"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
Laurelin had thought of Aureline quite a bit since the sun had come back, she was one of the friends that he was hoping to see. Even though he looked his best in the darkness, he was happy that the sun was back and didn’t seem to be leaving anytime soon. It is a great source of disappointment that over a year has passed and his paths haven’t crossed with that pretty pegasus again. He would have thought he had better luck than that.
After all, he did stand out! He was easy to notice and surely she would have come over to say hello! If he found out she’d seen him around and decided against it, well, he wasn’t sure he could handle that level of disappointment.
It’s a bright winter afternoon when his luck finally starts behaving itself and he spots her. There is a moment where he admires the colours he hadn’t gotten a proper chance to see before but Laurelin isn’t patient. He doesn’t delay doing the things he wants to do - and right now, he very much wants to go say hello to his friend. His coat glitters beneath the clear sky - he’s almost as pretty in winter, with the light dusting of snow - as he is at night when his glow is more noticeable.
“Well aren’t you a sight.” He says by way of greeting, his eyes already dancing with an easy smile as he approaches Aureline - absolutely delighted to be seeing her again as the sun shines down on them both. But he’s less interested in the one that is in the sky overhead than he is the one that is inside her, and as he stops before her he asks about it “How’s that sun doing?”
It feels like an entire lifetime has passed since she last saw him, feels like someone else’s lifetime, she thinks with a note of hidden solemnity. The dark was something that had been burned into her like a brand, something she would be forever marked by, forever changed by. But beneath a sun that always rose and a morning that always found her already awake to be sure of its prescience, it became easier to forget. To make herself forget.
“Laurelin!” She exclaims, and there is an instant smile on her delicate face, an instant brightness to erase the weariness in her eyes - a weariness certainly not meant for him to see. He would care nothing for the nightmares that woke her on the nights she did manage to sleep, the fear that lingered on the nights she couldn’t. “Glad to see you made it. Safe to assume you were not eaten by a monster?” She is teasing and smiling and it is not lost on her that there should still be a lingering horror to the shape of her question. How clever time was at soothing the edges of such old, ragged wounds. At making them feel safe again.
He is just as beautiful as she remembers, maybe even more so now that she can examine him openly in this full light. Blue like gemstones, gold like ore, perfectly marked here and in her memories of him. It is harder to see the sparks now that she remembers lifting from his hair like embers, and that soft ethereal glow is swallowed by the noon sun, but there is a glittering to his skin that she had not noticed before. He refracts as many pinpoints of light as the snow does around them - like a billion sleeping stars in a midnight sky. He is so effortlessly beautiful.
She wants to reach out and stroke her lips against his beautiful blue cheek, to touch him and confirm that he is as real as the sun and the sky, as real as she is. But she thinks there is a certain level of closeness she has since managed to convince herself of in all this time that has passed between them, and so she refrains from reaching out with anything more than this easy, open affection in her eyes.
And oh! Her eyes! All at once her smile is something soft and beaming bright, because she remembers that he hasn’t seen her yet. In the dark she was something muted, something consumed - barely more than a shell of herself as the eclipse stole the sunshine from her too. “Burning bright.” She promises, easing closer to him because she cannot help it, because she knows no other way to ease this gentle ache inside her chest. But then she’s lifting her wings for him so that the feathers are consumed by light at everything single edge, so that light beams from them and from her and there is a sudden, literal heat that emanates from her shining golden skin. She knows he must have already noticed them, but she meets his gaze with a burning kind of gentleness so that he can see the rings of burning plasma in her quiet eyes.
“As you can see, I’m usually the prettiest one in any conversation.” She says, and there is so much warmth and amusement dancing in those sunfire eyes. “But I suppose I can live with second prettiest when it comes to us.” She smiles again, all warmth and fondness as she lets her wings settle a little lower against her sides again. “I really am so glad to see you again.” She says, a little softer now, ignoring that urge to reach out and embrace him. “Have you been well?”
aureline
dear wilderness, be at your best
her armor is thin as the fabric of her dress
Not that Laurelin would expect anything else, but it still sends a shot of delight through him to hear the brightness in Aureline’s voice when she greets him. He is quick to shake his head no to her question with a small laugh of his own. Definitely no monster eating - he was far too pretty for such a fate. Besides, he had to survive the darkness so that he could see Aureline again! There was no chance he was going to let something like a monster get in the way of that.
He is, of course, thrilled by her study of him - he’s only gotten prettier as he ages, he’s pretty sure. None of those lanky legs he had as a colt or that tragically short mane and tail. Maybe he holds his head up a little higher, and flicks his tail so that a few of the sparks shine bright in the daylight before fading away. All for her appreciation, of course, and definitely not for his own satisfaction.
