"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
There was a brokenness inside him. An ache that never quite went away. A hollow, gaping void in his chest, always reaching, grasping for something that wasn't there. Stolen away or destroyed. Gone and empty, but bleeding out his pain. Bleeding and bleeding and never slowing, always flowing. Dripping sadness and sorrow, so much hurt.
It hid behind a dark face, behind blue eyes and a steady stare. He'd stopped patrolling, his face upturned to the sky. What was once his time to hunt as a wolf was now a walk to remember, a path through the land or around the outskirts. Alone. He knew what it was like to be up there, among the clouds and the stars with large wings of downy white cutting effortlessly through the sky. The scars at his sides burned with the memory, the muscles underneath long withered away in disuse. He never made the wings of ice anymore either. Didn't like to remember.
The beast in his mind stirred as he stared into that world he once traveled. An echo of the creature reflected the movement in his chest, maybe in his heart, as though it were in both places. Maybe it always had been. Or maybe without that foreign light, another's soul, it had the freedom to move in wherever it wished. He didn't know, didn't care to understand it. Only accepted it as a new normal. What else was he to do?
But it stirred, coiled and twisted and unraveled itself silently like a dark shadow, turning a glowing stare to his mind's eye. It never spoke, if it really was a separate being. He never needed it to, could always read its intent in the way it moved or held itself. Body language was his language too, even though this thing didn't always seem to have real form. And so he didn't turn when it signaled with a simple glance her presence, her approach. It's pleasure.
Do you remember my wings, he asked softly, as though not to wake the sleeping forest around them, eyes still staring up at the night sky, tracing slow paths among distant constellations. A sad, empty sort of smile slowly curled his lips, a hollow and short laugh from his chest. I loved sheltering Jinju and Heda beneath them. As though I could always protect them if only they could stay with me forever. Never grow older, never..learn to hate me.
He let it fade away, finding the direction of his thoughts far too deep, too vulnerable to share. A change then. Something else instead. He finally lowered his eyes, turned to settle them on her, the familiar deepwater of her hair and evergreen of her skin faded by the darkness of night, to the dark eyes shining back.
I'm glad you're here. It wasn't really enough though, was it? Didn't really say everything he meant. He had no idea he was bringing her home to an upheaval when he found her in the field that day. The changes were so sudden, so unforeseen. So painfully surprising. But necessary. Things would settle now, wouldn't they? He'd learn to.. work his way through this. Or something.
You stayed through it all, he shrugged, turned his gaze back to the darkness beneath the trees. That feels promising somehow. Almost like trust, if he still knew how to trust anyone. It felt like too frightening a thing to try lately. Maybe in time.
oh, my love, don't forsake me. take what the water gave me ..
The night always brought them together. The hour of the Wolf, some called it: a dead time of darkness when everything else stilled or was lost to hopeless dreams. Circinae herself would usually succumb to sleep, curled deftly into herself as a canine and tucked away beneath the proud, arched curve of some blood-red root hidden away in their home.
But not tonight.
Tonight she met him somewhere between sadness and longing, where he waited in his cloak of black and white to watch the stars glitter above them all. He is her planet and she is one of his many moons, drawn by an invisible force that keeps her rotating endlessly in orbit around him. She cannot escape him just as much as he couldn’t dispel her, so they continue their spacial dance in these quiet moments while the world seems to spin on without them. “Do you remember my wings?” He asks her when she finally comes to rest underneath the bough of a young sapling, its shadow painting a hard, dark line over her midsection.
Circinae remembers many things, his wings included, but this is not the object of the question. He is using her again, filling her with his guilt and shortcomings and drawing her in without even meaning to and it takes everything within her not to break the stillness of her body and close the distance between them so that she might comfort him. Not this time, though. He’d made himself clear before and the sting of that lash would never strike her heart again, if she could help it. Their eyes meet in the soft blue-black and her wolf mourns for him.
His final words cut her. “Was I the one who broke you?!” She thinks, the sound of her blood pulsing erratically in her ears, “Did I drive that knife into your back?”
She’s angry. Upset that he would push this weight upon her and drown her in his bitterness. Her head turns sharply aside, mouth pressing into a firm, sour line as she finally speaks, “What about the promise you made to all of us here?” to him. “To lead and guide us, shelter and encourage us? Have you forgotten?” She accuses, knowing better than to let her emotions speak for her, but she can’t stop herself. That fine, laurel-tinted head swings slowly side-to-side as she murmurs “If you push us all away, who’ll be left, Ruan?”
