"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
It has been strange, to raise a child again. He had done so poorly with Sleaze, bumbling him along, guided by a mock religion that had brough him some modicum of comfort at the time. And then, of course, he’d left with no word, and no idea of what had become of the boy – his own child! God only knows. It’s been better, with Bad, he thinks – the boy has his own oddities, a quickness that sometimes unsettles Garbage. And the way his body ripples sometimes, a promise of something beneath. But he has kept the boy alive, if nothing else, and now, with Bad a gangly yearling, Garbage can set off on his own without much dread. He doesn’t know what he looks for, this morning, only feels the draw of the meadow. Agetta is on his mind, but she often is, so he does not assign any particular symbolism to it. Part of him still aches from her kindness, from her forgiveness, but he has not seen her in months and the unquiet part of him worries that she has decided enough is enough and has excised him from her life. It's in the morning light that he finds her – and finds more. A reversal of their earlier meeting, almost perfectly. This time, she is the one with a child at her side, white and shimmering in rainbow colors. Another mirror image from his own dark son. (He does not know, yet, that the children are half-siblings, that the dark god came to her in white.) “Oh,” he says, and he almost laughs at the strangeness of it, mixed with the joy he always feels when he sees her. “Agetta,” he says, “she’s beautiful.” Another echo. Another strange, strange meeting.
— I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night —
It is so easy for Agetta to blame herself. How many times can she carry a child she did not want, how many times can she be forced into motherhood? She stopped blaming the fathers several children ago, knew the fault rested with her and her alone. She could have fought harder, could have gotten away. Could have tried.
This time there is a hollowness to her sadness that does not have her seek out harm or death. She’s resigned, defeated, and desperate for hope. Maybe this child will bring it, maybe she will find it soon. There has to be hope for peace - one way or another.
The horror of the circumstances surrounding this girl’s conception only feeds that desperation.
Like many of Agetta’s children, Holler takes her first step beneath the stars. Soft tears fall as Agetta watches, gently guiding and helping where needed. She’s watching Holler but she’s seeing all her other children, remembering their first steps.
Dawn brings a new wonder as she sees the rainbow sheen to her newest daughter’s coat and she is touching her muzzle gently to it when she sees him from the corner of her eye. At first she feels the shame rise quick to choke her but Garbage has always a soothing effect on her, hasn’t he? It mostly dies away, although there is still some pain lingering. There always will be.
She doesn’t see any judgement in his orange eyes (though she does look for it) and it is easy for her to find a smile as she lifts her head to greet him, instinctively taking a step closer to close the gap between them. Just a step though - and then her courage gives out and uncertainty rises.
She happily focuses on the topic of her young daughter instead of giving her insecurities any attention. “Isn’t she? Her name is Holler.” Perhaps not as elegant as some other names, but Agetta's already growing fond of it. Fond of her.
And, speaking of names - an easy sort of teasing flash brightens her smile in the early morning light as she asks her next question (though her interest is, of course, utterly genuine). “How is Bad?”
He wonders, of course, of the girl’s father – as Agetta no doubt had as well, when she had come upon him in a similar situation. It is not jealousy that he feels, exactly – he still doubts himself as a parent, and would not blame anyone for wanting a child without Garbage’s own tainted blood, the heaviness of that sin. And besides, Garbage is not a jealous man – he has lived too long and done too much to have any right to jealousy.
(His own faults aside, he has always simply been grateful for whatever affection he can get from those he loves. A starving dog may beg, but it does not begrudge the master his feast, so long as scraps are thrown his way.)
The thought is brief, and he looks again at the girl. She has her mother’s eyes, he notes, yet as he looks further at her he notices something strange, that there is something to her that looks like Bad. Not in color, of course – the two couldn’t be more different, white with rainbow compared to black with stars – but the architecture of them. He wonders if this is what parenting does, makes you see your own child in all the other children.
“Holler,” he repeats, smiling. Certainly a kinder name than Bad (or Garbage, for that matter), and it fits her, in its way. His smile stays on as she asks about his son, and he sighs – a happy sigh, or close to it – and speaks.
“He’s doing well. He’s more…powerful than I knew initially. I don’t always know how to help him, having no such talents myself.”
