"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 constellation of tears on your lashes burn everything you love, then burn the ashes
The winter air did not bite at his flesh; rather, he didn’t feel it even if it did. There were few things that gave him any sort of pause, and the weather was not one of them. He had stopped feeling a long time ago, anyways. Feelings hurt, and he had been dealt a lifetime of hurt. Nowadays he was little more than a rack of bones wrapped in dull black fur, a gaunt neck draped in a tangled mess of mane. Where once had been a raven-black stallion now stood a haggard beast who had been cruelly cheated by death. More than once he had begged for death to come to him, to rip the beats from his chest and the air from his lungs. But death did not take kindly to the whinings of a heart broken skeleton man and so, it ignored him. He was too much of a coward to seek death out himself. So he languished here in his half life, wanting for that which would not, could not, come true. When she had left so had the spark he had for life.
If the lands were different, he didn’t notice. They meant less than nothing to him if she wasn’t here to brighten the landscape. Foolishly, he looked for her, just as he always did. His brain knew what a stupid thing it was to do but the heart still begged him to do it anyways. Just as always, she wasn’t there. With a sigh, he lowered his finely carved head, moving his lips absentmindedly over the snow. Food lacked taste no matter the season. The wind bit bitterly against his ribs, and he furrowed his brow. For some reason the winds felt different to him, as if they carried more than the snow from the mountain peaks. Something like a whisper, or perhaps the caress of a lover. He had felt like this before though, and always he had been disappointed. It did not stop him from holding on to the fools dream, of course. With his dull eyes to the tree line, he waited to see if this time was going to be any different.
and sometimes i don't know which way to go; and i've tried to run before, but i'm not running anymore
She is a shadow of what she had once been - frail, thin and worn down by the many moments that had passed her by. What was once supple with powerful, sinewy muscle now lay flat and rigid against her delicate frame. Her angular features, always so prominent, becoming sharper with age - gaunt, as there is little but remnants of what had once been hanging precariously from her tired old bones. There was no explanation for it - she should have died long ago; she should be the very ash that her children inevitably had become - a decrepit, lifeless pile of bones, washed away by the ravenous sea. But alas, she is not, and she is forced to wander alone.
Instead, she is forced to wander, awakened by the unyielding trembling of the soil beneath her, as everything she had once known suddenly no longer existed. The wrath had been imminent; a greed and thirst for power by so many had driven Her to unleash a reckoning upon them, and Texarkana had merely been caught in the current - swept under by Her powerful hand, and stirred from her restless slumber in the wake of it. She cannot see - no, not anymore, not in many years - but she can sense the shift; she can feel the atmospheric change festering within the tender marrow of her fragile bones and it is all at once overwhelming.
Where once vibrant, searching doe eyes once thrived, now settled into a milky white. Her sight had been stolen by the many days, weeks, and months that had long since passed. She surely deserved Death, but Death had been kind (or perhaps cruel) to her, instead taking her precious birthright in exchange for an unwanted eternity alone. Her heart is calloused and scarred and would never be as it had been so long ago, within his gentle grasp, and so she is aimless and quiet, seeking nothing and no one as her heart longs for an end.
The soft caress of the breeze, though frigid, is her only reprieve, and yet it is more forceful - urging her away from the shadow of the thicket she so often sought refuge in. Her eyes, blank and sightless, stare ahead as the wind weaves its way through her tangled, matted tresses, pressing her forward though her pounding heart (when had it last stirred so?) told her not to - and then, there - there, interlaced betwixt the scent of sleet, of mud and pine, his scent calls out to her. With her heart hammering against the confinement of her thin rib cage, she moves forward with a fluid grace she had once thought was gone, chin pointed towards the dreary, dully painted sky of gray.
"Devi?" she breathes, uncertainly, knowing too well how her hopeful yearning had disappointed her before.
a constellation of tears on your lashes burn everything you love, then burn the ashes
The change of the wind was subtle, but it was there. It was not the icy bite of winter, but something more, something profound and meaningful. His ears pounded with the strain of listening so hard and he hardly dared to breath for fear he would miss a whisper. The only movement he made was a fluttering of his nostrils as he drank of the wind, filling his lungs as if he would never get another chance. And suddenly, there it was, that all too familiar sweetness he had missed for so long. It smelled of flowers, though he knew there were none here in the dead of winter. The scent in his nostrils brought on a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, taking him back to a simpler time when love was all they had and all they ever needed. Though his body betrayed him for the old stallion he was, his eyes were alight with the fire of his youth. He hadn’t felt this feeling in years; he had forgotten he could feel this way. When they had parted, she had snuffed out any fire that was in his soul. But now the signs were clear, and his heart leapt frantically at the realization.
It was her.
Though he was longing to run to her, he did not move. A part of him still feared her to be a mirage, a part of his foolish hopes. But then she spoke, and his fears were blown away with the bitter mountain air. “Devi?” she whispered and at first he could only nod for his voice seemed to have temporarily left him. “Yes.” he choked back at last, stepping forward and bridging the gap between them. “Is it really you? Texarkana? Is it really you?” His voice was teetering on the thin edge of tears but he did not care; let them fall, his heart screamed. He noted the milky white of her eyes and his heart leapt out to her, but he knew she wouldn’t want his sympathy. Instead, he offered her his muzzle to her muzzle. As he drank of her warm breath he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was her. With that realization he could hold the tears back no longer. They fell in earnest after having been held back for so long. They froze to his lashes and his cheeks and still they came. “Oh Tex…” he whispered, moving forward to push his chest to hers, to drape his neck over her withers. Her warmth was like home, and he loathed to ever leave it again.
and sometimes i don't know which way to go; and i've tried to run before, but i'm not running anymore
The frigidity of the air has little impact on her - though her skin may be thin and her bones frail, there is a warmth that envelopes her as the rough, rugged whiskey-rich of his dry voice slices through the atmosphere. It touches her cheek, traveling down the length of her spine and spreading across her jagged hipbones and down around the swell of her belly - a comfort she had not known in so very many years, and it too evokes unshed tears to the milky white of her eyes. Though she cannot see him, she can feel him before he has even drawn near to her, the gentle vibration of his voice a crooning siren's call to her weary, aching heart.
Her whiskered lips press against the corner of his mouth, feeling him, tasting him - traveling along the bony ridge of his forehead, lipping softly at the forelock that lay haggardly over his eyes. She longed to look into them again, to see beneath the fortified wall that he had so carefully drawn around himself, to see the endless sea of yearning in his own gaze - but she can do without, for the tremble and sorrow in the shakiness of his words is more than enough to tell her of his own heartbreak.
Her breath is warm and sweet against the hollow of his chest, where her lips rest for a long moment, tasting the sweat that has gathered along the tired bones beneath her greedy, ravenous mouth. Though she cannot see him, she can taste him, feel him, sense him and it is enough yet never enough, all in the same bittersweet breath. Unshed tears are soon unleashed, traveling down along the curve of her cheekbone and trickling off of her rounded jawline, staining her dark russet skin as her heartstrings become unraveled from the tangled mess he had left them in so long ago.
"It's me," she breathes, a ragged sob bubbling inside of her chest, threatening to burst free from its wiry grasp at any moment. "it's me, Devi." She can taste the salty brine of his tears, reminding her of the rise and fall of the roaring sea, reminding her of a simpler time and a simpler place, when nothing but his fervid kisses and soft caresses mattered. "I've missed you so," she murmurs, entangling her long, elegant neck with his, enveloping him close to her raggedly beating heart.
