"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
Avelina’s eyes are dancing with so much happiness she feels like she could float when Isakov steps towards her. She tilts her head towards his touch, relishing the delight in the gentle caress. How much care he takes, the smile he gives her. It spreads warmth through her.
Worry chases it and for a heartbeat she thinks she’s done something wrong when Isakov's expression darkens. When he asks who hurt her, Avelina’s shift back into herself is instantaneous and she takes an involuntary step backwards. She cannot quite name the emotions that rise up within her - embarrassment, fear, and grief, maybe. The pain of that day, both physical and emotional, does not fit well into her life and she finds that she does not know how to handle any of it. Pretending the scars aren’t there has become a default but she won’t ignore a question asked from her dear friend.
Tears swim in those gentle green eyes and she does not have the strength to will them away. She doesn’t look at Isakov when she replies, focusing instead on the ground near her hooves. Her fireflies pause their dance and, except for the few that are with him, every one of them rests on her mane.
“His name is Skandar. I don’t know what I did wrong… he wanted to see my shifting and then…” Avelina’s breath hitches a little when she remembers how shocked and betrayed she had felt when his teeth had closed around her neck. She was always so quick to consider everyone she met her friend and to have that crumble just as quickly was not a lesson she thought she’d ever learn. “I thought he was my friend.” She adds quietly, her voice barely more than a whisper.
throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He should not have asked.
That is immediately clear when she abruptly shifts back into her equine form and takes a step backward, away from him.
Something sordid blossoms in his chest and splinters outward from the epicenter, something rank and poisonous. It thins his breath, tempers his pulse. How desperately he wants to go to her. How terribly he wants to wrap her in an embrace, hold her close and assure her that things will be all right. But he knows that there are so few souls in the world worthy of being trusted. And isn’t it true that he is not among them?
He watches her, powerless, as the tears pool in those soft green eyes and there is nothing he can do to stop them.
Skandar.
He will never forget the name.
He will carry it in his chest.
He will wait so patiently.
He will wait so ferociously.
He nods now and swallows but does not speak.
He understands that friends are not always friends.
What troubles him most is that the fireflies go still. They descend, alight in her hair as if drawing near, as if closing around her in an embrace. He wishes he could do the same. But she had drawn away from him and he knows better than to follow her.
Does she love the swan? Perhaps he is too distracted by how troubled he is by her trouble. He shrugs on the illusion of what he tries to see shimmering beneath her surface. But he cannot tell if it is the swan. He cannot tell what it is at all that looks back at her. He cannot see what she loves, does not know what form the illusion takes.
He just smiles at her and says, “won’t you smile for me?”
02-26-2021, 07:19 PM (This post was last modified: 02-27-2021, 08:28 AM by Avelina.)
Avelina feels the weight of this piece of her settle between them like a physical thing. It roots her to the spot and her eyes remain focused on the ground near her hooves. She waits for Isakov to say something, do something - waits for anything at all to happen so she can bury these memories again where they belong in the back of her mind. So she can never think of Skandar or the heartbreak tied up in that first taste of pain. This soft-eyed girl had never learned how to deal with pain, had only ever seen her mother hide it away, and so that is what she tries to do too.
When she finally finds the courage to look up, Isakov seems to shimmer before her eyes. But it must be just the tears because she blinks and he’s standing there - the same beautiful friend she has always known. Looking at him loosens some of the weight in her heart. And when he asks her if she’ll smile for him, the effect that this has on her is instantaneous - she is all too happy to use this request as a tether to bring her out of her shadowy thoughts.
Her heart lightens further as she takes in his smile, his golden eyes, and the fireflies begin their dance again - not as energetic before but at least they are on the move.
And then she is moving too, her usual soft smile growing with each step as Avelina reclaims the distance she had put between them. A distance that had nothing to do with him, and she wishes to let him know that. So her muzzle extends without hesitation to brush against his starry cheek as she gently tells him “For you, my dear Isakov, I always have a smile.”
