"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
The river appeared languid and serpentine beneath him as he soared overhead. Having caught sight of it during his flight from the Brilliant Pampas, he had followed its winding path in search of a particular area he’d often re-envisioned in the long months whilst incapacitated by the plague. The small stretch of river was firmly imprinted in Leander’s mind, as was the person he’d encountered there. Of course, she could be anywhere now – but something told him to look along the river, and it seemed right to begin at the place where they’d first met beneath a velvet-dark sky almost a year ago.
Spotting a familiar scattering of trees from above, he tucked his wings and dipped low to glide over the slow-moving waters as he took in his surroundings. This was the place – it had to be. Veering, Leander alighted near the river’s edge. The faint sound of its rippling current felt like an immediate balm to his senses, though the embankments were decidedly empty of anyone save himself. Taking a steadying breath, he picked a direction and started off on foot, his brown eyes keen and determined.
He did come across a few others as the day wore on – strangers with whom he made polite conversation before once more taking his leave. The river broadened and grew rapid, the noise becoming more tumultuous than serene. While the sun crossed the sky and heavy cloud cover moved in, Lee traced its rushing all the way through to the farthest reaches of the Meadow. The clouds were laden with summer rain – there would be a storm later, he guessed.
It was late afternoon when he picked his way down the embankments and dropped his head to the cool waters in order to sate his thirst. After a few long, deep draughts, he lifted his eyes to scan the open fields, passing over a distant figure with a cursory look. A jolt of recognition went through him, and his gaze doubled back. The woman was quite far from where he stood beside the river’s wild coursing – yet for some reason he felt sure it was her. “Eilidh?” he called hopefully. Without waiting for confirmation, he whirled up the embankment with an eager smile and began moving swiftly toward the mare.
leander
take a bullet to the heart just to keep you safe; like a dream in my arms but i’m wide awake
Her skin still smells like earth, and there, tangled like poor excuses between the fragile wisps of her hair the smell of ozone becomes trapped and lingers. Above her a storm is seeking fruition in the cold, dark grey of the clouds, but she’s been living in a storm of her own making for so long now that she barely notices despite the electricity in the air that she breathes in, reluctantly.
She moved mountains again today.
She swore to herself she wouldn’t move them again, but the emptiness was eating away at her soul like emptiness shouldn’t be able to do — and so she did. Grief made you capable of anything, and so she tore holes through the earth with what remained of her mind and she did it all knee-deep in the honeysuckle and wildflowers that still coated Moselle’s grave.
She moved the dirt like she was made for it.
In a lot of ways, she was.
And when the earth was finally gone a shallow grave atop her mother’s was all that remained. Eilidh stood across her work and thought that if, years from now, someone came across their ancient bones it might look like they died here together. Like mother and daughter fell asleep in the crooks of each others bodies and never woke. The thought brought her a type of peace, and her knees buckled like ancient cities collapsing; like they had withstood a thousand years of agony, or more — like they had kept invasions at bay and spear after spear outside their city walls, but now were ready to break like dams.
To surrender felt like relief in a way, and she was ready to finally meet her end as she lifted the dirt overhead and it sprinkled across her cheeks like war paint.
Something stopped her though.
The glint of sunlight sinking low into the mountains found her eyes through the shield of her own would-be suicide; a light. And so she set the mountain of earth down next to her shallow grave instead of over it, and she lifted her body another time.
The last time, she reminds herself, as she moves towards the river feeling compelled to do so and without knowing why.
Eilidh?
Somehow the sound finds her through the haze of her stupor; a cheek turns slowly so that she might see him from across the crook of her right shoulder. If he’d asked her what she felt in these moments she’d lie. The truth is that she thought about him more than she would ever admit aloud. She thought about the heat of the summer night. She thought about the way it looked as though they were constellations themselves, scattered through the galaxies like stars that had burned for far longer than either of them could likely comprehend. She thought about the sheepish grin that made a home of his face, and how at ease it had put her. She thought, longingly, about going back to that night all the time.
“Leander,” she says, softly, turning her body to face him and somehow still finding enough left alive of her to smile.
Her shipwreck is obvious, though. Once she was soft, and sleek. Now she is all harsh angles and xylophone ribs, mats and burrs and tangles of hair between them. The dried blood is still on her neck from the time he touched her and left his mark. Beads of sweat prickle and roll from the gentle rounds of her hips and slope of her shoulders; markers of her efforts, but he’ll think it’s only river spray (or at least that’s what she tells herself to soothe the busy heart slamming up against the walls of her chest).
“I couldn’t find a light,” she says, in way of explanation, feeling every bone that juts from every piece of sunken flesh in these moments.
He didn’t ask her to explain herself, but she’d learned enough about compassion and kindness to assume that he might. She doesn’t wait to see if the smile on his face will die. So she waits, basking in shame and disease alike, drawing her eyes away from his to see the horizon, the river, the ground, the trees — anything but the pity she is certain clouds his expression next.
02-22-2019, 12:46 AM (This post was last modified: 02-22-2019, 01:11 AM by Leander.)
Moments ago, Leander had been sure it was Eilidh. And yet, as he drew nearer and nearer still, his certainty faded – unbidden, he felt his footsteps falter. He sucked in a breath. The woman he had known so closely that night under the stars, standing shoulder to shoulder in the current as they poured small pieces of their souls into the glistening waters like an offering – if only to watch the river carrying them away – surely this could not be that same woman. Could it?
Please, God, don’t let it be her.
And then –– ‘Leander.’
There could be no mistaking that voice. He knew that voice – how could he forget it? And though nothing else about her now belonged, that voice still did. ‘I couldn’t find a light,’ the voice said, faint as a melody. Though sudden dread had slammed into his chest with crushing force as soon as Eilidh had murmured his name, the pity she feared seeing from him would never appear. Having recovered from the initial shock of her condition, all that his brown eyes now held was an absolute resolve.
He would not let the plague take her.
Leander knew intimately of its careening darkness – the way the fog of it descended upon the mind once the cough and the fever and the weakness had all but finished the body – and he knew that she was suffering. There it was, etched upon her like a tattoo made of cold sweat and dried blood and jutting bone, and still she had smiled for him. And while his determination served to steady him, it almost killed him to see it.
‘Did you?’
He came to stand beside her even as she looked away. “Yes,” he answered, placing the gentlest touch to skin that was drawn taut across her collarbone. “It’s right here.” And he smiled, because he knew he must – he must convince her that there was light enough left for her to live by. “I know someone who can help, Eilidh. All you have to do is come with me.” Leander made his voice as unwavering as he could while his ears twitched abruptly, his heart thundering with worry – but no, the sound hadn’t come from his chest – and when he glanced up, the dark canvas of foreboding cloud was suddenly emblazoned with a flash of electricity.
Something within him almost seemed to respond in kind – as though a bolt had gone through him, static skimming his veins. “Let me help you,” he said. This time he didn’t care if it sounded like the plea it was. Leander didn’t intend to let her out of his sight — maybe not even his life. Hadn’t it been her voice all this time, finding him through fever-dreams and moments of striking clarity alike? He knew that she was tied to the meadow and to the river, tied to the bones in a grave upon which she had readily lain – but now she was here.
“I’ll take care of you,” he promised as the rain started to fall.
Perhaps he could move mountains, too.
leander
take a bullet to the heart just to keep you safe; like a dream in my arms but i’m wide awake
@[Nev] wow how do you word so absolutely soul-crushingly beautifully, please never stop writing (especially to me)