When he first met her eyes, he thought he found… something. Something he’d unknowingly needed. Understanding, maybe? But it was gone before he could put a name to it, flashed and replaced in an instant by a bright sharpness as she jerked her eyes away. He frowned, confused. He’d said something wrong again, something that upset her. He wasn’t sure what; he’d only meant to try and open up to her, share a part of him nobody else received. He quickly learned not to do that, silently rebuilt the walls that kept everyone at bay. Now, her included.
Her voice was just as sharp, had his chest tightening and his blood running cold. His stare turned hard as he listened to her accusation. What about his promise to lead them, she said, and he was only further confused. What had he said to make her think he would be doing anything different? Of course, he was staying. Of course, he was still holding his place here, leading and protecting them. The only difference was that he was alone in it now, no longer his wife at his side. Ex-wife, he reminded himself. It didn’t seem to matter how many times he thought it, he still felt like he was married.
”If you push us all away, who’ll be left, Ruan?”
He shook his head. I haven’t pushed anyone away, Circinae. What are you talking about? Well, he’d told Reagan not to return home, and nobody knew that but those directly involved, but that certainly wasn’t pushing her away. That was asserting himself and making it clear he was not one to tolerate unfaithfulness. That wasn’t anyone’s business but his and Reagan’s though, and she very well could have just come back and held her place. She chose not to. The Taigans didn’t need to know the details. He would not soil his wife’s name. Ex-wife.
oh, my love, don't forsake me. take what the water gave me ..
It was a pointless conversation, the one they were having. A road that forked one hundred times yet led essentially to nowhere. He wants to know why she’s upset, wants to act confused about his actions as of late and Circinae can see that he’s still put that arms length of protection between himself and her. She sighs, finding it hard to care that he was burrowing deeper inside of himself and keeping others from seeing in. It only reminds her that she’d probably never truly known him anyways. He’d been someone she’d met long ago, who just so happened to come across her that day in the field, and like a child she’d trusted him, opened herself up to him, fallen into those eyes and began to feel affection for him when she should have been equally as cold instead. “Jinju felt the need to apologize to me.” She sighs, slowly releasing the anger she’d been holding in for so long now.
“She thought perhaps we were getting too close, I think.” The dark mare murmurs, slipping out from beneath the shadow of her tree to face him in the dull light of the night’s twinkling ceiling. “I thought we were too,” She muses, a half-smile pulling her weary lips upwards, “especially when we came together on nights like this.”
Her smile can’t betray the hint of sadness that echoes in her voice. Soothing, low, but ebbed in disappointment. “The way you acted at our last gathering, the way you lashed out at Heda, even the way you denied my affection when you called for me - you called for me Ruan …” Circy emphasizes, her voice hitching ever so slightly as her heart stumbles inside of her chest, “... it all seemed to cast you in a different light. At least to me.”
She stops, finding that she cannot meet his gaze or hold his interest. For once, her wolf is silent. The truth will break them, she knows, and it lodges in her throat like a great stone, but it’s what he deserves. What she needs to expel from herself. “I fell in love with you. With the parts of you that seemed so wild and untamed and the parts that seemed so sorrowful and hidden. I pictured myself your equal, fancied that I had awoken something in you, too.” She admits, turning then to let her eyes sink into his.
“But I was wrong.” Circinae concludes, remembering the white wolf that had led her and Terra in the hunt. “I’ll never be Reagan and I’ll never have you, so I should stop acting upset that you don’t understand.”
Everything was getting worse. Everything was getting heavier. He'd thought if they crossed paths tonight.. that he'd find comfort in her presence, strength in her as he always had before. But that solid strength was quickly becoming a weight pushing back on him, not holding him steady. He should never hope to depend on another, even for a moment while he tries to find his feet again. He was tired of falling on his face.
And the thing in his mind. Where the hell was he? Always so intrigued when she was near and now suddenly so silent. Only a glance at him to note her presence and now gravely still.
She sighed and said Jinju felt she should apologize to Circy. Good. She had needed to apologize, she'd acted surprisingly bitter towards Circy with no apparent cause. All Circinae had ever been to her was kind. She didn't deserve that. But she continued, told him Jinju had thought the two of them were getting too close. His brows pulled together as he turned to study her, her darkened figure leaving the shadows to join him.
"I thought we were too, especially when we came together on nights like this."
He held still, frozen in place with lungs gone worthless and his heart suddenly racing. Sharp eyes searched hers, desperate. She couldn't mean that the way it sounded, could she? He'd been married, she'd known he was married. She was beautiful, breath-taking, and made him feel steady when he swore all he ever did was trip and fall. He only had to look in her eyes to feel grounded again, connected when he was so very disconnected. But he was married. Or had been. Could she really believe so little of him? That such a bond could be shed like a cloak the moment one got bored or the weight too much to bear?
