09-13-2018, 11:06 PM
The world is standing still around them after Brennen speaks. He stands, rock still on the outside but quavering on the inside. Scorch holds his gaze, steady, and that is enough to keep him from totally shattering. There’s minute changes in her facial and body language, and he watches it but he doesn’t see. At this point, he can’t do anything but wait for her response. Anything else would be a total overload on his brain; even now, the tight hold he’s forged on his magic is slipping. The water some distance from them on the shore begins to tremble, as if of it’s own accord, which residents may have noticed over the past months but not as much recently.
Her eyes go unfocused and strange and he can feel something moving in the air around them, currents of power he knows he could tap into now, if he wanted. Avenues of the magic he hasn’t tried to explore, better left to those who have already mastered them, unless dire need arises for him to try. The bay stallion keeps his eyes trained on her face, waiting. As the moment stretches, it almost reaches the breaking point but before it can snap like an overstretched rubber band, Scorch steps closer to him, pressing their bodies together and relieving the tension. Somehow he raises his head or she lowers hers, negating the slight difference in their heights and allowing her to whisper into his ear. Brennen almost crumples again, but she has slid into the empty space between them, bracing him up.
A pause, after she shares the girl’s words, and he is silent to process. He has no doubts that it is the words of his daughters – he wouldn’t have doubted Scorch anyway but the words ring in his head in their voices, because it is them. The overflowing passion and youth of Khaeli, the ageless calm of Alonwy. He is taking a shuddering breath when she speaks again, and it catches in his throat. His control slips another notch, and flowers and new leaves start to bloom in the foliage around them where there shouldn’t be any.
Scorch has had one lover, one mate, for always.
That isn’t how Brennen has lived his life. Currently, he is mostly monogamous, and most of the world has mistaken that for completely monogamous. And he loves Galilee, and their family, in a way that is different from how he has loved others. She is certainly the first to settle down beside him, the first to be the Queen to his King, the first who was not someone politically powerful when Brennen became enamored. But she is not the first he has loved, and she won’t be the last. Nor is Scorch the first for whom he suspected he had feelings on which he had accepted he would never act. He’d loved another before who had been devoted to another, and he had learned how to be friends and nothing else. He’s accepted, in the part of his mind that is allowed to consider it, that Scorch would only ever be a good friend, a best friend, who loved her husband.
She is still a best friend who loves her husband, just as Brennen still deeply loves Galilee, but her words change everything. He shivers at her touch but leans into it, lowering his head and returning the light touch along her shoulder, down her side before he lifts his head back to whisper in return. “I love you too.” Little lights spark along his skin, and hers, tingling and fizzing faintly but not causing any harm. “You’ve always been something special.” Brennen waits for her to move again, to initiate, because he doesn’t want to regret it. He doesn’t want to regret a moment of it, because it’s something he doubts they will ever let themselves do again, in the light of another day. It feels right now, and he doesn’t want it to feel any other way tomorrow.
Her eyes go unfocused and strange and he can feel something moving in the air around them, currents of power he knows he could tap into now, if he wanted. Avenues of the magic he hasn’t tried to explore, better left to those who have already mastered them, unless dire need arises for him to try. The bay stallion keeps his eyes trained on her face, waiting. As the moment stretches, it almost reaches the breaking point but before it can snap like an overstretched rubber band, Scorch steps closer to him, pressing their bodies together and relieving the tension. Somehow he raises his head or she lowers hers, negating the slight difference in their heights and allowing her to whisper into his ear. Brennen almost crumples again, but she has slid into the empty space between them, bracing him up.
A pause, after she shares the girl’s words, and he is silent to process. He has no doubts that it is the words of his daughters – he wouldn’t have doubted Scorch anyway but the words ring in his head in their voices, because it is them. The overflowing passion and youth of Khaeli, the ageless calm of Alonwy. He is taking a shuddering breath when she speaks again, and it catches in his throat. His control slips another notch, and flowers and new leaves start to bloom in the foliage around them where there shouldn’t be any.
Scorch has had one lover, one mate, for always.
That isn’t how Brennen has lived his life. Currently, he is mostly monogamous, and most of the world has mistaken that for completely monogamous. And he loves Galilee, and their family, in a way that is different from how he has loved others. She is certainly the first to settle down beside him, the first to be the Queen to his King, the first who was not someone politically powerful when Brennen became enamored. But she is not the first he has loved, and she won’t be the last. Nor is Scorch the first for whom he suspected he had feelings on which he had accepted he would never act. He’d loved another before who had been devoted to another, and he had learned how to be friends and nothing else. He’s accepted, in the part of his mind that is allowed to consider it, that Scorch would only ever be a good friend, a best friend, who loved her husband.
She is still a best friend who loves her husband, just as Brennen still deeply loves Galilee, but her words change everything. He shivers at her touch but leans into it, lowering his head and returning the light touch along her shoulder, down her side before he lifts his head back to whisper in return. “I love you too.” Little lights spark along his skin, and hers, tingling and fizzing faintly but not causing any harm. “You’ve always been something special.” Brennen waits for her to move again, to initiate, because he doesn’t want to regret it. He doesn’t want to regret a moment of it, because it’s something he doubts they will ever let themselves do again, in the light of another day. It feels right now, and he doesn’t want it to feel any other way tomorrow.