"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
only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark; gasping for air with the lungs of a lark
She thinks of him.
How could she not?
She remembers the kind boy with the soft eyes—the one who had seemed so sad, the one who had curled around the shadows and made her want to stay with him too. It had called to all of the softest parts of her. She hadn’t stayed—at least, not the last time—but that does not mean she has not thought of him.
Of course she had.
Of course she would.
She carries the memory with her as she grows. As her legs grow from small and thin to long and limber. As her mane grows and begins to fall in wild waves down her arched neck. As her fine head takes shape, her almond eyes growing curious, her soft mouth somber. She becomes a young woman and not a girl.
And, still, she thinks of him.
She flies through the forest today as a lark—as small and inconsequential as she always felt—when she felt something stirring in the air. Something that felt like a breath of fresh air and a memory all at once. A wind of nostalgia that both soothed and excited as she landed on a branch.
“Are you there?” she thinks, remembering how it had felt like he had plucked her thoughts from the very air before. She thinks of how often she has thought this very thought and heard nothing in return.
It’s the thing that he reminds himself each night; that they dream of him, reach for him, wish for him. It lulls him to sleep and it is what causes him to rise each morning, those beautiful lavender eyes searching and waiting to find more of them, to collect them. He is their reason for breathing, for living - their hearts are his and if they are not, they soon will be.
They haven’t stayed, though.
They were young, he reminds himself. Still tied to their families, still frightened and unable to give in to the desires of their hearts and their flesh. Some were more than willing, of course, but Molech found that even with all of his powers of persuasion and the little white lies, they eventually left him. The young stallion grinds his jaw terribly - being left alone is not something he can tolerate for much longer.
The forest has become his home, with all its shadows and damp bark from the mist that inherently flourishes from its nothingness. He dreams of keeping them here, with him, always.
As if right on cue, a flutter of wings and the sound of gentle branches against each other resound in his ears delicately. The winged stallion halts, his lavender eyes glancing through the familiar forest as he lifts his head towards the canopy, the bold blaze down his face only making his gaze all the brighter against the darkness of his evergreen skin.
Without thinking, he searches the void for thoughts nearby and what is normally met with silence, comes to him as sweet as honey.
Are you there?
He remembers her immediately (he hadn’t forgotten her, of course, but now that her voice encapsulates him once again, her image rushes to the forefront of his mind) and cannot help the hungry smile that finds his golden mouth. His terrible forked tongue flicks greedily between his cheshire grin, his eyes still roving the forest for signs of the tiger-striped girl.
“I’m always here,” he says aloud and truthfully, craning his neck to glance over his now well-muscled shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about you, Aero.”
only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark; gasping for air with the lungs of a lark
She is not certain why she hides away for a moment, why she glances down her tiny beak to fix him with her round eyes, looking at him from this perspective. She is not certain why she hides away, some small piece of her nearly feeling something like fear—a trace of it that races up her spine. Were she wiser, she would maybe take this instinct and run with it. She would recognize it for what it is and would turn from him, fluttering through the branches and following them back to her home, to what is safe.
But she is young and naive and he is handsome, so she brushes it aside.
Instead when she takes flight, it is to fly over his head and land before him, shifting as she does so that when the dust settles, it is her standing there before him. Long-limbed and shy, her head dipping down and her wings folding over her back. “You have?” Her voice is quieter than she thought it might have been, some kind of incredulous wonder creeping into the edges of it, as if she cannot imagine why.
No one has ever thought of her like that—not as something singular and unique. Not as something special. She was always one of a set. A part of a pair of twins. A piece of a large, sprawling family.
But he made her feel as though it was enough to just be herself.
As though it was special for her to just be Aero.
Her stomach tightens, butterflies wild, and she braves lifting her eyes to look at him. He is more than she remembered—the colors of him richer, more vibrant. The truth of him as hard to look at as the sun.
Her thoughts pause and in the same breath, Molech does as well. He tenses as the forest falls to silence and stillness, wondering if the little shifter has turned her back and fled. The only movement is a twitch of his goldenrod nostrils, attempting to hide the frustration that begins to well up inside him as the seconds tick by. Has he lost another so quickly, already? Hadn’t he played the part - meek, gentle, curious? But he is soon relieved when movement brings his lavender gaze further upward and to the branches, where his gaze follows a meadow lark that darts above him. In a breath of a moment, Aero materalizes in front of him - the lark now forgotten.
