you're the pulse that I've always needed (any)

[Lea]

The first thing she’s aware of is that she can’t breathe.


The air is hot and thick and a layer of something cold and alien lies right against her skin.  Her lungs scream for air and she struggles, lashing out.  Her hoof first connects, then breaks through something solid and a thin trickle of cool air reaches her throat.  She relaxes for a moment, trying to catch her bearings.  

What’s the last thing she can remember?  There had been a stallion, a winged stallion …

Her mind struggles to grasp the memory, but it slips away.  Something had happened.  Something bad.  But there’s no point in worrying about it now - the fact that she’s trapped is rather more pressing.  She lashes out again, breaking another small hole in whatever’s covering her.  What slow work.  A thought hits her and she grimaces.  “Oh you idiot.”  Her eyes close and she feels outward, mentally probing the substance around her.  There.  A weakness!  She pushes outward, forcing her power through the fissure.  She strains for one desperate moment … then crack!  The layer falls away and she lies free and open in the cool air.  She stands quickly, orange eyes darting about.  Where on earth is she?  She’s surrounded on sides by towering, intricate marble pillars and outside, an unfamiliar forest waits.  A monolithic gazebo in the middle of nowhere.  “What the hell?”

She steps forward through the gazebo’s only entrance, her eyes and ears straining for any sign of nearby life.  As she steps out into the trees, her surroundings suddenly become vaguely familiar.  She knows this place … 

Her head begins to swim.  In her mind’s eye, a stallion stands before her, strange and threatening.

She remembers.  She remembers everything.  “Oh god!”

She rushes forward, hooves travelling a path that is suddenly intimately familiar.  But her mind doesn’t dwell on her surroundings.  She has to find him.  “Errant!”

lea

you're the pulse that I've always needed

[Errant]

when my time comes around lay me gently in the cold dark earth He is halfway to Mountain (ready to lay into the black king for his failure to protect the youngest of the brothers) when he feels it. He is there in the space between heartbeats, and the hoof that had been ready to land of the permafrost of the tundra settles instead on the damp sod of the Dale. “Lea?!” He yells, knowing that she is here but unable to see her. His grey eyes dart to movement on a nearby hill, where a black figure crests and is silhouetted against the bright blue sky. Errant is repeating her name in his head as he races forward, trusting his hooves more than his magic, and he barrels into Lea. The impact might be enough to knock her back but he wraps his thick neck over hers and holds her as tightly as he can. She is cool and there is still ice in her mane, but Errant is impervious to discomfort until he realizes that perhaps he might be making it more difficult to breathe. He pulls back, but not far, and runs his muzzle along her neck, he withers, he cheek anywhere he can reach. “Lea”, he says, and this time it is a whisper instead of a shout, quiet and adoring and finally an audible embodiment of all the love he has had no place to put these last dozen years. All the love that has been pooling into his chest and lungs and spilling out into jonquils and hyacinths of every color that grow and bloom in seconds instead of weeks at their feet. “Lea, Lea, Lea.” e r r a n t no grave can hold my body down i'll crawl home to her

the feeeeeels

[Lea]

She’s full of confusion and fear. She should be hurt, should be injured. That stallion had attacked her, beat her. She can remember it, can remember the pain and the blood dripping into her eyes. And yet here she is, all in one piece.

Had Errant healed her? But where is he? And why the marble gazebo? Why that cold thing holding her down to the ground? She runs through the trees, her panic and confusion increasing with her speed. What the hell is going on?

And suddenly he’s there. And everything else fades away.

“Errant!” He launches himself at her like he’s a drowning man gasping for breath, and she is the air. Part of her registers that, for a stallion not prone to large outbursts of emotion, this is out of the ordinary, but the thought disappears as she leans in to his almost crushing embrace.

It returns however when he pulls back, soft muzzle running over every part of her he can touch, repeating her name over and over and over. Something’s different. Something’s wrong. “Errant, what’s going on?” She pulls back, trying to meet his eyes. “I woke up in a marble gazebo, with something holding me down. What happened?”

