unyielding until he is finally able to melt away the seriousness of their predicament. It takes looking around, remembering they are out of Pangea, to finally relax his muscles and take a breath. This isn’t Loess, but it is close enough.
Her gratitude is a soft whisper at first, but strengthens when she reaches to embrace him, draping her neck across his own as he lowers it. A moment of tenderness closes his eyes to savor the touch – he has avoided most contact since she was abducted – but then she turns to look at him and he knows that she wants answers. ”I’m sorry it wasn’t sooner,” he confesses as a frown stitches his brows. It should not have taken so long, but it did. Lepis wanted to wait still, but Castile went against her wishes to instead act on his own. He doesn’t expect – nor even want – her thank you.
”You belong on Loess’ throne. You deserve it. Lepis has had it once before as well as Taiga,” he pauses as he inches a step backward, ”Don’t let her get comfortable.” The space between them is nearly palpable. Castile doesn’t dive into her unspoken questions, reluctant to even admit anything as part of him yearns to flee into the trees and lose himself.
with tremulous cadence slow, and bring the eternal note of sadness in
She severs their embrace and offers a dismissive smile and quirk of her brow at his apology. A quiet, comforting nicker precedes her words. "There is no apology necessary when I know my time spent in Pangea protected our son," she does not say it to offer him an out or to ease his conscience. She says it because it is true. Because her sacrifice had been enough to protect Alcinder in a way she had not been able to protect her first two sons. Her response to Draco's ultimatum that night had come with no hesitation ─ she would follow him to Pangea to keep her boy safe.
Their boy safe.
Her amber eyes search his mismatched ones and where she would have expected to find herself yearning for him and his touch, Oceane finds an absence where that used to be. He is a dedicated father and a good man ─ she had known that, even all the way from Pangea ─ but the desire she had felt for him had seemed to all but fade in her absence from his company. Perhaps because she had had far too much time to think on her discovery of Sochi and the life Castile had built with her, or perhaps for an even simpler reason ─ she had known all along, even in that night she had spent wrapped in him, that he could not truly be hers.
There is no bitterness as she looks upon him. Only appreciation. He had given her a beautiful son, had kept his promise to protect her as best as he could, and neither of them had promised anything more than that.
A part of her wants to apologize to the gold-banded stallion ─ but for what?
He takes a step back and Oceane's ears flutter as he begins to speak again. She does not expect Lepis to be the topic of conversation, and it's with a surprised pursing of her lavender lips that she learns he had not chosen to name her friend Regent upon his abdication, but there's something else that begins to unravel uncomfortably in her stomach as he speaks.
A realization.
"You're not coming back."
A statement, not a question, to match the finality in his tone.
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
Castile listens to her – a new skill he is building on – but his eyes cast down in deep thoughtfulness even as hers steady on him. Oceane’s gaze pierces him, stabbing into him like smooth, polished knives. The corner of his mouth twitches, but no grin ever makes it to his face. In front of her, he is somber. One by one, he sifts through his memories until one suddenly sticks and forces him to meet her stare. ”You know,” he pauses to swallow, his voice gentle, ”my mother made enemies when she took over Nerine and tried to collect lands beneath her as sub-kingdoms. She didn’t want to get close to any man or have any children in fear they would be used against her. Eventually, she fell in love and I was born. I was kept locked in Nerine because, again, she didn’t want danger to befall me because of her surrounding enemies.” A moment’s pause allows him to reflect on his days huddled in the caves or standing ankle-deep in the ocean, staring out at an open and limitless sky. ”I can’t get out of my head that I put you and our son at risk just for being close to you, and for being Alcinder’s father – that it was all my fault that you both were in danger. I failed my promise to you,” Castile noticed her dismissive smile moments prior and he matches it with another step back as he internally wars with himself.
”No, I’m not coming back,” he owes Loess everything, or at least he had. During the years spent on the throne, he removed threats and kept many of his friends and family safe; unfortunately, in his last year as King, primal instincts eclipsed his better judgment. That’s what everyone will remember. They will see him as a stain in Loessian history no matter what good he brought there first.
Maybe, this is how fate works. Maybe, this was all in the cards.
For years, Castile never pictured himself leaving Loess. This could be the sign he needed to move elsewhere, to take a step back and breathe.
Swiveling his ears contemplatively, he tries to envision a life elsewhere, but comes up with empty hands. ”I’m not really sure,” he admits with a resigning shrug. ”Perhaps, I’ll be nomadic for a little while or maybe one day return home… to my first home,” but even as the idea skims past his lips, he isn’t entirely sure if he wants to live tucked in the Nerinian caves again. Only time will tell, he supposes. With a slow lift of his chin, Castile reads Oceane’s face with mounting curiosity, wondering her reaction to his decision. ”Lepis and I are at odds, so it would be best I’m not there.” He doesn’t tell her that this is the first time, that this altercation is a painful thorn in his side that he wants plucked out. Instead, he just lets the statement hang there, idle, as he mulls over recent happenings.
with tremulous cadence slow, and bring the eternal note of sadness in
What she doesn't tell Castile is that she would have knelt before Draco and Ghaul and Anaxarete. She would have allowed them to slay her, to spill her blood across the wasteland of Pangea if Alcinder's life had been at stake. But she doesn't tell him this because he already knows. And she has no doubt that he would do the same.