Her shift is graceful, something that he finds admirable about her. Molech tips his chin upwards, taking careful but intentional steps towards her on his white stockinged legs. “Of course,” he confesses to her without hesitation, the furrow of confusion on his brow quite genuine - why would she not cross his mind? She was his, didn’t she know that?
Aero’s eyes are downcast - shy, timid - but he is ever patient. Only a few moments pass before she glances at him and he meets her with a cunning smile, warm and welcoming - fondly, even. In their time apart she had grown, much as he has, and he finds that his attraction (possession, obsession) grows just as fiercely. Molech’s eyes travel across her affectionately, studying each subtle change, briefly ensuring that nothing about her made her appear less than perfect.
Her thoughts are his, emboldening him and causing that smile on his lips to ease into relaxation - their time apart did not weaken their bond, it seems.
“I had been thinking you forgot about me,” he purrs, halting his advancing steps towards her and tilting his head at her curiously. “That you found me in the woods and then left me here without a thought. But you’re here now - so that can’t have been true, can it?” His voice sounds hurt and his soft lavender gaze hardens with something worrisome - like concern or some type of veiled threat. Molech's eyes narrow slightly as he presses his own voice into her mind delicately. Please tell me I was wrong, Aero. He needed to hear it.
only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark; gasping for air with the lungs of a lark
Were she more self-aware, she would hate the way that looking at him makes her stomach twist. Would hate the way that she feels so vulnerable in front of him, how he makes her feel small and yet cherished. She would recognize that she feels like prey before him and would turn and run—would leave him.
But she is not self-aware.
She is just a girl who is caught in the crossfire of his lavender gaze, who feels special when she is with him, who feels a desperate need to continue feeling that way. His smile is warm and she feels it like a fire against outstretched palms. There is a moment that she leans forward, as though pitched by the oceanic waves of that need, before she remembers herself and pulls back, shy and demure once more.
When he studies her, she glances up from behind her lashes, feeling a nervous need to be enough. She is beautiful, she knows, in the way that all of her siblings are—but she is not the most of them. She may have tiger stripes that run down her limber body, opal hooves that shine even when buried in the muck, and a faint milky glow that casts from her, but she has no flowers braided into her golden-threaded hair. Her body does not shimmer with gold like her brother’s. She has no proud antlers atop her head.
Would she be enough for him?
“I would never forget,” it comes out quickly—rushed, the words tumbling over themselves. She realizes almost too late the faint desperation in her voice and curses herself. If only she could know how easily he thumbs through her own thoughts. “I didn’t want to leave,” she admits, again feeling heat rise to her cheeks as the truth is so easily stripped from her before him. “I just didn’t know how to come back.”
If I could come back, she thinks, but this feels too pitiful to admit—even for her.
Her emotions are delightful to him and it only eases the smile on his golden lips even more. She is a little bird caught in his hands, flittering her wings every once in awhile to only feel his grasp close around her tighter - but never enough to suffocate her, of course.
Molech engages her once again, uprooting himself from the damp forest floor to move his white and goldenrod legs casually towards her. She is enough - of course, she is - because she is trapped, she is alone, and because she longs for his approval. All of the uncertainties that twist around gently in her mind are the nails in her coffin and it is she who drives them in. Molech is only the temptation, the sin.
He would never do anything to her. She is too precious, too perfect. All that unfolds will be from her decisions alone.
The way her answer comes quickly out of her soft lips creates a dastardly handsome smile to spread across his mouth.
“Never?” he echoes in hopeful longing, halting only a few steps from her. He is close enough to reach out and touch her, but he doesn’t. After all, he is only the temptation.
The young stallion’s brow furrows, a shadow crossing his features. His smile fades into a gentle frown (was it a trick of the light, or did his forked tongue slither across his lips?), almost in disappointment. “I understand,” Molech reassures her, but it is not true. You knew how, he presses quietly into her mind, dark and foreboding - but if she were to glance up, she would find that his gentle face does not match the voice. “You’re here now, though.” His frown breaks into that little encouraging half-smile, “Let’s focus on that, instead.”
only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark; gasping for air with the lungs of a lark
If she knew that she was trapped, would she mind?
Would she fight against his hold?
Or would she be relieved that someone wants to hold onto her at all?
