"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
11-03-2017, 06:15 PM (This post was last modified: 11-03-2017, 07:34 PM by Amet.)
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
His heart is full.
Finally, there is something (someone) who has filled the void that he hadn't known was there until it was gone. Amet had been so busy with kingdom politics, parties, worries, conversations, private time with Ciri... he hadn't had time to think about Iset and Sakir. His missing family. The Dragon King had hoped that Iset would swallow her fears and return to Hyaline with him. He had given her time. He had given her his forgiveness. And still, she did not return. As for Sakir... his younger brother had remained in their home, at least for a time. But the gilded stallion hadn't seen his brother, nor caught any hint of his scent, since the night he'd met with Jah-Lilah by the glistening lake.
He is curious where they have gone, what they are doing. Amet had only ever known the role of caretaker, so their absence nestles uncomfortably in the back of his mind, but he has a herd and a territory to care for now. He has Ciri, too, the shining brilliance who has filled the void that his family had left.
Amet is happy, leaning against his wisteria tree. It's warm for late autumn and he closes his amber eyes to revel in the heat on his gilded leather plates, allowing his thoughts to drift wherever they may. He hasn't seen his starry-eyed girl for some time, though he suspects she had gone off to adventure, and so he is content to wait patiently for her return.
When a gentle breeze brings her scent to him, the gilded Amet opens his eyes swiftly and a small smile appears automatically across his lips. "Akmar?" he questions softly, waiting for the smokey black mare to pull herself away from the treeline.
11-03-2017, 10:35 PM (This post was last modified: 11-04-2017, 12:17 AM by Ciri.)
Ciri
Her heart is full.
Full of confusion, twisted between two dragons that threaten to burst it at the seams.
It seems like so much time has passed since she had been at Amet’s side. Since they had made love beneath autumn leaves and a full pregnant moon. Since she had gone to the river and had her unlucky encounter with Thana. Since that night Castile found her.
Despite the old ways that fill her head and the old soul that fills this body… It is a young body and the ways of love and relationships are so new to her, concepts she’s still trying to sort out and understand. Things the stars could never show her, something she has to feel for herself. Was it possible to love two hearts at the same time? Why did she feel so guilty then to care so deeply for both of them if loving two was ok? She knows she needs to find the red wytch. Surely she could help her understand her own thoughts and feelings but her scent is faded. Distant.
Slowly she crosses into the beauty of Hyaline. Winter has not quite grasped the lake yet, the flowers still clinging to life with late blooming. The scent of wisteria, which usually calms her senses, suddenly makes her stomach churn and she wrinkles her nose with revulsion. The sudden change in taste she blames on the painful wound slashed across her face, thinking the tang of copper spoils the normal scent.
She is hesitant to approach him, her King her Heart. However she longs to feel the reassurance of his scales and when her cherished nickname floats on the breeze, she cannot deny him. Slowly she breaks from the shadows, her head held high almost defiantly despite the flash of wariness and uncertainty in the metallic swirls of her eyes. She says nothing, knowing how ugly the ravaged skin across her face must be. Knowing that he will know she was with Castile. Knowing that their beautiful life may be damaged but unwilling to hide her truth.
She loved him. She loved him fiercely, passionately. She loved her golden dragon. It was time to let him know, to let him know her whole heart in all it’s uncertain beauty. She loved him. And she may feel the same for Castile too.
”Akmar.” Trembling words as her chest constricts in panic. However she must be brave. ”We must talk.”
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
His smile is gone as quickly as it had appeared, dashed by the look of defeat on his starry-eyed girl's face... by the new ravaged skin, red and angry. His stomach curdles and his limbs are instantly numb, but somehow he is still able to make it to her side, to inspect the new wound across her beautiful face, to dote and panic. "What ─" his voice catches as his throat tightens around the words and his amber eyes redden with angry tears. "Was it... was it the Underneath?" he is able to spit out just as she calls him akmar.
