"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
A fine night, Adriell observes from underneath a large oak tree. His star-studded eyes peer up and reflect the constellations that dot the velvet black sky. A smile twists across his lips because he is very much a child of the night. Grandfather was day in contrast with his luminescent coat and golden eyes. Such a marvel he was and Adriell would stare at him in awe. Never did he think to have an angel in his bloodlines (his knowledge of lineage skewed to one side). Oftentimes he would scrutinize his own reflection, but he wasn't - isn't - quite as exquisite as the stallion who raised him. The only touch of magic on his coat is the gleaming constellation of stars that ties him to nightfall. They twinkle across his left side, trying to mirror the magnificence above.
A cricket chirps nearby and his head drops in response to the instrumental bug. He doesn't try to find it, but simply listens to the workings of nature.
Nightfall is an entirely different world of its own. It's when a different array of animals poke from their dens. It's when the sun kisses the world goodbye and allows the porcelain moon to ascend its throne. Such a beautiful, but eerie, time it can be. Adriell has witnessed it both from the eyes of a horse and owl. The different vantage points create a further understanding but even then he cannot fathom the deeper intricacies of life and night. There is always to be an air of mystery.
In solitude Adriell opens his eyes and resumes watching the dance of the stars, searching for more, while listening to the music of nightfall.
There is something soothing about the ice and isolation in the Tundra. The frozen kingdom wraps itself around me and feels more like home than anywhere else I've been in my short life. But I've never been very good at belonging. And tonight no clouds veil the heavens from view. There is nothing to hide the starlight that coaxes a quiet yearning to rise in my chest. I miss my brother, my twin who'd waded in starlight on his way into the world and who'd arrived knowing he had some kind of intrinsic value. He was a presence from the beginning. The sun shone brighter on him, recognizing his radiance and reaching out to touch a kindred spirit.
I hope he's happy. That his new family has embraced him as one of their own, that his new brother will be a match for his adventurous spirit in ways I am not. Still, my skin aches with his absence, and there is a hollowness inside my ribcage, a place next to my heart that is dim and empty now that he is gone.
So I walk, my tiny hooves more restless than they have any right to be. I have a home too now, just like he does. A very nice home with a gentle, caring lady who has shown me more affection than I ever knew from my birth mother. That should be enough to hold me here. But I can't hide from the stars and I can't reach them, and all that leaves me is these wandering feet.
I am no child of the night any more than I am one of the day. Rile was both somehow, cloaked in starlight and shining like the sun. I, though...I am whispers and smoke, ephemeral and ethereal and barely substantial enough to stay solid. I keep expecting to come undone, to dissolve into ashes and dust and blow away in the wind. In the moonlight, the muddy brown-black of my coat fades to an indistinguishable shade of dark, and my scruff of a mane takes on a hint of silver instead of ashes and mist. I travel mainly through the shadows, where the motion of my tiny body is less visible, and that stripe of a baby mane and tail aren't quite so bright.
I pass a few other wanderers on my unexpected journey, and with the first I just hide in the shrubbery lining the pathway until he has walked past, striding quickly toward some unknown destination. The second call is a closer one, an aimless ambler who passes within hands of my newest hiding place before a noise catches her interest and she bounds right on past. The third is a man I stumble across, though he seems to be doing nothing but standing and staring at the stars. I can certainly understand the impulse. After all, it's what set me to roaming across unknown territory on my own tonight.
Still, I would have crept by without a second thought were it not for the glimmer of gold in the moonlight, stars gleaming on his skin proclaiming him another soul touched by the heavens like Rile. Despite my intention to stay hidden, my traitorous limbs move on their own and I find myself creeping silently forward to stand beside this star-touched stranger and join him in his stargazing. “Do they call to you too, then?” The words fall unbidden from my lips before I can catch them, a quiet murmur barely above a whisper. I watch the sky, not the man; studying his face would feel too invasive, too demanding. So I fix my gaze on the lights dancing overhead, sparing little more than a darting glance his way as I wait for his reply.
The starlight distracts Adriell from the ongoings of the meadow. There are horses all around him and yet all he hears is the chirp of the cricket nearby. There is an entirely different world up there, cloaked in velvet darkness where the stars always shine. On some nights Adriell wonders if he can fly so high as to reach them. That is a dream of his; his heart lies with the stars and one day he wants to join them even if just for the moment. Even if to simply blanket himself in the beauty before returning to earth.
Ever the dreamer, Adriell is.
A slow breath escapes him when he blinks and glances to the moon. It's partially obscured by a single cloud, giving it a mystic aura that illuminates a small area of the meadow. He takes this moment to actually see what surrounds him. With another slow blink Adriell turns his attention to what lingers in the pooled porcelain light. There's another horse grazing, a fox lingering at the treeline, and a mouse scurrying across a fallen log. What he does not see is the boy that comes from behind him. It's a voice that brings Adriell to realize that he isn't truly alone, that someone has found him amidst the crowd. He looks over his shoulder then to see the colt staring up at the night sky with awe. For a long moment silence permeates the air and he simply roves his eyes across the young boy. A smile, genuine and kind, stretches across his lips. "Do the stars not call to everyone?" The idea baffles him. How could anyone resist the beautiful starlight that kisses them to sleep every night?
