[private] like an echo in the chambers of my chest; charlie

[caledonia]

there's a voice that pulls me stumbling through a symphony
and the less of it I need, the more I get

It’s been months since she has last seen him—years, perhaps. The quiet boy who had found her on her first adventure out. She thinks of him still, even if she cannot envision him. Thinks of the quiet way that he had sniffed at her and introduced himself. The way that she had to leave so quickly when her heart had started to race and she had known that her family would be looking for her soon.

But she had not forgotten him.

She hadn’t been brave enough to look for him, to try and follow the scent of him, but she had not forgotten him. Instead, she had tucked the memory of him away in the back of her mind. She revisited it often. Tried to imagine what he would look like, but mostly just thought of the way that her heart had felt when she had felt the warmth of him push against her like a gentle roll of the breeze.

She carries it with her today. Mulling about it as she wanders through the same meadow where she had first met him. Her pale legs pick through the wildflowers blooming and feels a rush of joy that she can now see them. That she can finally experience the wonders of this world as they are meant to be.

It’s then that she catches that familiar scent.

Her delicate head whips up and her dual-colored eyes—no longer milky or obscured—focus in on the figures that roam around her. She catches the sight of one young stallion, dark and splattered with white, and angles her head at him. Hope catches dangerously on the edge of her mind and she feels her voice die in the back of her throat as she takes a step toward him. “Charlie?”

’til I'm swept up by the shape of all the centuries
like an echo in the chambers of my chest

@[eucharist]

[eucharist]

let me die on your altar, sweet death in agony for you.

His mother tried to keep all her children close by after what happened to Prayer. She wouldn’t say it aloud, not when they were all still so young, but he had seen the images in her mind and heard the way she screamed in her memories. Watching her firstborn die like that had irreparably changed her.

But now with his sister returned to her, she has allowed Eucharist to roam freely throughout Beqanna. It would be a lie to say he hasn’t thought of the blind girl from the meadow despite the way he tried to prune emotions from himself. He’d seen what love had done to his family and he wanted no part of it.

And yet.
And yet, he thought of her.

He lifts his head from idle grazing when he hears someone call his name and he finds himself rather startled by the girl who speaks it. There is no blue-white stare gazing aimlessly back at him. Eucharist tells himself he’s gotten his hopes up, this couldn’t possibly be her. But he runs his fingers through her thoughts and his voice echoes through her mind. He takes a step back. There is so little he fears in a world that can do so little to harm him, but he cannot heal himself of the way his knees tremble near her.

“Oh. It’s you,” he mumbles, trying to force a calm and collected smile onto his face. This normally works with everyone else but he is surprised at the way a nervous laugh tumbles from him. “What uh.. What brings you.. here?”

He clears his throat and stares at her lips to avoid her eyes a little better.

@[caledonia]

[caledonia]

there's a voice that pulls me stumbling through a symphony
and the less of it I need, the more I get

She doesn’t truly know that her appearance has changed. That the milky blue of her eyes has cleared, leaving one a startling ocean blue and the other a deep gold. She simply knows that the veil has been lifted and, suddenly, the world cast in darkness has come into a startling clarity. Suddenly, she is able to see all of the things that had once been removed from her—letting her appreciate every fine detail.

Such as him.

He is no longer just a voice and a dull, shadowy outline. Suddenly, he is real and live—and she is not surprised at all to find that the young boy is a handsome man now. She appreciates the way that his wings tuck by his sides and the freckles on his shoulders. The lines of a maturity showing in the way that he carries himself. She has no ability to hide her appreciation, to obscure the way that she takes him in.

It causes her to stall, to not realize that she has taken several moments to reply. When everything comes rushing back to her, she realizes that she’s been quite for too long and, if she could blush, she would. Instead, she dips her head, a soft smile touches the edges of her lips.

“It’s me,” she affirms, wondering if that was disappointment in his voice. It’s certainly not the same excitement that had laced through her earlier question and it spears straight through her. She shuffles her wings and glances down, frowning a little before looking back up to find his gaze. “I’ve just been wandering again,” there’s a hint of self-deprecation in the answer, as well as a call back to their earlier meeting. “I didn’t mean to bother you. I just thought maybe it was you.”

She pauses before continuing, “I’m not always good at recognizing people now that I can.”

’til I'm swept up by the shape of all the centuries
like an echo in the chambers of my chest

@[eucharist]

[eucharist]

let me die on your altar, sweet death in agony for you.

His eyes flick upwards and he’s surprised by the depth of color in her stare, the mismatched irises staring back at him. She had been lovely with her cataract gaze before, but he is entirely unprepared for her now. Eucharist finds himself trapped in this endless silence between them, though his pulse thumps wildly in his ears. Then she finally moves. His knees are weaker than ever. The boy almost hates her for how strange and weak and small she makes him feel all at once.

His wings mimic her shuffle as he steps closer. He wants so badly to despise her, but the way she wilts in her words breaks his heart in two. Step by step, he closes the gap between them until his lips hover over her cheek and she finishes speaking. The whole scene moves in a warped slow motion as he extends his neck, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth before he can say anything to ruin this reunion – before he loses his nerve.

Being gentle does not come easily to him but he manages to be tender in his kiss. Seconds tick, tick, tick by as he savors the feeling of their mouths pressed together before he finally takes a step back. Even he is shocked at his own bravery.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t even.. know your name,” he mumbles, stepping further back from her now as his wings spread. Half of him wants to take off and fly straight back into the humid jungle of Tephra but the other half has tasted the awful way affection can cripple him so sweetly. His mind furiously flips between the two in endless cycles until finally he folds his wings once more, hiding the pale white freckles across his shoulders.

“I just. I like being near you, but it makes me feel not at all like myself,” he explains with a voice that quakes. “I like when you bother me.”