Did marriage mean nothing to anyone anymore?
He felt a rage boiling up inside him. Why the hell did they think so little of him? How could they ever doubt his loyalty? Didn't anyone know him at all?
His jaw clenched tight as he waited for her to finish. Something about lashing out at Heda that didn't make a bit of sense to him. He hadn't lashed, hadn't even snapped; had only made it clear that if any of them had a problem with what was expected of them, they could leave. Silently. Why was that not okay? Then a confession, that she had fallen in love with him. At one time he may have been able to believe it, but this whole encounter was feeling more and more wrong. Is that why the beast was so silent? It no longer trusted her, no longer believed she was genuine?
And as she continued, her voice and expression so picture-perfectly sad and sorrowful, he realized what this really was. It was guilt, and it sure as hell wasn't his.
Enough. Hard and final, he stared into dark eyes and stepped forward. When he needed comfort and support, needed a friend, something already so foreign to him, he had instead found someone beating at his bleeding legs to make him fall lower. Instead of understanding; more accusations, more pain, more faults signed off in his name.
If you know me at all, you should know that I am faithful. I was married, Circinae. Doesn't matter to who -to you, to her, to anyone- doesn't matter how rocky or how happy it was, I would Never jeopardize such a union. God, and he was technically single now? Had he been married to her instead of Reagan, he'd never do wrong by her. He'd always thought that was something people would respect. He could be trusted to always remain faithful. Always.
But this wasn't really about that, was it? There was something bothering her, something itching under her skin. If she was so unhappy here with him then why did she stay?
If you don't want to be here, then leave. I won't stop you. Was that it? Did she want her freedom, an excuse to leave and never come back? Wanted to blame it on a broken heart? God, because his was surely breaking all over again. It wasn't enough to lose his wife, to be accused of things he'd never do only to find her doing those very things; he had to lose Circinae too? The one person that made him feel strong and whole when everything inside was falling to pieces. The one that had roused that damn beast in his mind as no one else had?
He wished she wasn't important to him. He wished this didn't feel like scars reopened. He wasn't enough for his wife -ex-wife. Maybe he could never be enough for her either.
oh, my love, don't forsake me. take what the water gave me ..
“Ruan,” She thinks, “stop this.”
So angry. Those lines turned down at the corners of his mouth, the distaste shining in his eyes and the challenge laid at her feet. Her ears turn, mouth splitting open as her jaw flashes brightly with an array of familiarly canine teeth. Low and guttural, a wicked growl escapes to batter back at him. He could talk to others that way, but not her. Never her. “Just listen to me, will you?” She hurls at him, snapping her fangs together while her tongue curls restlessly over the glazed, pearly whites. “Shame on you for thinking that I would entice you to be unfaithful to Reagan. Shame.” She tells him, turning the broadside of her body to him in order to shield herself should he come any closer.
“It was the longing for something I had never had, Ruan. A feeling I was swept up in. Not for one second did I fool myself into believing anything would come of it …” She explains, hurt now that they’d been forced into this position. Her eyes narrow, but she won’t stop. “Until Reagan left. I felt responsible, like I had done something terrible.” She tells him, face turning away to stare into the empty shadows surrounding them. Her teeth rescind, widening and smoothing out as the wolf recedes. “None of this is about you, can’t you see that? For once, I needed to confide in you, tell you what was going on inside.”
She’s quivering. The adrenaline and utter pain that racks her now sends her body into light convulsions, making her feel all at once as cold and vulnerable as she had been before they’d met. “I was afraid that this would happen … that I wouldn’t be able to tell you, make you see. Maybe I’m going about it the wrong way but … I don’t know Ruan. I’m so mad at myself, mad at how things turned out, mad at the world.”
Circy scoffs, eyes closing as she wishes for a sudden escape. Even wishing that she’d not come here, not come across him. Her mouth thins, eyes closing as she inhales the world she’s built around herself, the safety and comfort it gives her even now. Just being here, beneath the cover of the trees, being close to him, sets her at ease. “As far as leaving goes, that’s not up to me.” She hums, “You’re my King. You tell me what to do.”
He was swiftly getting a terrible headache, and adding his chill didn't help. Taking the chill away didn't help. And whatever the hell was happening here was not helping. What was this?