Of course, this tiny bold act is followed swiftly by a rush of shyness and when she pulls her muzzle back she bashfully dips her head - though when she looks back up, her grin remains warm and sweet.
throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He is so grossly unaccustomed to being so thoroughly swayed by the emotions of others.
Isakov has kept himself safely removed, unaffected, but he aches with the knowledge that someone has betrayed her trust. He aches with her pain. He can feel it throb in his own chest like a second heartbeat.
(How he resents it! How he wishes he could carve it out of the meat of his heart!
He was built from love, but it was the wrong kind of love.
He was not meant for this kind of crippling softness, Isakov.
And yet he does not feel as if he can breathe until she looks at him again.
He does not feel as if he can breathe until her fireflies take flight.)
And then she smiles at him and his own smiles softens around something more sincere, something that looks like relief. He does not know what she sees when she looks at him, he does not know what he has fashioned for her but it doesn’t matter if it makes her smile.
She closes up all the space she’d wedged between them and he’s grateful for this, too. He did not know how to be the sort of creature that repelled others, especially not the soft things like her. And when she touches him softly it feels like an apology, one he leans into.
But he does not know how to react to shyness, so he pulls her swiftly into an embrace, anchors her close. Perhaps it is too bold but he has never been shy, Isakov.
“I would never hurt you like that,” he murmurs, “you know that, don’t you?”
This moment is in such vivid contrast to what she had felt just moments ago. Avelina does not remember the last time someone embraced her and her eyes widen in delighted surprise when he pulls her close. It wasn’t that her family or friends weren’t affectionate, but gentle touches and smiles were what they exchanged most.
What a waste, she thinks, when such a sweet gesture belongs in everyone’s life. Warmth spreads across her skin like she is standing in a ray of sunshine and her eyes close in easy contentment as she presses gently back into Isakov.
The only thing not gentle is the rapid pace of her heart, filled to bursting with love for her dear friend as he murmurs to her.
“I know.” She whispers back into his skin. “You’re my dearest friend, Isakov. I trust you with all my heart.” Avelina thinks that she could stand here forever in this embrace if it were possible. It is not, and if it were she would dearly miss looking into his gold eyes. Isakov's magic cannot create anything for Avelina that could perfect what he already is to her, so she remains ignorant of the fact that there could be an illusion between them at all if she loved him any less.
She pulls back a little, brushing her muzzle gently across his star-covered neck as she does - those pale green eyes dancing in the light of the fireflies that surround them both. “I’m so glad you and your stars brought noise into my life.”
throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He is not a soft thing, Isakov.
And he thinks he should hate her for drawing it out of him.
But he does not hate her as much as he hates the scars on her neck.
The places where the feathers were missing.
He does not hate her as much as the burning in his gut when he thinks of someone hurting her.
He does not hate her as much as the thought of her fear.
The thought of her broken heart.
He could never.
He holds her close and he thinks of nothing else but how desperately he wants to keep her safe and he does not let himself hate her for it and he does not hate himself for it either. He will gnash his teeth at this terrible softness later.
But for now he smiles and he lets her words soothe him. He is her dearest friend, she says, and she trusts him. And this means something, he knows that. He doesn’t know what it means because he is not a soft thing but he lets it inject a new, foreign warmth into his heart. He lets her words sink into the marrow of his bones, lets them radiate heat from the inside out. He holds onto her and breathes and lets her kindness fill up all the empty space in his chest.
He holds onto her and lets himself entertain the idea of what it might mean to be good. He kisses her brow and draws away. Studies her face and pulls on a lopsided smile. “I didn’t know how noisy I was until I met you,” he says and separates himself from her then, suddenly self-conscious. Because he is not a soft thing and he doesn’t know how to be.
Just because he would never hurt her does not mean that he is kind.
“Maybe you can teach me how to be quiet,” he suggests.