@[caledonia]

[caledonia]

I have glass in my throat when I sing about what an almost love it could've been

Had she not told him her name?

She tries to remember the details of the first time they had met, but it’s blurry now—out of focus. All she can remember is the way her heart had fluttered in her chest at the strange boy she had met in her wanderings. How his voice had sounded so sweet and she had thought him so kind that he could only have been handsome. She had carried that meeting in her chest ever since, a secret just for her.

But all of this melts away, it pales in comparison, when he closes the distance—when he presses his lips to hers. She inhales sharply, her inexperience showing in the way that she stiffens even as everything in her wants to melt. She doesn’t know how to reciprocate, even though she wants to. She doesn’t know how to do anything but soak in the sensation, the feeling like honeysuckle and warm summer afternoons.

He steps away, apologizing, and she wonders if she had done something wrong—something to make him apologize. She feels that familiar burn of embarrassment and she sweeps her lashes down to hide her gaze for a moment, to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts. “Caledonia,” she answers, wondering why she hadn’t given it before—why she had been so distracted, so caught off guard by the first meeting.

“What are you when you feel like yourself?” she asks, finally dragging her gaze back up so that she can look at him fully, taking in the sight of him even though it feels a little like staring into the sun.

“I want to know,” she whispers, as though it is a secret.

She wonders, as she watches the stern lines of his face, the green of his eyes, the gentleness of his smile, if it is a secret—if it is the kind of thing that he allows others to see. If she would ever see it herself.

Caledonia

@[eucharist]

[eucharist]

let me die on your altar, sweet death in agony for you.

He doesn’t understand why his heart commands him to kiss her. It makes no sense, given that it has remained entirely uninvolved in his life up to this point. But somehow, seeing Caledonia awakens all the emotions it keeps hoarded to itself and he has no idea how to dam the flood of affections pouring themselves over her. It nearly makes him dizzy the way it all comes swirling into his thoughts but he holds on enough to hear her when she says her name.

“Caledonia,” he repeats, his tone wavering nervously. “I’m Eucharist, but you can call me Charlie. Everyone else does.” He forgets that she already knows his name and even spoke it to him just moments ago. But what has been said cannot be undone and so he turns his head to stare off at something - anything - else for a moment until he regathers his composure. He clears his throat and only spares her a glance when she asks her question.

“I.. I guess I feel… more confident, for one thing,” he confesses, a quick laugh tumbling from him. “I feel in control, when I’m not near you. I’m beginning to wonder which is the real me, though.”

And then he brings his gaze back to hers, his green eyes studying her curiously as he tries to pick apart why she makes him feel so different. He’s been around women before, certainly, and he supposes they could be called lovely in their own regard. But somehow she is entirely unique in her effect on him. Eucharist finds that he is unable to pick out a single thing he does not enjoy about her - the perfect white of her, the soft look of her eyes, the soft feathers of her beautiful wings. It all works in perfect harmony to destroy his defenses.

“Do you have some kind of magic that makes me feel this way?” he asks finally, now scrambling for answers.

@[caledonia]

[caledonia]

I have glass in my throat when I sing about what an almost love it could've been

She listens, trying her best to understand. “I like the idea of you feeling confident,” she says softly, as though encouraging him. She hates the thought that he does not feel that around her, as though she is the cause of him feeling less than himself—as though she is the reason that he comes apart. It makes her feel something dark and pained and she swallows it down as she continues to study his handsome face.

“Although I like this version of you too,” she quickly tries to amend.

Flustered, her wings shuffle at her sides slightly.

“I just don’t want you to feel not in control.”

She always feels out of control, she thinks. What would it be like to feel as though you could command the world around you? What it would feel like to be in charge of your own destiny.

“I don’t have any kind of magic like that,” her words tumble over themselves as she tries to think of what kind of magic she would need to make him feel this way—to make him feel out of control. Anxious and worried that he thought her hurting him in some way, she quickly shifts into a dove, fluttering around. She swoops and dives for a moment before she lands back in front of him, her dual-colored eyes wide.

“That’s really the only thing I can do.”

She pauses, chewing her lip.

“I mean, there’s something else, but I don’t really know how to control it yet.”

She feels warmth bloom in her cheeks.

“But I promise it wouldn’t affect how you feel, Charlie.”

Caledonia

@[eucharist]

[eucharist]

let me die on your altar, sweet death in agony for you.

She doesn’t even blink when he makes a fool of himself and it puts him more at ease. Caledonia doesn’t seem to mind any bit of his nervous energy at all, in fact. His shoulders visibly relax, now, and he manages to meet her stare as their talks become more natural. He’s even surprised to hear a sheepish laugh as it comes tumbling from his lips when she mentions that she likes this uncertain version of him. The smile lingers there for a while, tucked into the corner of his lips as he watches her.

“I guess it’s not that I don’t feel in control. I just.. say things I might not normally. I don’t open up a lot of the time,” he muses aloud, trying to pinpoint exactly what these feelings are. Eucharist gives a light nod when she explains that it isn’t any magic causing this uprising of his emotions.

His bright green eyes stare in wonder as she changes into a small white bird. He didn’t know others could become soft, delicate things. Everyone in his family was usually scaled and armored, fortresses built to survive. It seems strange to see her become fragile instead. But his smile only widens as he steps closer to study her once more.

“I can do a few things… Wanna see?” he asks, grinning as his confidence slowly finds its way back home to his heart. The flood of emotions continues but he has begun the first steps of finding that balance between control and vulnerability, delighted by how it makes him feel to show weakness to her.

Gently, he skims her thoughts and finds the echoes of her embarrassment there. He tilts his head and wonders why she would feel that way. “You can make… lights?” he asks, eager to know more of her.

@[caledonia]