Sleaze had been a magician’s child, too, but had inherited nothing from him. Sleaze had been like him, sometimes so alike that Garbage would wonder if he had a father at all.
He takes a step closer. His heart beats faster, as it always does in her presence, as if any moment she will turn on her heel and run. He could touch her, from here. He wants to – he always wants to – but he holds back. He finds her gaze, looks at her.
“Are you all right?”
— I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night —
There's a soft smile that plays across her face as he tells her about Bad - and though there is still some jealousy there mostly she is glad. And proud of him for sticking around, even if he does not always know what to do. “If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. Maybe all these years of being able to shapeshift will finally come in handy.” It's an offer she makes instinctively, though it is of course genuine.
Garbage moves towards her and she's sure she can feel the air between them become charged. When he does not reach out to touch her, she closes the gap between them with a slow, gentle movement. Her white muzzle brushes softly against his dark skin and she inhales him and the feelings of love, pain, and joy that come flooding into her with his scent.
Agetta decides then to give him complete honesty. “Yes and no.” As she pulls back there is a hollow, sad smile in those dark eyes. “Her father wasn’t… I didn’t want to…” but those words fail her so she gives up - they are not so easy to find when she is choked with her shame. Maybe she could have tried harder to explain if it weren’t for Holler’s presence nearby. The girl is so young but Agetta’s learned time and time again how foals can retain more than you might think. She tries her best to protect her children from certain realities and, even though it may be a little true, Agetta does not want the young filly to believe she wasn't wanted.
If she could separate the act of creation from the love she feels when she looks at the girl, then it would be fine. And she owes it to Holler to try.
She swallows the tears that threaten, looking away from the kind face near her and to the dawn sky for a moment. “I don’t think I have been alright for some time now. The last time I remember being happy was when we were raising Maze.” For as long as their wildfire daughter had tolerated being raised, anyway, before she started to write stories of her own. “But I am still here, and I suppose that is something.” Although she is being honest, she is not sure she can tell him how a few years ago, pregnant with Atrox’s twins, she had tried her best to end it all only to find out that her new ability to heal herself made that exit impossible.
She remembers thinking when she saw Carnage that he had come to kill her a second time. If anyone could help her in that regard, it would have been him. And she thought, just for a moment, that was what she wanted. And she had been so disappointed when he took something else from her instead of her life.
Her blue eyes now search his face, reacquainting herself with all the details she’s already memorized. “I’m afraid the last few years have turned me into an even bigger mess than when we first met.”
12-09-2020, 07:46 PM (This post was last modified: 12-09-2020, 10:24 PM by Cassi.)
he must be wicked to deserve such pain;
He nods at her offer, though he isn’t sure he’ll take her up on it. Not that he doubts it’s genuine, but rather, he is unsure he wants Bad unveiled so thoroughly before her, when the child is still almost a mystery to him. Bad is strange in a way Sleaze never was, and perhaps it’s the things he can do, or perhaps it’s the nature of his conception – nature over nurture, and all that.
(Of course, Sleaze’s father was the dark god’s son as well, half-brother to Bad, a tangled mess of a family tree, knotted and unforgiveable.)
“Thank you,” he says, and then he sinks into the feel of her touch, and he does not consider the way his son’s eyes flash unnervingly, he only thinks of how good it is, to feel her again.
But such bliss is brief, as it often is with him, because her next words cause an ache in him. If he were a bolder man – a crueler man – the ache would turn to rage, but Garbage long ago used up all his rage, so now there is only pain for her.
(His well of pain, unlike rage, appeared to be endless.)
“Oh,” he all he says at first, because what else is there? His jaw is tight and though he is still close to her, he is no longer touching her, afraid now that such things might be a reminder, though he does not back away – he is here, should she close the distance again.
“I’m so sorry, Agetta,” he says, and it feels like such a small thing, so unlike the worlds he wants to give her. He would take her pain if he could, transfer it into himself in a heartbeat, for he is a familiar host to unhappiness and he knows too well how he can bear such a burden. For what has he done, in these years? He has loved her, sure, but he did not pursue her, did not hunt her down and…and what? Could he have saved her, from any of it? He is no savior, and he is fool to even entertain the thought.
Still, maybe there could have been something -
But he did not. He wandered and he loved her from afar and when the dark god came to him dressed in galaxies he was willing, he fell pregnant and bore his strange son, and now he is here and she is confessing her unhappiness and he is entirely unable to remedy any of it.