We must talk.
Amet's chest is cold. He's unprepared. Who had done this? What will she tell him? His ears are against his gilded skull and yet all he wants to do is touch her, to dote on her wounds. To stamp out whatever horse or creature dared harm her.
"Talk? Ciri, I ─" his amber eyes are wide, showing the whites surrounding his pupils and revealing his youth, his inexperience, with handling these situations. His mind flashes to Iset, to the damage He had done in their youth, and suddenly Amet's rage is overpowering his fear. His muscles grow swiftly taut and his blunt teeth clench as his muzzle roves the smoky black mare in search of more injuries, "Before we talk, I am killing whoever did this, whoever thought they could..." His nostrils are flaring wildly and the leather-plated stallion is searching for his words, wanting to blurt out every thought that comes to his mind and not knowing, never knowing, which ones are the right ones to say.
"I love you, akmar. Ciri. With all my of heart. And this will never happen to you again." His touch is frantic, every sense on edge as he tries to cope with this roiling, powerful anger, and then... his flaring nostrils betray her.
He freezes. For a beat. For two.
When he finds his words, they are hard and cold and spat through clenched teeth.
11-03-2017, 11:40 PM (This post was last modified: 11-04-2017, 12:17 AM by Ciri.)
Ciri
Instantly it’s already out of control. Amber eyes sweep over her face and harden, then he is at her side. In a matter of seconds he has moved from panic, fear, then unbridled anger. She had always known it must lurk beneath the surface. The most subtle hint of it was unearthed when Kolera had come back to fix the damage she had done to Hyaline. He had a dragon’s soul after all.
She’s not unprepared for the wrath but it still catches her off guard, the way it hotly sweeps across her as his muzzle runs over her body. Searching, possessive, rough. Her own ears sweep back to become hidden beneath tangled ebony forelock, unease clenched in her jaw as she tries to protest. Tries to explain.
”I love you.” He has beaten her to the punch and the world seems to slow around them. Only for a moment as she breathes in shakily. Exhales. As he freezes above her and suddenly she sees the true rawness of his anger. It’s a mixed feeling, to see him so passionate makes her love him more as much as it prickles nervously against her heart. However the accusation makes her blood run cold and instantly she recoils from him, eyes wide and looking at him with shock.
”What? No!” She exclaims, shaking her head fiercely as if to clear the cobwebs of this mess from her head. ”Calm yourself Amet.” She demands sharply, feeling her own anxiety start to get the best of her. Needing to gain some sort of rein over this mess. Hesitantly she moves towards him, her lips finding the warm scales of his neck to press a reassuring kiss. ”Castile did not hurt me. I promise.”
She waits a moment, trying to find her confidence again as she presses her face to his. Breathing him in and wondering if it would be the last time, if he would spurn her for confessing her thoughts. Her feelings. ”I love you. Moon of my life. I love you.” She breathes her confession into his gilded skin, looking up at him and trembling slightly with the weight of her heart. ”You showed me a whole new world I never knew existed. I love you for everything you are. The King you are. The stallion you’ve become.” A pause before she shakily continues.
”Castile found me. I don’t know who attacked me, a strange crazed woman. I got turned around at the River. He found me.” She pauses for they have come to the root of the issue, the root of the weight on her shoulders. ”I think he cares for me Amet….. Like you do.” A quivering moment as she pulls slightly away and gathers all her courage, looking him straight in the eye. ”I think I care for him as well. Like I do for you.” Her confusion swirls in her metallic gaze, pleading for him to understand. That she had not asked for these feelings, that she had not gone looking for them. That she does not understand them fully herself. The silence seems to press in on all sides and the smell of the wisteria flowers begins to make her sick all over. ”Please… Say something Amet.”