lea

you're the pulse that I've always needed

[Errant]

when my time comes around lay me gently in the cold dark earth “You died,” he tells her, and the words fall more easily than he had expected them too. He’s been repeating them to himself like a mantra for the past decade though; their ease should not surprise him. “I couldn’t save you.” He had tired – oh how he had tried – but she remained still. He had built the monument around her, a reminder to them all that Lea was there, that she would not be forgotten. Errant can just see it over her shoulder, perched on the crest of a hill, but with no central shrine there is no purpose for it. “I’ve missed you,” he says, as though he has not said just as much without words. Errant does not like that she has pulled away - he would prefer to feel her warm beside him – but he does not pressure her. He meets her orange-flecked eyes with his own, and he smiles more genuinely than he has in years. He had lost all hope he would see her again, and though he has continued to try, he has always considered his effort to be in vain. They were payback, he had been telling himself, strain on his part for the brief time of happiness that he had been able to experience. In the back of his mind he has been processing Lea’s confusion, her disorientation, the images of a greenish stallion that he can see beside her. No time has passed for her, he realizes, her ‘death’ has only just occurred. “You were gone for twelve years,” He tells her, and his voice is low, gentle. That is a long time to be away, he thinks, but an even longer time to suffer. “Do you remember anything?” e r r a n t no grave can hold my body down i'll crawl home to her

I think it’s been twelve BQ years, right? O.o
If not, just pretend he said however many it’s actually been =P

[Lea]

“I … I died?!”

It’s hard to believe. After all, here she is, pressed up against him, feeling his heart beat beneath his dark coat. But that tone in his voice, that pain. She knows it’s true. “How?” She asks but she can guess. She can still remember that green-tinged stallion approaching her, the sinister look on his face …

She leans in deeper to his embrace, shaking off the memory and trying in some way to wash away the pain she can sense in him. “I’ve missed you too.” She has, though for her it seems like only days since she saw him last. How long has it been for him?

And then he drops the bomb. “Twelve?!” She staggers back a step, staring. Twelve years? Twelve?! “But …” She can’t even find the words. Twelve years is such a long time!

She composes herself, breathing in deeply. There’s nothing she can do about it. What’s done is done. She’s here now. “Tell me everything.” She has to know what’s happened in her absence. “What of our children?” Anxious Fracta, quiet Abigael, fiery Lyric, willful Laiken, naive Linnaea, youthful Aena and Ianto, energetic Carys … how have they fared in the last twelve years? “And what of the Dale?” She can’t get much of a picture of the kingdom from this isolated spot. The place could be in ruins for all she knows. Hopefully Lionel hasn’t run it into the ground … though twelve years later, is he even king any more?

Then finally, but perhaps more importantly. “If you couldn’t save me then, why am I here now?”

lea

you're the pulse that I've always needed

[Errant]

when my time comes around lay me gently in the cold dark earth There is no need to confirm the answer to her question, but Errant nods regardless. It must be such a strange thing to grasp, that death had occurred and then – all of a sudden – it had not. That is the type of magic that Errant does not understand and knows that he had best not try; that is the type of magic that might drive him mad. He’s pulled from that dark thought by her second question, and he answers with a single word: “Kars.” The green stallion is long gone from Beqanna and Errant hopes that he is dead. He hopes, too, that the death had been painful and horribly drawn out, but eve that would not be enough of a punishment for his sins. He waits as Lea reconciles herself with the time that has passed, knowing that such a feat must not be easy. He is patient though, and understands when the first thing that she asks about is the child. “I’ve not seen any of them in years,” he says, but that is with his physical eyes. They both know that he knows where they are, and Errant tells her. “Fracta, Abigael, and Ianto have left Beqanna. Aena has a family of her own near the Gates. Carys and Laiken are alive.” He’s not looked for them overmuch, well aware that with their dark coats they would have reminded him far too much of their mother. “Lyric ruled the Dale after you,” he says, neglecting for now the intermediate magical queens. They were not important, after all. “She passed away in childbirth several years ago.” That hurts to say, but it is better than keeping it inside. “We’re grandparents fifteen times over, and great grandparents as well.” She asks about the Dale, and Errant tells her that “Tiphon rules here now.” Then she asks a question that Errant is not entirely sure how to answer. Had he been the one to save her? She’d not called out during a period of his concentrated effort (though those occurred only every few months, and more recently – years. “I don’t know,” he finally admits, “But does it really matter? You’re back now.” And he has no intention of ever letting her go again. e r r a n t no grave can hold my body down i'll crawl home to her

[Lea]

Kars.

The name sends a shiver down her spine. She remembers it - he’d been mentioned in passing to her once or twice. A close companion of Queen Elite of the Valley.

It must have been him then. The green-tinged stallion with damaged wings. He must have been the one that killed her. “What happened to him?” She hopes he’s dead. She hopes he suffered.

But that’s not what is most important. Her children, their children, are what’s important.

It saddens her to know that so many of them have left Beqanna behind. But when she really thinks about it, she supposes it shouldn’t surprise her. There had been so much pressure on their children to succeed. Fracta in particular. It makes sense that it would drive them away. She hopes that it’s not too late to make amends.

