"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
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.
Spark leaves him more and more; prefers to be left alone to the fire that runs beneath her fur. On occasion, she has burnt him and professed her love and an apology in a quick breath then disappeared, as if ashamed or secretly glad - he’s not sure which, not any more and he used to know her best, even better than her beloved Giver did. He cannot help the way his upper lip stiffens and curls upward at the thought of the stallion; Spark has not seen him, and he thinks Giver is the reason she harbors all this anger and this new fire that she sheds her skin for more and more.
Things are not as they had been when Spear and Spark were the same - just horses, bound by that and more, the bonds of twinship and ordinariness and now, now there is just this growing gulf of difference that pushes them further apart. It makes him think of the hills, now something else altogether and less interesting to him and thinking of that makes him remember his time elsewhere, far from here, and eyes in a face as long and roman as his own. Eyes that had seen as much as him, and maybe more; that saw into him and right through him even beneath all the hair that fell across her face whenever the wind blew between them, swirling their scents together until he couldn’t tell them apart from the plains beneath their feet. His mismatched eyes close in fond remembrance for but a moment, then open again to the shadow of the volcano that looms over him.
He turns his back to it, hot winds blowing his black tail against his thick hind legs as he moves down towards the sea. At least the sound of it might be enough to drown out his own thoughts for the time being, or so he hopes. He’s never liked the sea much, too rough and tempestuous for his tastes, kind of like how Spark is now. Spear grunts as he nears it, his feet throwing wet grains of sand up and away from him. He can hear the small clumps of it peppering the shoreline and beyond, the break of the waves that pounds much like his pulse in his ears.
It seems to work, he stops thinking about Spark long enough to start thinking about how the waves rise and fall like her ribcage did with every breath she took. He snorts, in dire need of a distraction from thinking about another mare in another place in a time that seems so very far from here.
Few thousand miles and an ocean away, but I see the sunrise, just like the other day.
The humidity is absent beneath the early morning sun, and as its bleak rays of light gently bathe her skin in its warmth, she is calm – much calmer than the churning, roaring sea that lay before her, as her dark eyes watch the waves break against the jagged rocks that line the shore. Her heartbeat is low and mellow, pounding rhythmically against the enclosure of her rib cage – of hardened cartilage that too often protrudes from her skin, that too often bends to her subconscious will. Yet now, as she is lost in the gentle tempo of the tempestuous sea, she is pristine, flawless – and without the protrusion of sharpened bone, which emerges from her dark flesh at the slightest disturbance.
She cannot control it yet, her bone-bending – it is as much a part of her as the blood in her veins, and so it seamlessly interlaces itself with her temperament – splitting into long, whetted spikes when irate; twisting and reshaping her slim, feminine figure into one of bulk and stature when frightened. She does not control it; she cannot control it, and though her mother is loath to admit it, she is more entwined with her superfluous magic than she.
Alas, her mother is not here – but rather, somewhere else, tucked deep within the belly of the volcanic island, and she is alone, precariously close to the precipice upon which her four (still too awkward, still too lanky) legs stand. The gentle breeze presses against her skin, and the faint mist of the crashing ocean dampens her dark, russet pelt, leaving droplets of dew entangled with her pale flaxen tresses. The salty brine of the sea obscures the ever-prevalent stench of sulfur from her, and she is at rest – forgetting about the rumbling, looming volcanic presence looming in the distance behind her.
Her silent reverie is soon interrupted by a flicker of motion near the waters’ edge, and carefully, her dark and curious gaze is settled upon the two-toned figure of alabaster and bronze. He is terse and taut, the coiled muscle beneath tight with tension – and she is intrigued. It takes a moment of careful deliberation and thought to assess her descent from her rather high, unusual perch, but after a short time of careful and precise maneuvering of her body, she is once again aligned with the sea, and sinking slightly into dampened, impacted sand.
Quietly, she moves closer as the tide comes to and fro, its warm waters enveloping her ankles before seeping back out to sea. Her cheek is tilted, with her tangled tresses hanging over the right side of her neck, dangling closer to the sand as she says, ”Maybe I’m wrong, but you look like maybe you could use a little company.”