"I'm happy I do not enjoy them alone," because how enjoyable can life be when experienced alone.
Do the stars call to everyone? Watching them, I can't help but wonder. They didn't seem to call to Rile. My brother had no more care for the night sky than he did for the chirping of crickets or the rustle of the wind as it stirred leaves to dancing. Life called to him, action and movement and whole world his to experience at will. But then, he was marked by starlight, swirling nebulae claiming him from the ground up as a product of the heavens. Maybe that was enough, and he didn't need them calling to him, reaching out to him, beckoning him to cross impossible distances to roll around in the twinkling, glittering diamond sky.
“I suppose I can't speak for everyone,” I find myself saying, and isn't it funny how the words just tumble out of my mouth without a care for my intentions? This stranger's star-touched skin feels familiar, though, and I'm quite unable to disengage and fade into the shadows again. “But they certainly call to me.” Like a bell ringing just out of hearing range, just a note too high to pin down, tingling down my spine and setting my skin to itching with echoes of what used to be, what could have been in another life. A simpler life, where twins frolicked through their young lives together, born to a mother who wanted them, born whole and equal instead of one so much more than the other. Or a life simpler still, where there was only ever one of us. Where I was his shadow in truth, pieces of himself he'd hidden from the world, the darkness cast by his absorption and reflection of the sun's light.
“Yes, the company is nice.” Enjoy may not be the word I would use, but it's a pleasant change, experiencing this nightly haunting with someone by my side. “I'm called...Nevi.” The nickname is still new, and it feels like a mask that lets me hide my deepest truths behind pretty sounds and artful misdirection. It gentles the desperate, clawing need in my chest, the hollowness where whole used to dwell when the world was darkness and water and a trio of heartbeats, and being held close by brother and mother both. “And you? What are you called?”
A smile touches Adriell’s lips, pleased to hear that he isn’t alone. The entire world isn’t drawn to the nightfall, the boy implies, but there are some who thrive underneath the starlit sky. ”Do you feel like you belong up there, too?” His voice is spoken lightly as though afraid he might disturb the peace around them. ”Some days I just want to keep flying, past the trees, past the clouds, and try to touch the stars.” He hums in delight at the idea of immersing himself with the intangible dream. It soaks through him and his eyes shut to imagine how beautiful it would be among the stars, but he remembers the boy and opens his eyes again to look down.
”Adriell,” he suddenly says when the crickets pause in their song, ”My name is Adriell.” The sound of his own voice is still strange, still unfamiliar. It has been months, maybe longer, since he has last heard himself. Solitude has long since silenced him, but he savors this moment where he has someone to be with. ”Why are you out here alone, Nevi?” The question could be thrown back at him, but Adriell is no longer a child. His mind still floats and dreams like one, however. ”Do you have a family or home?” How hard would it be for one so young to be entirely abandoned? As a child, Adriell was abandoned by his parents, but at least he had a grandfather to nurture him and a home. Much to his dismay, it didn’t last.
He hopes Nevi isn’t alone, that he isn’t forgotten by a family.
Even if he is, however, Adriell will remember him and be here for him.
“Do you feel like you belong up there too?” His words stab through my shattered-glass heart, and there is something so right about the quiet agony. No, never. I feel like a castaway, a rejected work of the heavens thrown away for not measuring up. Unbranded by the stars, unmarked by their light, left to drown in darkness. Picked up and brushed off and cherished by an angel with eyes too bright with love to let her see all the ways I am broken, all the ways I am not good enough, all the flaws that make me all too unworthy of her.
No, right now I don't feel like I belong, up there or otherwise. I try to feel it, surrounded by the love of a family that doesn't see darkness when they look at me. Most of the time I can sink desperate fingers into that love and feel like even jagged and broken, I can belong because they believe it so hard it can't be a lie. But I understand what it is to wish you could fly and just keep flying, to fly so fast maybe not even the dark can keep up. To chase the line of day forever, and never let night set in. So I nod, painting a smile on my face and peace into my eyes. “That sounds wonderful.” And maybe if I could fly like he says, could touch the stars, maybe their light would burn away the shadows for good.
“It's nice to meet you, Adriell,” I murmur, my voice soft in the dark between us. “I...just needed to wander some is all. I live in the Tundra, with a family that loves me dearly. No need to worry about me.” That's even almost true. There's no need for him to worry himself about my safety. I'm not alone in the world. I'm no longer a lost boy curled up in the den waiting to come undone. I am loved, I am wanted, I am the luckiest lost boy in all the world. Even if I don't deserve it. “What about you? What brings you out tonight?”