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
The moment begins to blur, taking time with it, and there is nothing else in existence as he searches her frantically for more wounds that he will need to repay to whoever had touched her. He is blind to the anxiousness in Ciri's face for now, fueled by his own tumultuous emotions. His overwhelming desire to leave immediately and find the perpetrator is matched so perfectly by his desire to remain in Hyaline, to care for Ciri and to nurture her. To remind her that there are good things in this world, just as he had once needed that reminder.
He has Ciri now, though, and that is all the reminder he will ever need.
She is silent after he confesses his love, but perhaps that is his doing ─ he has moved passed the statement quickly, his attention drawn to the scent of Castile that clings to her smoky black hide. His jaw aches with the pressure of his teeth pressed together and his lips have curled, exhibiting an anger that he has never before felt, nor expressed. Ciri's exclamation draws him back to her, but only slightly. It had not been Castile. He believes her. And if Castile had been there, perhaps he knows the identity of the mystery mare. The one who will pay.
He is sedated. Momentarily.
The starry-eyed girl closes the distance between them and his heart aches for the pain she has endured. He leans into her touch, willing it to calm him the way it had done when Kolera had stepped hoof into Hyaline. His heart threatens to explode from his chest, though, and as much as the leather-plated King wants to lose himself in her touch, he cannot escape the anger.
I love you.
His anger is gone. His exhale is ragged and breathy, as if from a punch in the chest, but it's love that lights up his amber eyes. The King you are. The stallion you have become. He presses back into her and when she pauses, he whispers, "Then let me help ─" he wants to finish, wants to tell her that he needs to fix this. He needs to take care of it, otherwise he will never forgive himself. Castile's name brings an uncomfortable twinge to Amet's stomach, a curious feeling to experience just after his akmar has confessed her own love for him. He tries to push that down, too, and hide it with the anger that is still festering.
Ciri pauses again and he whuffs his nostrils into her mane, full of warmth and adoration.
Like I do for you.
His insides shatter. There is no anger. Not immediately. Instead, his body faces it with numbness. The way he had faced Him in his youth. Amet's scaled body is cold as he pulls away from the smoky black mare, the disbelief growing and growing until his nose stings and his eyes threaten, again, to spill over. His amber eyes can see the way her silver ones plead and his instinct says to console her, to tell her that he understands, but the gilded King cannot find the words. He takes another step backwards, retreating to protect the heart he had just offered to her. Only to her. "How?" he whispers to himself, unsure whether or not the starry-eyed girl can hear him. How is he never good enough? Not for his mother, nor for Tang. Or for Ciri.
He feels small again. Ashamed. Embarrassed that he had thought they would be each others' only when everyone else in Beqanna seemed so blatantly okay with sharing the ones they loved. "Should have talked to you sooner, just like Jah-Lilah said..." he whispers, trailing off into nothing as his amber eyes avert themselves. The cold settles in his belly, in the tips of his ears. "I can't," he finally says to her, disgusted with his own selfishness, "I can't do what Jah-Lilah and Circinae and Canaan do. I love you. Only you." His words have grown terse, the hurt within them shining through. He will not tell her to choose. He is not that stallion. He will not place that weight on her shoulders. But he knows that she deserves to know how he feels about it.
Amet takes a shaky breath and retreats another step, his golden body pivoting away from her so that she cannot see the depth of the aching in his eyes. "I'm going to the River to figure out who did this to you," he says bluntly as he wills his lips not to quiver.
She would rather face the Leshen. Would rather fight a million Sirens. Would rather the Underneath snatch her back then see the blankness on his face as he shuts down in front of her. All the monsters in the world seemed easier than doing this, confessing her truths. Speaking her feelings. Her heart drops as soon as her words register, as soon as she sees his reaction. Like a punch to the gut he moves away from her and her own heart finally rips in two. The price to pay to love a dragon. Dragons. So this is what heartbreak feels like, she thinks. The stars had always been right. One could only see so much, to experience it was something else entirely.