He can stay, though. Such a paltry thing, but all his offerings have been paltry, and she has taken them nonetheless.
“I’ve never thought you a mess,” he says, which is true – she is always perfect, in his eyes, “but I’m sorry these years have been hard. I wish I could…I don’t know. I wish I could fix it for you.”
Wishes are all he has to offer, really. Such paltry things.
— I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night —
A gap forms between them after her confession and although Agetta understands, it does not soothe the hurt. He does not move away, which is something, but it is not enough for her mind to remain wholly rational. She has long feared what others would think about such shortcomings, and worse that they had been plentiful in her life. Her rational mind would tell her Garbage did not find her revolting, weak, tainted, or horrid now that he knew this truth about her.
But her rational mind was the quieter voice.
She closes her eyes, trying to battle against the wave of insecurities and unwilling to look at him. Afraid to, afraid that what she knew, what she believed, to be about him would change and it would be her fault.
When he speaks, it’s not with the derision she fears but with a gentle apology. Agetta can feel herself begin to crumble at this small act of kindness as that raging voice inside of her tells her she does not deserve it. That she brought this on herself and had no right to any sympathy. Thoughts that have been her constant companions ever since she was 3 years old and bore her first child to a stallion that did not ask, only took.
A very soft, nearly inaudible sob escapes her when he continues - giving her more kindness. It does not erase a century's worth of pain and self-loathing, of course, but it means so much that he would even offer his wishes. It soothes away the sharpest thorns in her mind. “Thank you. I do not think there is a way to fix it. I've only thought of one way but -” She opens her eyes then and looks to Holler first, making sure the girl is sleeping or not paying attention before continuing in a soft voice. “- on days like this, when I look at my daughter and with you with me… when I remember all the good things, death does not feel like the option it once was.”
Now she looks to him - dark, midnight blue eyes to his beautiful, sunrise orange. All of her pain is there, tempered only by the love she feels for him that shines there too. “I would not have considered it but I remember it being peaceful, the first time it claimed me. And peace is something I crave.” The action itself, how she had died, was not peaceful at all - but the afterlife had been until she was stirred into returning.
And then, just as soft as the rest of her words - a question. “Have you died before, my dear?” She knows his mother had, but there are gaps in her knowledge of him - what happened after that day in the Deserts and when they first met.
He is struck by a wave of emotions at her words, feelings that conflict and combat each other. Selfishly, he does not want her gone from this earth, he wants her here, because even if their meetings currently are strange ones, with children sired by others at their sides, he can think of – hope for – a future where perhaps they are together in something like joy, where there are perhaps more children. Children created from love and not a momentarily lust (or, far worse, coercion). But who would he be to deny her such a thing, if it was truly her wish? For did he himself not walk into the ocean at Tabytha’s heels, leaving their children on the beach? Did he not spend years waiting passively for death, thinking of it fondly?
(Do such thoughts not cross his mind, still? Sometimes, he looks at deadly things – a cliff face, the dark sea waters – and thinks maybe this time, I wouldn’t come back.)
So he doesn’t beg her not to – not yet – but he does ask a question.
“Do you think you could find peace here?” Here means alive, in Beqanna, but here means more, too. It means with me. But he doesn’t say that. He’s such a coward.
He smiles softly at her question, and thinks of the choking taste of saltwater. How he had cried out their names before going in, the names of those he had loved and wronged, not knowing the list would only grow.
“Once,” he says, “someone I loved went into the ocean, and I followed. I was very old, and long past my time.”
He pauses, wondering how to word the rest of it.
“I don’t know if it was peaceful or not. I don’t remember anything, except then one day I woke up in the meadow and my body was young again. I couldn’t remember much of my life before, though most of it has since come back to me. When I woke up, I very much wanted to go back. Now...I don’t know if I do.”
There are moments. But he has a son to look after. He has her, for however long she chooses to stay, either with him or on this earth. That’s enough, isn’t it?
01-07-2021, 09:10 PM (This post was last modified: 01-09-2021, 05:22 PM by Agetta.)
— I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night —
He asks whether she could find peace here, and it breaks her heart.