Her ears perk when he mentions that Aena has a family. Does this mean that she has grandchildren? But she doesn’t interrupt - he’s not done speaking. She wishes he knew more of their children, but she isn’t angry that he doesn’t. She can’t imagine what it’s been like for him. If he had died and she had been the one left behind …

It would have crushed her.

“Oh Lyric …” She swells with pride when he mentions that Lyric had ruled the Dale after her, but that pride is quashed when he reveals the unhappy end. Dead. Her fiery little spotted girl. “Oh …” Her breath hitches and tears threaten at the corners of her eyes. God she’s missed so much.

She manages a tiny smile when he mentions grandchildren, and her mouth drops when he reveals that they are even great grandparents now. Twelve years is such a long time. How will she ever catch up?

She barely hears it when he mentions that Tiphon is ruling now. She remembers the stallion, but barely gives it a second thought. With all the news of her own family, the Dale seems to pale in importance. “Do you know anything of Linnaea?” She won’t blame him if he doesn’t. Her beautiful little girl, born of rape, and thrust through so much turmoil. She had been so broken after realizing Oskar’s betrayal. Lea would be surprised if she had stayed in Beqanna.

“No, it doesn’t matter.” She leans into him even more deeply. “I’m so sorry.”

lea

la la la, some text here

[Errant]

when my time comes around lay me gently in the cold dark earth “He’s gone,” Errant tells her, sensing that Kars is not what she most wants to talk about. For a while he is quiet, letting her absorb all of the knowledge of what has happened in the last decade. “She had a good life,” Errant reassures Lea, sensing her sadness at their death of their dragon-like daughter. “She wouldn’t want you to mourn for her.” Lyric had lived a life like fire, bright and too short. He cannot imagine any other life for her though, and he had seen her more frequently than the other children. “Perhaps you can meet her children,” he says gently, “and Linnaea’s too.” He had known, in his way, that she’d ask about the girl. “Linnaea has passed too. She had a good life in the Amazons though, and had a man who loved her.” It is the softer version of the truth, but one that he thinks might be best for Lea. She has only just returned from the ghost realm herself, after all, too much talk of death can’t be for the best. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” He tells her, wrapping his neck around her and pulling her tightly to him. A stray hyacinth from his previous expression of flowers has somehow found its way into her mane, and he tucks it there a little more firmly. It’s orange, the precise shade of the flecks in her eyes. “You’re here now, and that’s what matters.” He’s said it before but he means it; Errant wants Lea to be certain that he does not blame her for her absence. “Will you stay here, do you think?” He asks, looking out at the rolling hills of the Dale. It is a nice enough kingdom, he knows, but it is not his home. “You can come to the Tundra, too. I’d like to be able to see you all the time.” They had never spent enough time together before. They both had a kingdom to run, and while their time together was passionate (they have a half-dozen children as proof) it was not plentiful. “I’d make it warm, for you.” He adds with a smile, knowing that the chilly place is not exactly hospitable despite his loyalty to it. e r r a n t no grave can hold my body down i'll crawl home to her

[Lea]

There is some comfort in knowing that the stallion that killed her is dead.  That he will never trouble her again.  But it’s not enough to wash away the pain of knowing how much she has missed.  

She’s missed her children ruling kingdoms, grandchildren being born … great grandchildren being born!  She’s been out of their lives for so long.  How can she even begin to re-enter them?  And in some cases, like Lyric’s, she will never have the chance …

She perks up a little when Errant suggests she might have the chance to meet Lyric’s and Linnaea’s children.  It does not make up for Lyric’s death, but it’s something, and she clings to it.  “I’d like that.”  But that comfort is short lived, after Errant reveals Linnaea’s passing.  Two of her children, dead and gone.  “I’ve missed so much.”

He tells her she has nothing to be sorry for, but she can’t help it.  She hasn't been there for him or their family in 12 years, even if through no fault of her own.  A ghost of a smile crosses her face when she sees the hyacinth that he’s tucked in her mane.  She’s always loved his little gestures of affection.

Then he asks after where she will stay and she pulls away, thinking.  “I …”  What will she do?  She’s known no other home but the Dale since she was only a yearling.  But …

“I don’t think so.  The Dale was my life for so long.  I think I need something else now.  Something more.”  She needs time with her family.  With Errant.  Besides, staying here would only make her think of Lyric now.  She chuckles when he says that he’ll make it warmer, and a real smile finally appears on her face, as small as it is.  “You’d better!”

lea

you're the pulse that I've always needed