Her muzzle pulls tightly to her chest, feeling the need to protect herself from the huge wound she has caused. Unthinkingly she tries to call for the stars but they don’t come, kept back by the pale rays of the autumn sun. He seems to be talking to himself, she can hear him but the words fail her. She’s unsure what else to say in the wake of his rejection. He mentions Jah-Lilah and she is confused but her stomach fills with ice as he finally voices what she had feared.
He can’t. She knew better then to expect him to understand, to welcome such news with open arms. But the rejection burns and the tears she had promised herself she would not shed spill freely, stinging the exposed flesh of her wounded cheek. His words are clipped, savage with sharp tenacity. She is left spinning with uncertainty, their love and where they stand completely up in the air.
For a moment she almost apologies but then holds her tongue. Whatever dignity she has left, she will keep. She could have lied, could have let the frustration and confusion build until it all ended in regret. But she respected him too much to do that. Just as she respected herself. They were better than that. ”You don’t have to do that.” She whispers softly as he turns away from her, feeling broken and exposed before him.
The same cramping pain returns in her stress, deep within her belly. She winces and bows her head slightly. ”Amet…” She doesn’t know what to say. The memories of him seem to freshly slap her across the face, of all they had experienced together. ”I do love you.” Her voice broken, soft in the wake of not knowing what to do. How to make this better. She had not experienced Castile in the way he probably thought. He did not know her as Amet had. She could not cross that line, not without him knowing. While she may have slipped dangerously close, she knew better.
”Perhaps I should stay with Circy and Jah for awhile.” She finally manages, trembling with her sadness and pain. Stepping away from the wisteria tree that’s making her gag and making the cramping in her belly worse. ”Please…. Don’t ruin your friendship for this. Not for me.” Knowing that it was perhaps a request she shouldn’t ask but she couldn’t stand being the cause of a broken friendship. This was already too painful, too destructive.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
"Yes. I do," he says blandly in response when she whispers that he doesn't need to go find who had caused her this harm. The small protest delays him though, causing a furrow in the middle of his forehead as he swings his gilded head back to the starry-eyed mare. "You know I have to," he says to her. Caring for others is the only thing he has ever known. And now someone has hurt the only mare he has ever truly loved. And even though his insides feel numb and cold, there is still some subconscious part of his brain that is telling him to fix this wrong.
He turns to go again but Ciri repeats his name and it sounds sweet, so sweet, coming from her lips. Frustration flares in the gilded stallion. He doesn't want his name to sound that way coming from her lips. It only stands to further drive the pain through him. When gold eyes connect with silver once again, her broken words are marred by a wince, one that he assumes is from the pain of her wounds and not the unknown third party that has begun to blossom inside of her. I do love you, Ciri says, and he blinks his frustrated tears away.
"And I love you," he says matter-of-factly, blankly, as if he is telling her the sky is blue and not that she holds his heart and his soul. "I told you once that I could not bear to watch you walk away from here," he rebuttals as she offers to go stay in Ischia with Circinae and the red soothsayer, "but I will not stop you if that's what you want to do."
He tries to remain unfeeling, finding a small amount of comfortable in being numb. She moves away from him and from the wisteria tree, her facade twisted into an expression that he had never seen before. And when Ciri speaks again, it has nothing to do with him and her, but with Castile, and his detachment shatters ─ tears fall from Amet's amber eyes and his lips curl downward in despair. His head drops low, shoulders quaking with silent sobs as the defeat washes over him. He can't hide his vulnerability any longer. Not when the pain is this great.
"Why am I not good enough, Ciri? What have I done wrong?" his words are broken and his throat tightens uncomfortably but he doesn't care. He can't care. He has already given her too much.
She was prepared for red hot anger. For yelling and screaming and blind rage. Not for this coldness, this heartless way he flippantly throws her words of love back in her face. She is stunned. She knows deep down that he is hurt but she never thought he could be this… Unfeeling. Shutting her out so quickly, driving a wall between them.