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.
A wind rises up off the waves and blows both a scent and sea spray into his face.
He does not turn away from the brine that pelts him, but his nostrils reach for the scent of the horse that threads itself through the notes of salt and seawater. His lungs grab for the female smell that he recognizes and his mismatched eyes squeeze shut to another time and a place, a place that heard no song of the sea but of grass and wind, waves of deep green instead of the blue-black of a bruise.
How could he miss her so much?
It makes his heart constrict, a boa that squeezes then bites and he has to remember to breathe. But that smell is growing closer, edging out the brine that rims his nostrils in glistening droplets that slide against the length of his whiskers (he was ever a hairy beast!) before sliding off and splattering the sand, unnoticed and sucked back into the larger sum of tide that sucked at his feet planted deep in the sand. The sea could have swallowed him up if he let it, but she came close and closer still and provided him with a distraction even though the remembrance threatened to pull him back.
His gaze goes to her, to track the path of pale flax along her neck to the dangling damp ends that hung just above the sand beneath her small sure feet. She knows this beach better than he does, as he looks beyond her to the rocky monolith that had just been her perch as if she was a strange bird that kept watch of things only the sea and she knew about - things, that only he could guess at as his eyes came back to her as she spoke to him, his ears catching the lilt of her voice amidst the wind and the waves.
“I could,” he admits, knowing that he had been lonely too long but not sure how much of a companion he could be to her. Nothing had ever been the same since Spark’s change and the hills became something else, something other than he thought them to be and everything else became just a memory. “But I may not be the best company…” he warns her, not sure why it was necessary to say that but something in him found himself too drawn to the way she seemed to come out of rock and tide like a thing imagined, lank-kneed but almost, almost like… no, he tells himself with the slightest shake of his head, pretending to shake off the sea spray so she’d not notice the things that moved in his mismatched eyes (shadows and ghosts, and a mare of slim soft build).
Few thousand miles and an ocean away, but I see the sunrise, just like the other day.
The wayward wind has already begun to churn the sea, stirring it from its once quiet serenity – pulling it up, and drawing it back, creating a friction that produces a thick, frothing foam, which envelopes her skin, dampening it with the salty brine of the ocean. A shiver traverses the length of her spine, but she is uncertain as to whether it is because of the soft mist draping over her, or if it is because of the way he seemingly traces her faintly feminine curves, or the dark plane of her features – until his two-toned gaze is settled onto her own, a deep hazel – speckled with gold.
A faint, yet self-assured smile pulls at the corner of her mouth – dark, but there is a glint of mirth within the shadow of her eyes. Quietly, she presses past him, encircling him to come around to his right-hand side, aligning the slight curve of her hip in with his, with her petite shoulder lined up with his own. Her teeth gently tug and pull at his tangled tresses, which lay haphazardly against the thick muscle of his neck – undoing a taut, wiry knot with careful precision, before laying it still against where his pulse is heavy and loud from the steady rhythm of his heart.
”You don’t have to be anything more than you are right now,” she murmurs, casting a glance out towards the darkened waters that lay ahead – a plethora of dense, folding clouds looming off somewhere in the distance. There is a gentle rumbling in the sky, but she does not recoil against him – instead, a thread of excitement thrums within her wildly beating heart, yearning for the promise of heavy rain, for a powerful tempest to take hold of the too-still, too-quiet volcanic island.
Then, softly, ”My name is Antonia. What is yours?”
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.
Beyond, the sea begins to toss and turn.
Wind whips the airy foam to a headstrong frothe that blows onto each of them, dampening their fur. He feels it less than she does, nowhere near as sleek and slim but he senses her shiver more than he sees it because his eyes have never left her own. The deep hazel flecked with gold draws him in, as clear as a stream in which every stone can be seen. Spear is not certain which sea is more dangerous - the one that churns before them or the way her stare has become a fathomless hazel sea that he feels himself falling in. Or it could be floating, his uncertainty mounts the longer he looks at her.