In a heavy silence, he watched her partially shift with snapping jaws and glittering, fierce eyes, his chest tight and expression hard. He thought for sure that would have stirred the beast, but no. Still it lay in its shadows, disinterested. He could have growled at it in frustration. What the hell was its deal? Whatever. Fine, he'd deal with it on his own. And it could just keep to its little corner and not bother him again. Don't complicate this anymore than it already was.
He sighed heavily as she spoke, as she continued to accuse him. No, he hadn't thought she was trying to sway him from Reagan. He'd never think such a thing of her. He just couldn't understand why she'd feel they were becoming too close when she knew he was married. Didn't she know he was faithful? God, this was getting messier as they continued. She didn't seem to understand him, the man he was, and with every breath she became more and more confusing and self-contradicting. What the hell was this?
First, she claimed that she fell in love with him. And now, it had only been a longing for a feeling, and not him at all. It had nothing to do with him, she said. So, alright. Whatever. She didn't know what she wanted, big deal. As if he hadn't had enough of that recently.
He knew one day they would clash. Their wolves were both so powerful, so fierce. He had foreseen little scuffles with her, having to re-earn her wolf's trust and loyalty for anyone but itself. He was ready for that. Eager for it, even. Wanted to be worthy for her, and her wolf. But this? This was not what he'd expected at all. This was not her strength battling his, their wills pushing against each other until one gave way in a clap of power. He didn't know what the hell this was, but his beast's continued silence told him more than enough.
It was not impressed.
He sighed again and shook his head, weary of this rift thrusting its way between them. They'd had something, hadn't they? The start of something new, something good in the midst of all the bad tumbling around him, piling at his feet. Was it gone so swiftly?
"None of this was your fault, and I'm certain you already know it. What has happened is between her and I and no other. At the fault of no other."Not even the bastard she'd-
It didn't matter.
He couldn't help it. He tugged back on his Winter, pulled it as far inside him as he could manage and stepped to her. His breath rolled against her cheek, eyes heavy-lidded with a sorrow at their tension as he drifted to her jaw. To the start of her neck where he finally lay his nose lightly against her. Another step and a tuck of his chin brought his forehead pressed into her. He breathed her scent and sighed it out.
"I'm not a King," he reminded her softly, pulling away and stepping back again, "just a man. And your life is your own. You must choose for yourself where you want it to go."Or if you want it to stay.
oh, my love, don't forsake me. take what the water gave me ..
Soft … so soft and unexpected that she closes her eyes, closes out the world around them and drinks in the moment of his support with an open heart. Behind those dark lids, however, something else takes shape. It’s gold, a warmth that counteracts the fierce and harsh cold that was building between them. Circinae imagines that he’s there (Canaan, she thinks of Canaan and her breath hitches softly) and that his nose, his forehead is pressing a gentle indention into the verdant curve of her supple neck. When she opens her eyes, only Ruan remains.
“Just a man.” She echoes, confirming what she’d known all along.
The night drinks heavily of the silence between them then, pressing in on all sides with velvet palms to suffocate every hint of anger, sadness, or confusion she’d cathartically voided. Her mind, sharp and driven with new purpose, clarifies an answer she hadn’t even known she was seeking. The shifter has nothing more to say, so she nods gently while the breeze of her exit disturbs the dark, fine hair that shades his nape. Taiga is her home, that much she knows will never change, but with the effortless adjustment of skins her steps lead her to where the border lies - a brown ghost that dreams of gilded wings brushing against her sides.
She was so soft beneath his touch, so surprisingly pliant. And so very still. He was grateful for that, most especially. Had she leaned into it or pressed for more, he wasn’t at all sure what might have happened. He was glad they wouldn’t have to find out, as she pulled back with a silent nod. In the moment before she turned away, her eyes opened to reveal a curious thing that had his head tilting and an amused smile spreading despite the tense and bizarre events that had just unfolded moments before.
Maybe she did know what she wanted after all.
The worry that this was irreparable between them melted away then. He shook his head in wonder at the confusing workings of women and grinned at her retreating back. He wasn’t sure if they’d worked things out, or if there ever was anything at all to work out in the first place, but he was glad she’d found happiness. Even as it sent a sharp spear of pain through his chest at his own situation, at everything he’d had and, in but a brief moment, at everything he’d lost.
His face sobered as he turned back to the lonely night sky. And wondered if he’d ever find a truly lasting love to match his own. But it would be such a very long time before he was ready to try. If he ever would be. Perhaps Reagan had been that one love that could never be replaced. That could never be had again.
He had his children, and this family of people he protected, cared for. He wasn't wealthy but he was rich.
Rich with blessings and a different sort of love.
A more lasting love, it seemed.