The offer to leave is met with no resistance. He basically tells her it doesn’t matter one way or another and it’s like a stake to her already torn heart. She is practically panting with the effort to call her shield down around her against the sun, as if the stars could protect her from the cold iron barbs of his words. ”Then I’ll go.” She finally responds flatly, trying to harden herself much like he is.
Perhaps time would make this clear. Perhaps time would heal this wound. Or perhaps it was too damaged, too big to fix.
It is only when she tries to make the plea for their friendship that he breaks down before her. She is anguished by his complete meltdown and she hovers between the indecisiveness to reach for him or keep back. In the end she takes the risk, shaking as she moves to his side. To press into his neck, to hold him. To love him. ”But you are!” She cries in despair, searching the scaled lines of his face. ”Of course you’re good enough. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
How she wishes she could show him how she feels. The strangeness of the situation, how it had just happened. That her love for him was real, as real as the tree that threatens to make her sick all over the place. ”I can’t explain it. I don’t know how to explain it.” The words rushed in her desperation to try and make him understand. That it wasn’t him. It wasn’t his fault. ”it just… happened. I don’t know why I feel this way.” Her own tears raw and glistening in the dull reflection of silver, wishing that she didn’t. Wishing things were easier. Wishing this didn't make her feel so awful, physically and emotionally. How she wishes her stomach would settle and she could concentrate better on how to fix this.
But her life had never been simple. She was not a simple mare just as she had not been a simple child.
”Please believe me, akmar. My moon, my love.”
All she can think of is the need to find Jah. To sort out her thoughts. To run away from the chaos she has caused and her own broken heart. But she stays, waiting for the abuse she rightly deserves. Waiting to take his anger, hatred, and sorrow. For this must be what love is, this must be the price to pay.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
He had learned in his adolescence that detachment made pain easier and more tolerable. Tears would get the young colt additional blows from Him, and reacting with anger and defiance had brought the same result. Detachment had protected him. It had protected Sakir. And so he knows no other reaction but to retreat from the smoky black mare, to guard himself from this new kind of pain and suffering. He finds words for her again, but he knows they are not what she wants to hear ─ he can't beg her to stay or tell her not to leave, as much as seeing her turn to leave will crush the remainder of his soul.
She is a wild creature. She is not someone to be possessed or owned. And his has no right to say that she is his. Then I'll go, she retorts with a bluntness that mirrors his own and, oh, how Amet's heart palpitates painfully. Jah-Lilah had offered him words of wisdom, she had quelled his worries about loving his starry-eyed akmar, but never had he thought to ask her how much it could hurt to have your heart crushed.
When finally his icy facade cracks and he is vulnerable, his heart bleeding openly, the gilded stallion doesn't expect for her to come to him. His amber eyes have closed in hopes that his tears will remain hidden behind the shield of his lids, but still they seep down his face. His shoulders quiver, heavy with the weight of his despair, but he remains otherwise still as he waits for the sound of her retreating hooves.
Her skin against his is unexpected. It draws painful breaths from him, sobs on the verge of hyperventilation, but he leans himself into her touch instead of moving away. Had her pleading voice not reminded him why they were here, the feelings that she has exposed to him, the warmth of her frame against his could have, perhaps, begun to console him, but it only serves to feel like a consolation prize. Ciri's own despair shines through her pleading words and he sinks further into self-loathing, wanting to understand her plight, wanting to accept the way that she feels. But his heart is un-moving and he cannot loosen its grasp from her enough to consider sharing her affections with Castile.
My moon, my love, her words are shaking with her own tears and he can feel the way she quivers as he presses into her touch. He wonders if it will be the last time, if the time he had spent begging her to stay with him at been for naught. If the time they had spent in their private wisteria den, in Tephra, in Sylva had been for naught.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he pleads against her neck as his tear-soaked muzzle inhales another loud, ragged breath, "I'm sorry that I can't be who you want me to be," he whispers sorrowfully to his shining brilliance and then forces himself to break the contact between them, though his muzzle still hovers near hers. He does nothing now to hide his brokenness from her, there is no way to take back the vulnerability that he has lain before the silver-eyed girl, and his puffy red eyes blink more tears down his golden face.