He starts to see more of her - the self assurance, the mirth - the longer he is unable to take his eyes off of her. It isn’t until she presses past him and their skins touch, that he casts an imploring look to the sea, beseeching it to save him. He sees her, remembers the mare of what seems to be long ago now, and then sees her again in the confident but tender way she aligns her shoulder and hip with his. Spark used to do things like that, and he misses those soft intimations between brother and sister. But his thoughts towards her are anything but brotherly!
Her teeth undo a knot, and he cannot help but think of her and another. Spark used to do this, and that one too. Now this one, small and barely a mare but here she is, certain more than he could ever be at this moment, and she pulls the knot out of his hair with deft expert teeth and he almost sighs the instant her mouth touches that point in his neck where his pulse moves thick and steady. It almost leaps at her thoughtful murmur followed by the grumble of a storm in the distance, though his eyes do not go to it as they once might have done.
She is a compass to which he’s fixed his eyes and could not look away if he wanted to. Antonia. It is a long moment before he can murmur her name back to her, not sure if is a blessing or a curse on his tongue. Both, he decides, because she is his downfall in that moment because of how slim and sure she is, so like but unlike the one from long ago. It could be his hormones raising, influencing him but he thinks not entirely, that part of it is her soft siren charm. “Spear,” he mutters but it comes out gruffer than he intended. He tries to smile to make up for it.
“I don’t even know what I am right now, but I’m here.”
Spear has no clue if he’s confiding in her or the approaching storm, or the angry swell of the sea. But it’s said all the same and he realizes that right here is the best place to be.
Few thousand miles and an ocean away, but I see the sunrise, just like the other day.
The sea is tumultuous and turning – darkening as the pale light of the hazy sun slowly descends beyond the horizon, leaving only a remnant of daylight clutching to the very edges of a rumbling sky. Relentlessly, the atmosphere is changing – and the storm is roiling and stirring, as the thick and heavy clouds seamlessly traverse the seemingly endless expanse above.
Quietly, she presses her shoulder against his own, seeking his warmth as the once tepid air becomes much more frigid, and even more unforgiving. With her cheek pressed against the broad curve of his neck, she can hear his pulse, steady and thrumming, and it is as powerful and as tempestuous as the rising tide.
Slowly, it is shifting – the rise and fall of the salty sea is moving further up the length of her legs, eliciting a shiver – but perhaps it is moreso stirred by the heaviness within his dark eyes (one a searing, vivid crimson, and the other almost as dark as a starless evening), boring into her own. Her breath is caught then, and her once rhythmic heart is ragged again, pounding fiercely at its wiry bone confinement. His breath is soft and warm, brushing across her cheek as the intensity shared is rife with crackling electricity. Antonia, he almost whispers, and softly, she touches the darkness of her mouth against the crook of his neck, feeling his very own life force hum from within.
Spear, his rumbling, yet trembling voice manages above the deep rumbling of an ever-nearing storm, and she can hardly stifle the smile aching to pull draw the corner of her mouth up. There is a moment of hesitation after his name is uttered from his lips, before a forced smile emerges, half-hearted, but soon it wanes, once again flattened to a slim, flattened line. I don’t even know what I am right now, but I’m here.
”I think that your presence is more than enough, Spear,” she murmurs thoughtfully, the warmth of her smile radiating as her teeth once more tug with the tangle of his dark tresses, tasting the heat of morning and the small granules of sand interlaced with each strand. ”I would never ask of anything more –“ but then, a light of mischief rises to the golden flecks of her eyes, and her teeth brush across his ear, lightly tugging – and above them, the sky opens up, thick and warm and the rain is falling, falling, trickling across their skin in rivulets, and she is laughing.
”Do you like the rain, Spear?” she breathes, looking towards the dark, looming clouds lingering just overhead, as droplets of water caress her soft, youthful features, trailing down the length of her neck. ”I do. Tell me that you do, too.”
An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.
Daylight darkens to dusk; he thinks it is dusk impending, but it could be the stormlight that cuts through on the heels of every thunderous rumble. Far out at sea, there are flashes of lightning that try to penetrate the boisterous deep that heaves and strains like a sick stomach.