Agetta has been given much, joy so mingled up in the pain she’s had trouble distinguishing the two from each other. She thinks of him, of Plume, of the children she has raised since she had tried to stop being a living ghost. She had rooted herself into Beqanna again only to saw away at her own tethers. Could she find peace? If she could float free, if she could untangle herself from a century's worth of guilt and self-loathing. If there is a path out from there, she cannot see it.
She listens quietly as he explains his death. How different than hers - what she wouldn’t do to forget pieces of her life and not have so many of her memories shouting at her in the shadows.
It’s only after he admits that he is not sure if he wants to return to death that she answers his question. Still in a carefully quiet voice, the truth of her vocalized. “I worry that I’m too wasted to find peace here. That I do not deserve it.” It's an old hurt and her voice waivers with it as it comes out. Those midnight eyes swim with tears as she looks at him and suddenly this gap between them feels like too much. She cannot bear it. And whether it is selfish of her or not, she reaches out to him. She wants to embrace him, wants to press her thundering chest against his skin, but though she does her best to ignore her fears and her worries they root her in place.
So instead it is only her muzzle, brushing soft whispers against skin as dark as hers used to be in her first life.
“But I want it. With you - oh, how I want it.”
Would it be enough for them both, to find islands of peace together whenever they can? She can believe it, can't she? It's close enough of a possibility, she just needs to reach out and grasp it.
He had not wanted the memories to come back, not exactly, but they had given him something. It had been worse, when they had been distant, haunting things, feelings of unease and despair that clamored inside of him, but when he turned himself fully toward them they skittered away. It had been a strange, purgatorial time, as he moved across the land that was familiar and not-familiar at once, with reactions to things he didn’t understand.
(Like the burn of his own orange eyes when he peered upon his reflection. Looking at them and thinking those goddamn eyes without knowing why.)
He remembers it all, now, or he thinks he does – certainly the greatest hits of his sins, the memory of Craft dying, his own eyes rolling on the sand, Cancer leaving him for another, leaving Sleaze, that boy, that terribly young boy…
He wallows too long in the thoughts of memory and has to fight to draw himself from it, his past is a whirlpool that would happily drawn him down if he allow it. He cannot. He must keep whistling past this particular graveyard, he must focus on her, because she is what matters right now.
“Oh,” he says softly, and he welcomes her closeness, relishes it. His orange eyes flutter close to more fully savor this, the feel of her body and the scent of her, and his lips trail against her, running over the tense muscles.
“You deserve all the peace in the world,” he says, then, against her skin, “you’ve shown me more peace than I knew existed. I wish I could do the same for you.”
But he does not come with peace, does he? He comes with sin and with heartbreak, with all those stupid memories piled up and up and up, and of course he cannot bring the peace she deserves, of course he can’t.
— I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night —
There’s a hazy, distant part of Agetta’s mind that wonders if it should matter so much when she feels the brush of his lips on her pale skin. If it's healthy for it to have so much impact on her. But it does. It means everything, to not be rebuked right now. Her breath hitches ever so slightly with the softest of sobs at this simple, wonderful, beautiful thing and the love that causes her heart to swell. Those tense muscles his touch trails over relax in his wake and even though it cannot possibly heal everything she feels a shift all the same.
As though the words he whispers against her skin begin to take root there. Her response is almost instant, delayed only by a smile. “Having you here is enough.” Her voice is more certain than her heart. She’s still not sure whether it’s fair for her to love him as she mourns for what she destroyed with Plume, as she still loves someone else. It’s been years now and her once-king has not crossed paths with her again. Agetta finally begins to wonder if he ever will find her. Can she convince herself that it is truly over, with no hope of repairing? Or will she continue being uncertain, continue having half of her waiting, until she finally dies again.
Not now she thinks to these troublesome thoughts as she holds them at a distance, brushing them aside in favour of the present. She makes the decision not to cleave herself in two while Garbage is here, with kind words and a gentle touch. “What if we… what if we try not to let it go so long between seeing each other? What if we stick together?” She pulls back to look at him, to watch his expression at this suggestion. Hope clouding with doubt. “Keep each other out of trouble.” She adds with a small smile, as an attempt at a joke though the humour of it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Trouble didn’t even begin to cover it. Trouble was the mildest possible way of summing up everything that had happened.