He closes the distance between them and she cannot help the way that her breath hitches. She cannot help the way that her chest tightens and the emotions flood through her—the way that she has to try and fight her head above the surface of these feelings. It feels a little like drowning, and she finds that she is dizzy, a little lightheaded. She remembers that they have never touched, but that is not so strange, is it? She has never touched anyone outside of her family and those had always been light, easy, forgettable.
This? This is anything but.
He smiles and she takes a step forward, unbidden and nearly unnoticed. Before she can blink, they are closer still until she feels as though she can smell his breath—sweet as honey wine. “I know,” she responds to his voice in her mind, not questioning that she did not hear it spoke aloud. Had she? “I know now,” she whispers as he takes another step toward her and she feels slightly faint, trembling.
There are other thoughts—of her family, her brother, her other siblings, of Tephra—but they fade into darkness in the back of her mind. They churn into silence until she is consumed with this moment.
“I’m here,” she reassures him, braving glancing up to study his features, to find his lavender eyes and fall into them. She doesn’t remember what he had asked her focus on, but she knows that she is meant to focus on something. She swallows, worried that he will not find her interesting enough. That he will bore of her. That he will toss her aside. She is so deeply disappointing she thinks, she would not blame him.
Maybe, eventually, his treasures will realize their situation. That he has encompassed everything they’ve been aching for and has used it to keep them closer than they could possibly imagine - that he has created an atmosphere that is so tempting, so lucious, so loving, that they can’t see it for anything else. But as they grow and become older, maybe Aero will have an inkling of what is truly unfolding and she’ll be able to decipher the now blurred lines between fear and love. Maybe she’ll be able to realize why she is equally scared and thrilled as he comes closer to her. But for now it is confusing and enticing (just as it is for Molech himself) and their youth naively keeps them from seeing the damage that will be inflicted in the future.
He can see into her mind but, with his practice in his ability, he has realized he does not need to use it as often as he did years ago. He has become a master at reading expressions and micro-movements, catching the way her breath holds itself in her throat and how her voice trembles just so. The young stallion wonders if there is anything else that is needed to seal the idea in her mind - to press the ferocity in the importance of seeing him, being with him. But, it seems, as her thoughts on her family dwindle into only him, that she needs no other pressure to be applied.
Molech smiles encouragingly, a little hum in his throat that sounds like satisfaction. She knows now. “You’re here,” he echoes with a thrilling smile, those lavender eyes sparkling happily. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” He admits this with a softening of his features, the feeling in his eyes genuine. As a reward for her confession, her promise, the tawny gold and ivory of his mouth brush against her cheek gently, inhaling briefly before a lingering kiss presses itself into the deep auburn of her skin.
His lips pull from her but he remains close, thoughtful, and pensive as he looks into the emerald green of her eyes and admiring the dark strips that expressively outline her features. He does not say it, nor does he whisper into mind, but his gaze holds the expectation: is there anywhere else you want to be? The silence grows and he waits expectantly for the answer that should fall from her lovely lips, remaining close to reward her again if she responds correctly.
only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark; gasping for air with the lungs of a lark
Her heart is racing so fast that she feels nearly dizzy with it—lightheaded with the moment. How had she got here? Was she supposed to be back home by now? She can’t remember anymore. She can’t remember anything but the sound of his voice, the spice of him, that intoxicating warmth when he stood so near. Her brain grows fuzzy on the edges, her memories nearly darkening and deepening as if underwater.
And when his lips touch her cheek, she gasps—just a quick inhale, sharp.
Without meaning to, she shifts, her heart pounding out of her chest as she explodes and emerges as a tiny, brilliantly blue butterfly. Shocked and embarrassed she trembles in the air before him before she alights, fluttering into a nearby tree where she lands on a crooked limb. She lands lightly and feels her entire body, as small as it is, shiver with the emotions that had flooded through her at that simple touch.
Had he known how much it had meant to her?
Shame burns through her at the display, at the lack of control, at the obvious feelings. She closes her eyes and refuses to budge, afraid to look at him and see displeasure, to see confusion, to see pity—or, worse, to see the kind of rejection that she knew would be waiting for her. Because of course it had been the friendly kiss of an acquaintance. It had been nothing to him. Nothing at all. Of course it had.
Oh, but to her, it had been everything.
She should leave, she knows, before she has to look at him and see what must surely be waiting for her. To feel so vulnerable and naked before him would be unbearable and she can’t bring herself to come back down. So instead she waits, wishing that she could answer him and tell him that, even now, she is glad to be there. She would not trade this moment—as painful as it is—for anything else in the world.