He feels her shore up closer to him, as the air grows colder and they’ve got only each other to warm themselves by. It is all he can do to keep his pulse from going thready and quick the longer her cheek stays pressed against it, though some dim part of him mourns the fact that she’ll move eventually or he will, and their skins will stop touching just long enough for him to miss the feel of her small shape stuck to his. The longer he looks into her eyes, the more his mouth longs to form the shape of her name, Antonia.
Spear listens halfheartedly to her thoughtful murmuring assurance he is more than enough for her; her teeth on his tangled mane is quite the distraction, especially as her teeth grasp his ear and gives it a light tug that makes him laugh, the sound just tumbling out of him in a deep rumble not unlike that of the thunder above them. At that moment, the storm dumps rain on them and she is laughing and he is awestruck by the sound of it - she sounds so carefree!
He can feel the rain sluice down him in rivulets, feels it run right off the tip of his nose in plip-plopping little drops that spatter the sand, but all he can think of is her laughter as the rain came. Her laughter shook something loose in him; something he had not given thought to in a long time, but try as he might, he could not picture that other one - saw only Antonia in the rain, the sea lapping at her feet, and could only hear the bell-like laughter ringing in his ears as he turned his mismatched gaze from the sea to her and kept it there, something lifting and lightening in his usually dark gaze.
Spear follows the path of her gaze towards the dark clouds that loom before them, promising more rain than he cares to think about (his thoughts are full of her, rain-damp and happy). “I like it well enough, but I think you like it more. Storms agree with you, Antonia.” He almost misses the subtle plea in her voice, - almost; his lips find her cheek, press there in a tender and unmistakable kiss (he tastes rain and Antonia on his lips, afterwards) and brushes his words against the fold of her delicate ear, “I do.”
Few thousand miles and an ocean away, but I see the sunrise, just like the other day.
His own laughter is deep and heavy - vibrating warmly against the curve of her ear, and one corner of her mouth is drawn up into a soft, but gleeful smile. There was so much more to the grumbling, stoic figure that stand at the edge of the shoreline, his dark eyes settled onto an unsettled sea while the tumultuous storm within stirs and rises – she had known it from the moment her golden gaze had settled upon him from on top of the bluff. There was something beneath the surface that lay bubbling and festering but whatever weight he carried seemed to slide with ease off his shoulders while in her presence, drifting out to the restless ocean with each pulling wave.
As the rain flutters down from thick, rolling clouds, a shiver traverses down her spine, rivulets of precipitation trickling off the darkness of her skin and leaving her damp and gleaming beneath the pale light of a hazy storm. The sky rumbles with the soft promise of a thundering storm, and she is all too aware of the electricity crackling within the thick and heavy air, but as her own amber gaze touches with his own, the pitter-patter of her pounding heart only thrusts itself more fiercely against the confinement of its cage with the realization that the energy surging through the atmosphere has very little to do with the weather.
He humors her with a soft and quiet murmuring of her own deep, unshakable love for the rainfall (and oh, how it is true – the humidity and the heat of a hot, stifling summer day is long gone, and in its place is the splendor of autumn and the monsoons that would follow – and she loved every moment of it). Yet, her mind has suddenly forgotten about the storm – about the darkness descending upon the isle, or the snarling echo of nearing thunder.
She can think of nothing else but the warmth of his breath across her damp, ivory tresses, or the gentle caress of his lips pressed against her cheek, and her laughter rises again in her throat, stifled by a soft “mm” as he murmurs what she had wanted to hear within the delicate fold of her ear. Quietly, with her cheek turned towards him, her own lips – dark and parted– press against the ridge of his jawline, tasting the rainwater that linger there before trailing down to his mouth with a slightly and subtle kiss.
”I love it, I do – but I can’t say that I’d like to be turned into glass,” she says softly with a chuckle, reverberating within her chest, shifting her featherlight weight in the thick, compacted sand beneath her. The sky above thunders again, shaking the very ground beneath them, but it is nowhere near as loud or as fierce as her beating heart. ”we should get out of the rain. Maybe together?”
