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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    [private]  if I lose myself tonight it'll be by your side, Thomas
    #1
    i think i'm better on my own but i get so lost in you
    She had tried not to think of him, but it had proven to be difficult.

    She had tried to lock him away in the back of her mind, tried to preoccupy herself with other things, other ventures, but no matter how hard she tried it was always the boy made of glass that haunted her. 

    There was a rational reason for this, she tells herself. 
    Of course she would find it difficult to stop thinking about someone so strikingly beautiful. Of course it would make sense that he would be impossible to shake, when he is the only thing made of glass that she has ever seen. He is unique and brilliant and so entirely different from anyone else in her life. Where everyone else is sharp-tongued and rough-edged, he was sweet-mouthed and kind in a way she wasn’t accustomed to.

    It had seemed like a harmless idea to seek him out, to see if maybe giving herself what she wanted – him – would make the irrational thoughts and feelings go away. If he was anything like the rest she would lose interest. He would lose his shine once she realized she could have him whenever she wanted, and she could move onto the next thing. She could pull the slip-knot in the strings that attached them, and never look back.

    Until she lost track of how many nights were spent curled against his side, until stars and glass tangled so many times she wasn’t sure where he ended and she began.

    Until her heart started to flutter every time he touched her, and she realized that she couldn’t stay, because she was never meant to have beautiful, fragile things.

    She would have stayed gone forever, she thinks, had it not been for the stirring inside of her that woke her up in the dead of night. She remembers the panic that had swelled in her chest, like the waves of the ocean were crawling up her throat and trying to drown her from the inside out. In the days that followed it became all the more clearer that it was not her imagination, and realizing that she could not run away from this – from what they have created – she looks for him again.

    She finds him in the meadow, as the day is bleeding into night and the promise of stars glitter in a darkening sky. She tries to ignore how the sight of him makes her heart hurt, and that when their eyes lock there is something strangely similar to guilt reflecting from hers. “Thomas,” she says quietly, stepping through the twilight until she is before him. “I’m sorry I left,” she tries to hold his gaze in the dying light, and there is a part of her that hopes that maybe he is angry, that maybe this will be easy, because she could call upon her own anger faster than anything else. 

    i think i'm better on my own but i'm so obsessed with you
    desire
    Reply
    #2

    and I'm the kind of love it hurts to look at, but once I was enough to make you try
    now, I'm underneath the rubble, trying not to feel the trouble.

    He’d known that he would lose her, eventually.
    He’d know that there was no hope of him keeping her. He’d known it the first time she’d turned that steady stare his way. And he’d come to terms with it, contented himself with the time he had her, however brief. Because she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen – still is, really – and he’d decided on that first day that the memory of her would be enough to carry him through the rest of his life.

    And then.

    And then she had come back to him like a dream. She had sought him out and he had known then, quite immediately, that he loved her. Just as he had known that he would lose her again and he would let her go. He would not ask her to stay. He would not ask her to love him, too.

    And she had gone, just as he’d known she would. But he did not ache, because he loved her and that was enough. Because she had given him new memories to buoy him, to save him from drowning, to protect him from whatever grief loitered in the shadows, waiting to sink poison into his veins.

    He wanders further now than he ever has before. He wanders to the edges of the earth because he can make the sea kind, he wanders to mountains and through forests because he has no reason to fear death now. Because he has been to the summit, he’d had her for a time and he knows now just as he had known then that life would never be better than that.

    But he always returns to the meadow. Just in case. In case she comes looking for him again. In case she needs him. And darkness is gathering on the horizon when he hears her voice and he thinks he’s dreamed it. Wished it into existence.

    But she’s looking at him so plainly that she must be real. And she is apologizing, which she never does in her dreams, because she doesn’t have to. There is no tangible reason for it. His expression softens now. He smiles and shakes his head and reaches out to touch her. Gently.

    It is only then that he takes note of the swell of her barrel. It gives him pause, but he does not immediately call attention to it. Instead, he pulls back his head to look her steady in the eye again.

    I always knew you would,” he says, smiling still. It does not sound like an accusation. No, there is nothing in the tone save for understanding. “Thank you for staying as long as you did.” And in this there is no grief, no indescribable hurt. There is only sincere gratitude.

    THOMAS

    — and you don't care for me enough to cry —

    Reply
    #3
    i think i'm better on my own but i get so lost in you
    She does not quite know what to do when faced with forgiveness. She never really knows how to navigate his kindness since she does not have to manipulate it out of him, because he offers it freely and with seemingly no strings attached. She came from a place where nothing was free; not in price, or in motive. There was an underlying reason for everything, always something to be gained, and finding that leverage, whatever it may be, was the only reason anyone did anything.