But as much as he enjoys her attention there’s no way to help the fact that Laurelin also loves the way her smile turns both soft and bright at his question. She eases closer and it’s his turn to admire her - from the way her wings are consumed by light to the burning glow deep within her eyes. He cannot help but take a little step closer, bumping his nose against hers accidentally in the process and smiling wide afterwards. Privately, he wrestles with whether he prefers her eyes as they are (because they are magnificent - or how they were before (because it had been easier to see his own reflection in them).
Easing back as she settles her wings - this might be the point where Laurelin says ‘no no, we’re equally pretty’ - and maybe they are - but it’s too easy to quip back with dancing eyes: “Second prettiest is still pretty good.”
And her question is pretty easy to answer too - nothing much happens in his life. “I have been! Nothing to complain about. How about you?” And surprise surprise, he's actually interested in the answer.
It does not escape her notice that they are both older now, both grown from that adolescent awkwardness of lanky legs and short, bristling manes, of bodies too slender and faces too soft with youth. He had been beautiful then, she can remember how even in the dark he had been like a shining blue gem, sparkling with the lights of those rising embers that seemed to drift from him endlessly. But that beauty is different now, and still somehow the same - so maybe it is Aureline herself that has changed.
She notes the same bright blue eyes that sparkle with something like mischief or arrogance, something that seems to make it so easy for her to accept the sparks that rise from him since he is likely a living spark. He is even the same shade of blue from her memories - pure enough to be a gem, bright enough to put every sky and ocean and wildflower to shame for being less. But the lines of his body are longer now, filled out with age and a kind of sinuous strength that hadn’t been there before.
The difference between stallion and colt.
It means that it feels a little different now when he leans in to study her eyes, different when she wonders with a kind of quiet shyness inside her chest what it is he thinks of her molten fire. It is the difference of wanting to be seen and wanting to remain invisible just in case what he sees inside her is less than he was expecting. In case she is less.
It is why she does not ask him what he thinks after he’s spent that moment studying her.
It is why something like doubt flowers inside her chest when he makes no direct acknowledgement of whatever it is he observes of her.
“I’ve been well too.” She says with a smile because all lies are best delivered with the impression of levity. “Nothing to complain about.” She repeats, holding onto this smile that only just barely reaches the molten red-gold of her eyes. Nothing except nightmares that never let her sleep, nothing except her worst moments relived a dozen times every night. But these beasts are hers to wrestle with, not hers to share. The only sign of her careful lie comes in the delicate fracturing of the joy across her face, a moment where the dark creeps through to dampen her shine and draw shadows like living pain across the light of her irises.
In the moment that follows, she is clumsy and indelicate, fumbling with this weight inside her chest and the wish to show Laurelin nothing more than an easy smile. To let him see none of the ugly jaggedness hidden beneath the glow of her golden skin. Could she learn to be whole again if only by pretending? By practicing? So she searches for a question that touches no depths, softens a gaze made momentarily tense with doubt. “Do you live here? I don’t think I ever asked before. It would make it a lot easier to find you if I knew where to look.” And this smile, at least, is something soft and sincere in it’s quiet luminosity.
aureline
dear wilderness, be at your best
her armor is thin as the fabric of her dress
Laurelin is not accustomed to seeing pain so he does not immediately recognize the look that fractures across Aureline’s features - but he does pick up on the variation between it and her smile. He doesn’t know how to ask if something is bothering her, especially after she just said she was well and had nothing to complain about. She wouldn’t lie would she?
Lying is another thing he doesn’t know to expect, like pain. So Laurelin is left feeling confused and having absolutely no idea what to do about it - except to know that he really does not like the feeling at all.
She changes the subject a moment later, so he smooths over his own worries and focuses on the soft smile she wears now. “I don’t really have a home, I just sort of wander.” It has never been something he really thought of before now. It did not bother the blue stallion to not have one place he favoured over another - they were all the same. Every spot he was in was the best spot because he was there. However he does like the idea of Aureline being able to find him easier, so he adds as his grin grows. “But I might consider getting one if it means you’ll come looking for me more.”
Now, he just isn’t sure where that might be. Somewhere on the coast or by the river perhaps?
It takes no effort at all this time to return the question - either as inspiration to help him think of somewhere he could live or because he is genuinely curious. Even Laurelin probably wouldn’t be able to say for sure which is the actual reason, though very likely it is simply an equal measure of both. “What about you, where can I find you usually?”
