the way you kiss me will work each time // Dawn

[Rhaegor]

and I could easily lose my mind; the way you kiss me will work each time
calling me to come back to bed, singing Georgia on my mind

Although tears prick at his own eyes, surprise jolts through Rhaegor at the sight of the same falling from Dawn's normally warm brown ones. A gut-wrenching confusion fills the boy, accentuating his stuttering voice as he tries to explain himself and the situation; but there's no way to frame this which stops him from being the villain. Before the girl opposite him even speaks, he recognizes his own shortcomings, and laments them. Oh God, he thinks, stomach dropping, I abandoned her, I abandoned my best friend.

She says his birth name, and the feelings of guilt intensify. "Dawny," he pleads, head tilting and tears dropping as if by saying her childish nickname, she might fall back into saying his, too. But she only repeats herself, and Rhae's chin flinches back towards his throat, the use of the name he'd once tried to communicate through a beam of light now a laser through his heart. That day in the playground seems a million lifetimes ago now, though; and he wonders if even a particle of him is the same now as it was then.

A hard swallow, though the lump in his throat barely obliges him this. Similarly, the stallion's eyes fail to meet the filly's as she calls herself selfish and praises him for his happiness; a combination of hurt feelings and of roiling shame mix within Rhaegor, forming something darker than he'd yet felt within himself. He wants to scream, but he only stares at the rock-strewn earth in silent misery.

As silence grows between them (awkwardly, for the first time since they met), a frown builds across the pegasus' brow. Seconds pass as the creases deepen before he glances up to the sight of Dawn trembling in the wind, perhaps a testament to the contagion, though he knows it is only a testament to the ways in which he has managed to break her. An apology ghosts across his lips at this thought, but try as he might, the words refuse to fall; instead, his jaw tightens around the words, locking them away and promising to never release them.

But Dawn steps forward, then, and the stallion visibly relaxes. The Warlander extends her pretty yellow nose, pressing it finally against the warmth and muscle of his neck. No hesitation marks Rhae's movements as he again encapsulates his best friend in his embrace, a hard, heavy sigh weighing into her as he loosens his muscles and drops his heart in her hands. Useless boy, burdening lovely girls who deserve better, who have better, who need better; when will he learn?

Quietly, he says: "I love you, Dawn."

And then: "Come to Tephra with me."

Rhaegor

@[Dawn]