    To be deceitful and cunning was so thoroughly ingrained into her that Thomas’ kindness was met with suspicion, because she still could not fathom how it could possibly be genuine.

    It’s confusing for her, then, that one look at his heart and still all she sees is herself.

    “Don’t thank me,” her tone is even but the black of her eyes remain unreadable as she stares at him. She wants to re-erect the guards that had been in place before she had unknowingly opened the doors to let him in, because how was she to know that once there he wouldn’t leave? She has seen her mother, seen the way her heart wants everyone and no one all at once, she has seen how she can break and rebuild herself to be everything for someone and then turn back to nothing. Young and foolish she had assumed it was simple, she had thought that she could let Thomas fill some hole inside of her and then turn him loose.

    Never did she see herself coming back.

    She sees the way his eyes glance momentarily to the noticeable bulge of her barrel, and her face finally softens, allowing a glint of her worry and anticipation to reflect in her eyes and seep into the quiet of her voice when she tells him, “They’re yours.” She doesn’t know how she knows that it will be twins. Maybe because she can feel them both stir and kick, or maybe it’s a maternal intuition. But she does know with unquestionable certainty that they are his.

    Finally, she relents and she moves forward, and she presses the galaxy of her skin into the smooth glass of his side. She tucks her head neatly beneath his neck, curving until her cheek rests on his shoulder, the words whispered into the strands of his mane when she asks him, “Will you stay with me?”

    i think i'm better on my own but i'm so obsessed with you
    desire
    Reply
    #4

    and I'm the kind of love it hurts to look at, but once I was enough to make you try
    now, I'm underneath the rubble, trying not to feel the trouble.

    They.

    It makes his heart spasm.

    Yours.

    And he lets his gaze drift back to the swell of her barrel, lets it linger there a beat longer. He can hear the way her expression softens in the tone of her voice. It fills him with glorious heat, pools color in his cheeks.

    His.

    Theirs.

    He drags in a shuddering breath, tries desperately to breathe around the thunderstorm brewing in the cavern of his chest. It is pure, unfettered joy and he makes no effort to contain it. But he has never been one for theatrics, so it rolls out of him as breathless wonder. It manifests itself in an irregular heartbeat and a contented sigh when she finally sidles closer, lends him some of her warmth again. She brings her fine head to rest against the plain of his shoulder and her touch is just as sweet now as it had been the first time. And every time after that, too.

    Or perhaps even sweeter, knowing that the life stirring in her belly is his, too. It is theirs. They are theirs. Her question elicits a softer smile and he turns his own head to press a kiss against the swell of her belly, wondering if he might feel them kick.

    Of course I will,” he murmurs into her skin. As if she had to ask.

    And then he feels them as they press noses or tiny hooves against their mother’s belly and it kicks a sharp, delighted breath out of his chest. He presses his eyes closed, wondering what they’ll look like when they emerge. Wonders if they’ll be like him or if they’ll have galaxies in their skin like their mother.

    Finally, he draws away, prompted by some sharp spike of anxiety, and meets her eye the best he can. “What if they’re like me?” he asks, quiet.

    THOMAS

    — and you don't care for me enough to cry —

    Reply
    #5
    i think i'm better on my own but i get so lost in you
    She had known, or suspected at least, that the prospect of being a father wouldn’t chase him away. If anything it seemed to draw him closer, and she wishes that she would be settled by this idea instead of wanting to retreat further inside of herself. She is afraid, mostly, that if she lets herself think she has found something stable – something that is hers, something that is steady and unshakable –  that she will spiral in unimaginable ways when she undoubtedly destroys it.

    But she decides, just for now, to let herself be wrapped in his assurances, to press her lips to his shoulder and to expel a sigh that almost seemed to sound content across his glassy skin. Her heart twists in her chest when he kisses her side, and again when she feels the way their babies stir and shift seemingly in response to his touch. She knew – had always known – that he would be the kind that didn’t take love lightly, and there is again that guilt hiding in the crevices of her subconscious when she thinks that he is wasting it on her.

    “Do you mean made of glass?” She asks, tilting her own head to find his gaze. She shifts, just enough so that she can press her lips against his cheek, trailing her touch up behind his ear and then again down the curve of his neck. “I hope that they’re exactly like you,” and for once her voice nearly aches with sincerity, and she rests her head against his neck again so that he cannot see the glimmer of pain and regret that lingers in her eyes, “I would rather they be like you, glass and all, than be anything like me.”

    - - - -

    It’s the next evening when the twins finally decide they cannot wait any longer, and with only the moon and the stars and Thomas to see her in this secluded part of the meadow, Desire lowers herself to the cool ground below.

