The winds of change, the call him now, whistling a tune to rouse him from his fitful slumber.
It is only a few hours before dawn, the sky a deep navy with a splatter of white, hot stars against it. The crescent moon gives little light, drawing long shadows in it’s eerie silver luminescence, stretching the limbs of trees to make them seen crooked and nightmarish. A farce, the whole thing. He knows his glassy green eyes play tricks and his head seems to spin and tilt as he blinks them open and watches the night.
It won’t be long now.
Crickets trill in the drying grasses, the fading stalks swaying like the waves of the ocean, a uniform expanse of green bending in rhythmic time. An owl whoo’s, a sound he has never truly enjoyed, their glowing, yellow eyes had always seemed to know that which he did not. As he turns his head to find the creature, his breath hitches, rattling from his lungs like a caged animal. The very air straining to draw itself within his chest cavity. A wheezing follows and he winces, wishing himself away from the pain. He need not wake her, he was so rarely quiet now.
Instead of voicing his discomfort, he gulps it down, swallowing loudly and looking at the bruised colored mare. A small smile manages, she has been so kind, kept close and he can’t think of a time she ever complained about his inadequacies as of late. The way he nearly fell every time he stood, the way his legs shook as wildly of the leaves of a tree in a gale. Yesterday he had coughed up blood, the sticky red wetness painting the earth and rocks where it fell- she did not recoil from the sight. He almost did, grimacing as he looked upon it with an almost empty stare.
There was no hiding that, there was no fixing it either.
She did not complain, she consoled, she pressed her inky mouth to his thinning form and he felt needed, loved even- if it could be so. And there were so many hollows for her lips to find, most of his once thick muscles had long disappeared from beneath their earthy-colored wrappings. Each rib pressed its way forward, easily seen and protruding with an alarming definition. Nothing he ate made any attempt to leave evidence of his efforts behind, he had become less and less hungry too, What was the use?
He stretched his blackened nose to her, finding her stomach and though it was barely rounding he knew all too well that, come spring, she would be a Mother.
“Malis,” he said gently, his voice came in haunting whispers now. “I have to go,” he did not say where, or why, he didn’t need to. Instead he fumbled to his legs, struggling to get them beneath his body where they belonged, he would need them for just a moment longer. It was hard, that long walk, picking his way to the Beach carefully because he could not afford to be careless.
An hour passed, maybe more, maybe less. The rush of the waves finding the shore was soothing and he collapsed to the earth, one side heavily against a rough rock. The water could not reach him here, but he could see it, he could smell it everywhere, and he did- raking in the scent and sighing. A gull called, parlaying the coming dawn to the roosts that no doubt littered the craggy surface of the cliffs not far behind them. Coughing he eyed the horizon, waiting the sun, wishing one new day, one more hour to feel the damp sand beneath him and memorize the churning music of the sea.
“Will you name them,” he began, racing to breathe, to get enough air to speak. “If it is a boy, call him Knight and for a girl, name her Noble. Will you?” His earthy head turned to her, locking his pale green eyes to hers, hoping he did not ask too much. He always seemed to be asking for things now, mostly help but it still made him feel like a burden. Like she had given him so much and he had given her so little.
Perhaps, before she can answer, the sun breaches the horizon, bleeding orange and pink and yellow above the azure water. Killdare turns away, staring off into the distance and letting the heat from the golden rays warm his face. His eyes close and he smiles, opening them to take in the sunrise for the last time and a pause, a heartbeat of stillness. “Malis?” he asks, twisting back to find the familiar face, that he knows will accompany the scent that has been woven through the very arteries of his heart. They are no longer empty and forgotten, those glass-green eyes, they are knowing, his memories flooding him and warming his blood. Something he had not felt in a long time.
Gently he lays his head back, using the stone behind him for support as he watches her and then the sun and back to her again. Tracing her features without fingers, finding those curves of her jaw that must have tasted of his own lips he had kissed them so much. “Thank you,” he breathed, the luster slowly fading from the depths of his irises. “For such an amazing life,” there was nothing more after that, he became still as he looked out over the waves, out towards the place where nothing hurt anymore, somewhere a broken body wasn’t needed.
KILLDARE
once a king, always a soldier, and forever a boy
who loved the ocean
lover of
engelsfors, dacia, and malis
father of
vercingetorix, arkzenkiel, raelle, hellbane, mortal, victra, ivo, roque, milia, noble, ivy and knight
Malis, you were never meant for broken things. I love you, more than this life <3