"I can't share your affections, akmar. Just as I would not have expected you to share mine with Tang, had my childhood feelings for her not faded," he says truthfully as he takes another step away from her, trying to offer her anything other than detachment. She deserves more. She deserves his own explanation. He wonders briefly if it's his blessing that she is looking for. "If you want him..." he pauses, the words drawing hot acid through his stomach, "then I understand," Amet offers weakly, his last three words nearly choking him.
The gilded stallion's swollen eyes turn from her now and towards the River. Where she had been attacked. Where Castile had been the one to find her and nurture her. Where the son of Nayl had lain his own muzzle against Ciri, had quelled her worries and fostered passionate feelings. "I need to find who hurt you," he says after a beat, trying to compose himself once more as flashes of Castile drawing breathy exhales and molten-silver looks from Ciri run through his head.
How could she turn away from him, broken and shattered by her own hand, and leave him there? How could he ever think she was capable of such cruelty? Of course she must go to him despite the cold grip of uncertainty and fear of his rejection. Seeing the tears spill beneath his closed lids, the deep swallow of his tight throat… She suddenly remembers that they are younger than they realize. That they know nothing. He wears a crown and rules a kingdom, she sees the stars and fights monsters… But they are still awkward teenagers trying to figure out how to be adults. How to navigate this life between right and wrong, light and dark. It’s so hard when there’s so much gray matter, so much that can’t be easily explained.
With every second that spreads between them she can feel their love slipping through her fingers like dark grains of sand. An hourglass, losing time. How could this have happened? Why did she feel this way? Why didn't she know what the right answer was? She had always felt older than her years but for the first time she feels small and stupid. There is no right choice here. She could pretend that her heart wasn’t torn, pretend that everything was fine. Swallow her confusion, push it down, and be with him. But was that fair for any of them? Wouldn’t that only destroy them more in the process?
”I’m sorry.” The strangled whisper as he moves away from her, feeling her heart shatter to the floor. The crushing weight of her pain written all over her face. And she was sorry, sorry that she felt this way. She doesn’t want to when it’s so hard. Why can’t this be easier? Why was it wrong to have feelings for two and know that if the roles were reversed, she would probably be just as crushed. Who was right and who was wrong? Or perhaps she deserved to be alone like she had been so long ago. Maybe there had been a reason for that. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be loved or love in return. Maybe there was something wrong with her, something broken inside her that made her incapable of normalcy.
”I’ve never wanted you to be anyone but yourself Amet.” Angry tears lining the red rims of her silver eyes, curling into herself as he pulls further and further away. The mention of Tang is a slap in the face and she merely stares at him in disbelief. The fact that he even mentions her now, in this moment, when he had claimed to feel nothing for her but childhood affections…. Perhaps they had both been lying to themselves this whole time. Or maybe that doubt about him and her had never really gone away. Maybe this was what left her vulnerable to another’s feelings.
She doesn’t want a half hearted blessing. She wants him to understand her. As farfetched as it seems, to perhaps understand her confused feelings. But he never will. She sees this now.
He repeats needing to find the one who hurt her and she says nothing, Having no strength left to plead with him, to cry, to try and explain. She is suddenly overcome with exhaustion and as she looks at him, at the crumbled remains of their relationship, she wonders if things will ever be the same. ”I… I’m going to find Jah-Lilah.” She finally manages, a soft breath of a whisper. And then she turns and walks away. Slowly at first until suddenly she is running. Running through the trees, the hills, to their secret place. Dead and dying, just like them.
And once she reaches it, the wisps of branches and dead curling flowers strewn on the ground, she collapses. And cries. Cries until there’s nothing left and drifts into a fitful dark sleep.
Tomorrow she would leave. But tonight… Tonight she would mourn.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