    It is a long, exhausting process to bring two new lives into the world, and somewhere in the back of her mind, beneath the crushing waves of pain that ripple across her and force her body to heave and strain, she is so grateful that she had found him instead of thinking she could do it alone in Pangea. She could not imagine doing this without the occasional feel of his touch against her sweat-soaked neck, or to not have him here when the first filly is free but the pain doesn’t relent. It grips her in a way that makes her grit her teeth in an attempt to stifle the cry that builds in her throat, the purple of her skin darkened to a near-black at the effort it takes to repeat the earlier process all over again.

    They are lingering towards the end of the night – or maybe it is the beginning of the dawn, she isn’t even sure anymore – when there are at long last two trembling newborns behind her, and she takes a moment to gasp and catch her breath before sitting herself up to look at them.

    She touches them, and cleans the dampness of birth from their faces and their necks, and they feel just the way Thomas does, and in her exhaustion she cannot hide the smile that alights her mouth or the delight in her depthless eyes when she whispers to him, “They’re like you. Just like I hoped they would be.”

    i think i'm better on my own but i'm so obsessed with you
    desire
    Reply
    #6

    and I'm the kind of love it hurts to look at, but once I was enough to make you try
    now, I'm underneath the rubble, trying not to feel the trouble.

    It stays with him.
    What she’d said.

    Because he had loved her so fiercely in that moment that it made his head swim. As if the heart believed that it could love her enough to change her perspective. As if he could love her enough that she might think herself deserving of it.

    Silly, certainly, because he could not find the words to say these things out loud. He had merely felt them so strongly that his vision had strobed as they’d laid down to sleep and he kissed her head softly. He had not told her because he had not known how.

    But it still echoes in both hemispheres of his brain and in every chamber of his heart the following night when pain grips her. And he wants so desperately for their children to look like her, to be like her so that maybe she will see how beautiful she is, too.

    He is mostly silent, trying to stifle his panic, as she struggles. They are young, the both of them, and this is unfamiliar territory. He does not know how to be the partner she deserves, so he clumsily kisses her neck in brief periods of peace before the pain seizes her again. He does not know what to say to soothe or encourage her, just stands and watches, hopes it’s enough that he’s there.

    And then their first child emerges. A daughter. Milky white, edged in dark, dark galaxies. And she is so beautiful that it knocks the air clean out of his chest. Leaves him dumb as he shuffles to her side and murmurs sweetly to her. “Hello, little one,” he whispers and presses his mouth to her shoulder. And it makes the same unmistakable sound his mother’s mouth had made when she’d touched him. His heart sinks. Because Desire had wanted it for them, but he had not.

    The filly blinks into the darkness, the eyes like marbles, the same milky white as the rest of her. Her pupils like galaxies.

    And then their second child emerges. Another daughter. Red. And Thomas reaches out to kiss her, too. And she, too, is glass. And she, too, is so beautiful that he can’t catch his breath. A galaxy spirals in her chest.

    He takes a shuffling step backward, affording them space. Watching as Desire seamlessly adapts to motherhood. It makes him ache to watch her delight in the fact that they are like him. Fragile, breakable, vulnerable. But she smiles at him and he cannot help but smile back. Because he loves her and his heart’s all swollen with pride as he sinks closer again. Lowers his head to press a kiss against her cheek, exhales a warm breath into her skin.

    And they’re just like you,” he mutters, “absolutely beautiful.

    He shifts his focus to the fillies then. Their feeble, blinking, heavy-headed daughters.

    What should we name them?

    THOMAS

    — and you don't care for me enough to cry —

    Reply
    #7
    i think i'm better on my own but i get so lost in you
    She will eventually remember that she doesn’t deserve this. She will remember that she is not deserving of love, she is not worthy of someone like Thomas. Reality will crash over her like an unforgiving wave, shake her awake from this dream and remind her that she was never born for this. A girl conceived in a galaxy and born to a graceless angel and a dark god, she was magnificent in her own way, but she is afraid her heart was not created to love.

    But right now, with their two daughters stirring, and his touch against her cheek, it’s easy to forget.
    It’s easy to slip into this role of motherhood, and lover, and let herself think that it fits. To let herself think that maybe she has someone that makes her wild, uncertain heart settle, that maybe she can hold a heart made of glass and not shatter it.

    And so she leans her face into his touch, she closes her black eyes and listens only to the quiet of his voice and the sounds of their daughters shifting, and she breathes. She lets the dream last a little longer, and she will deal with reality later.

    She gathers her legs beneath herself and she stands, and for a moment she rests her forehead against the flat of his cheek. There are words stuck somewhere between her heart and her tongue, things she wishes she could tell him so that he didn’t have to wonder. But the words stay lodged where they are, and all she does is move to press her lips lightly to his jaw, before looking again to the strikingly beautiful twins.

