[mature] here we are in the heart of the darkness; Briseis

[Briseis]

little do you know how I'm breaking while you fall asleep,
little do you know I'm still haunted by the memories,
little do you know I'm trying to pick myself up piece by piece

She still looks for him, even though she knows she shouldn’t. Misfit has offered enough of a distraction, however, enough that when she looks at him, she doesn’t always think about Ether, or Tunnel, or anyone else. Not consciously, at least. Every day, she finds her gaze wandering to the shadows, hoping that she will see those familiar golden eyes peering back. She catches herself every time, and she chastises herself, knowing that the flood of anguish that she felt was her own doing. She has not seen him ever since that day in the meadow, several months ago. He had completely disappeared from her life just as quickly as he had entered, and the fact that she couldn’t regain control of her emotions was taking a toll on her. There was a listlessness to her gaze, her expression always seeming to be vacant and faraway, until Misfit did something to pull her attention in his direction. Watching him was the only time she truly smiled, or felt anything other than an unforgiving and endless emptiness.

It had not been her intention to remain in Nerine, but it seemed safer than the alternative, for even though he had not expressed an interest, she was worried that Tunnel would come and try to take her son away from her. She wouldn’t be able to fend him off, and she had virtually no one else. If she had been overprotective of Chryseis, this was nothing in comparison. There was never a moment that the blue-pointed colt was not within her sight, and more often than not, well within her reach as well. She walked with him now, her lips constantly brushing across his hip or his shoulder, the cold ocean breeze ruffling the short tufts of his mane as they traveled.

She had been looking down at Misfit, a subtle smile resting on her lips as she studied his face, the way she so often did. She looked for pieces of her in him; anything to make him not look like his father. The stallion of the forest still haunted her at night, but now instead of running when the nightmares startled her awake, she pulled her son close to her, her fear of losing him being stronger than whatever fear Tunnel could evoke. She doesn’t notice the small group that has arrived, not until a small voice breaks through her thoughts. It is only then that her gaze is pulled from her own son, to another child, and the very sight is enough to make her stutter to a halt.

”Oh,” The word is startled from her mouth, and when she looks down at a pair of bright eyes, she cannot explain the way her throat suddenly tightens. Those golden eyes are ones that she would recognize anywhere, almost lost inside such a shadowy face, and slowly she can feel her skin begin to heat with apprehension. ”I’m Briseis,” She manages to say, trying to tell herself that it is perhaps just a coincidence; Beqanna was large and strange, and she is sure Ether couldn’t possibly be the only shadow creature to live here.

But when she looks up, and she sees him standing not far off, it is as though someone slammed the air completely out of her lungs, and split her heart in half in one relentless motion. For a long moment all she can do is stare at him, her confused brown eyes locked with his, and that is when she sees the other two children – black, like him, and like his shadows, but with colored manes. She is almost certain that he can hear the way her heart is thundering in her chest, her pulse so loud in her ears that it almost drowns out every thought. The tears that gather in the back of her eyes are quickly forced away, turning her attention back to the shadowy child and her own son, as she adds slowly from her previous introduction, ”And this is my son, Misfit.” Her lips briefly touch the top of the colt’s head, but her mind is racing.

She looks back to Ether, and to the other two children, and even though she doesn’t even want to think it, she cannot help but to wonder, Who is their mother? Do you love her? Why are you here? She doesn’t step towards him the way that she usually would have, his words and his departure still so fresh in her mind; an open wound that had never even begun to heal. There are so many things she wants to ask him, but not here, in front of so many young eyes and ears. Instead, all she can do is say the one thing has been persistent in her mind, the one thought that she simply could not let go of, ”You left, before I was ever able to explain anything.” Her eyes, now glittering with the tears that she won’t let fall, look in turn at all three of the children that were so clearly his, and there is a tremor in her voice when she says, ”Your children are beautiful, though. They look like you.”

BRISEIS

underneath it all I'm held captive by the hole inside,
I've been holding back for the fear that you might change your mind

@[Ether]