She is surprised, though, when he grows more vulnerable with her ─ something about their conversation here, on the fringes of Loess, feels as if their boat is floating ever closer towards closure. To hear him speak of his childhood gently pushes that notion away, and Oceane finds herself hoping as he speaks that this will not be the last she ever saw him.
The childhood story is a familiar one to her. Nau-Aib had been a dangerous place for children ─ even those who lacked the political connections that her family had, and each set of parents had responded in their own way. Some were overprotective, some separated themselves emotionally, so the story of Castile's dam does nothing more than help her draw connections between his current emotions and what had taught him to express in that way.
"You didn't fail," she tells him softly, though there's a hardened edge to her gaze. She will not allow him to feel at fault for the actions of others. "And as hard as you try, Castile, you cannot be perfect." She snorts, but there is a warm grin at the corners of her lavender mouth. She hopes their son will develop that same sense of motivation ─ though, perhaps, less self-destructively.
The gold-banded stallion takes another step backwards and swiftly the feeling of closure returns to her. And then it's confirmed ─
I'm not coming back.
He is noncommittal in his response to her inquiry, offering a handful of options but no direct answer. Oceane watches him closely, prepares for him to say that he would be leaving their continent entirely ─ But he doesn't. He couldn't abandon Beqanna, or his children. She smiles in understanding and clears her throat before responding with a knowing look. "You will make sure Alcinder knows how to find you, yes?" It's a question, but not really. "He will need to see his secret-keeper, I'm sure." To let slip that she knows Castile has brought Alcinder on secret trips is nothing more than a device to return the playful glint to the dragon-stallion's mismatched eyes.
"You and Lepis are family," she says after a time, a quiet sigh slipping from her lips as she turns her gaze away and then back again. "I won't meddle. But obviously I hope that you can both find a way beyond this, eventually."
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
Even as she reassures him – you didn’t fail – Castile cannot help to solemnly stare at the leaves underfoot, fallen from another autumn past. He doesn’t buckle down, doesn’t grovel for forgiveness or wallow in self-pity. The opinion is his own, whereas Oceane’s stands in contrast. In the wake of her response, he sighs with knowing.
Knowing that he isn’t perfect, nor will ever be.
Knowing that he makes one mistake after another.
Knowing that he brings upon self-destruction.
”I know,” is all he says to her in the quiet moment following the rippling snort. He always wanted to be perfect, but the hands he has been dealt always come up short of a full house. What would his parents say of him and of how fleeting heart and volatile ways? A chill cartwheels the length of his spine when he imagines Lior’s booming voice blaring into his ears in reprimand. Although nearing twenty years old, he will always be a boy to his parents. Maybe one day he will finally learn from them and stay true to monogamy and steadfast passion.
Lifting his chin at the mentioning of Alcinder, Castile cannot hold back the coy grin that spreads across the thin line of his lips. Of course Oceane knows – mothers have that intuition and world knowledge that makes them so great. For the first time in their conversation, Castile chuckles. It’s a hearty and gravely sound that compliments his draconic nature, even when he exhibits only the wings. ”He’s a good boy,” he reflects fondly, ”we did well.” Their son, thus far, seems to be a perfect embodiment of their greater qualities (Oceane has more than Castile, naturally). ”I’ll always keep him close,” he confirms with a promising nod and smiling eyes, desperate to swear upon this. ”Maybe one day we will explore far enough that what we do will actually be a secret,” he exudes joy in this, albeit teasing, ”but I doubt it. Mothers always know.” A gentle wind kisses his skin, a reminder of the cold winter upon them and a reminder of the bitterness developed between him and Lepis.
It's a sensitive subject, which he didn’t realize until the topic scalded him like hot iron. A deep breath hisses through his clenched teeth. ”Eventually,” he echoes with a shake of his head, upset even at himself for how things went awry. ”We do not see eye-to-eye right now. I would likely need to wait until she steps down from the throne,” a half laugh rises although there’s nothing really funny about the situation, ”which, I imagine, won’t be until she takes her last breath.” There’s so much behind the closed curtains, but he doesn’t dive into the dramatics and innerworkings of his mind. Oceane is friends with both of them, a mediator in this turbulent time, but Castile doesn’t pester her with soured opinions. ”I can only imagine how great of a Queen you will one day be.” Hesitating first, he reaches forward to touch the curve of Oceane’s jaw, breathing her in and memorizing her as though it will be the last time before reluctantly pulling away with a knowing smile.