    “I want to name one of them Hourglass,” she says, and she looks at the girl with galaxies in her eyes, and then to the one with a galaxy spiraling from her chest. She touches the red girl’s forehead, feels the smooth glass and the soft locks of damp mane, and decides that it will be her.

    She moves to the other little girl, runs her nose across her sides – and is surprised to feel water dripping from her back, where wings might go. There is a moment where her brow furrows in concern, and she traces the same path again, and finds that water trickles on the other side, too. She bites down the worry that bubbles in her chest, and kisses her forehead as she had her sister, and then says gently to Thomas, “You should name her.”
    i think i'm better on my own but i'm so obsessed with you
    desire
    Reply
    #8

    and I'm the kind of love it hurts to look at, but once I was enough to make you try
    now, I'm underneath the rubble, trying not to feel the trouble.

    He shuffles backward as she rises, lingering just long enough for her to breathe hot and soft against his cheek. And he smiles, doesn’t even try to hide it, because his heart’s swelling with love and pride he didn’t know himself capable of. Proud of her for how bravely she had fought through a trying labor, proud of their beautiful daughters simply for existing. And he is proud of all three of them without considering his role in all of it.

    He watches as she tends to the fillies, kissing their heads, deciding that the red filly’s name will be Hourglass. Somehow, the sound of it further distends his heart with pride. Beautiful. He drops his head then and exhales a soft breath across the red filly’s brow. “It’s nice to meet you, Hourglass,” he murmurs against the cool expanse of glass.

    He is oblivious to Desire’s flicker of worry, oblivious to the water springing from no real place in particular. Doesn’t even look up until Desire speaks again and he moves easy to the second filly’s side. The filly with milky white eyes, eyes so much like the centers of the galaxies on her mother’s skin.

    It is a lot of responsibility, he realizes, naming something. Knowing that it will be permanent. He’d not had ample opportunity to think about it, really. He doesn’t know where to begin. He looks at the child long and hard, leans down to kiss her head, too. Tries not to make it obvious that his heart is churning with panic while his mind goes absolutely blank. No warning, just shuts down. There’s not a thought in his brain at all, in fact, when he finally lifts his head and whispers, “Clementia.

    It’s only after he’s said it that his mind flickers back on, his thoughts collect in sharper focus, and he smiles soft. It is a memory, the word muttered in the dark somewhere along the way. Mercy. He nudges her then, gently, encouraging the filly to collect her long, long limbs beneath her and try to rise to her feet. She wobbles and collapses once, twice, and then a third time. But on the fourth try, she stands, blinking. Takes a few shaky steps to her mother’s side, butts her glass head against her mother’s hip and then tucks her nose up underneath and begins to nurse.

    He watches a long moment before moving to press a kiss against Desire’s forehead, murmurs, “thank you.

    THOMAS

    — and you don't care for me enough to cry —

    Reply
    #9
    i think i'm better on my own but i get so lost in you
    The red filly had been working at standing while her parents fussed over them and decided on names, and while they are busy focusing on her sister she has finally managed to straighten both legs without toppling over. She is pleased with herself, and though she is unsteady – as if a strong gust of wind could knock her clean over – she is mildly disgruntled when her mother is once again hovering over her. She makes a sort of bleating sound in the back of her throat, shaking her small head and trying to move away from Desire when she insists on touching her warm nose to her glass flank in an attempt to keep her from falling.

    There was no hiding the worry that clouded Desire’s face. Even though their daughters were beautiful, and she wouldn’t wish them to be any other way – glass and all – she couldn’t help but to be internally terrified. It seemed that it would be impossible to protect them forever, and though she had been confident before they were born that she was capable of keeping a glass baby safe, witnessing exactly how fragile they were had her feeling entirely different.

    With her head dropped so that the flat of her cheek could rest against his shoulder, she is quiet while the girls nurse. Hourglass finishes and nuzzles herself against her father’s side, and Desire’s heart clenches at the sound of glass against glass. She reaches to run her nose along Clementia’s back, marveling at the fact that, somehow, her and Thomas had made this. She wonders briefly if this is how her mother had felt when her and Stave had been born; if maybe that was why she had kept them so close in the beginning, because they were a physical, tangible combination of the strange relationship she had with their father.

    The feel of his lips against her forehead stirs her from her thoughts, and though she reflexively leans into him, she closes her eyes against the guilt that burns inside her chest. “Don’t thank me,” she whispers into his neck, lowering her head further to press against his chest. For a moment she lets the sound of his heart drown out everything else, but she finally finishes quietly, almost sadly, “I want you to be the one good thing in this world I don’t destroy, but I always eventually ruin everything.”
    i think i'm better on my own but i'm so obsessed with you
    desire


    I was thinking this could be a closer and we can do a new thread of Desire feeling like the worthless trash she is.
    Reply




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