[private] ...with my name on your tongue and your tongue on my... || Chryseis

[Rhaegor]

Rhaegor

the playboy

The sickness took longer to heal than he'd ever imagined.

When the day came that the contagion fled from Beqanna by command of the souls brave enough to face it (mother, he thinks to himself, mother!), a small hope had grown in his feeble chest. A hope of a return to health, a hope of life and love and happiness. Hope. He pondered the term more often than not, again and again until the days bled into months, and he still struggled to be.

To live.

The small hope turned sour and curdled into despair.

In vain, Rhaegor sent telepathic pleas out into the surrounding void. While he could not access the dreamlocked state he knew his mother's to be in, his absence from consciousness remained effectively as complete, his sense of reality twisting. The messages he left wavering for the minds of others to pick up on often went unanswered, or else were quickly brushed off as intrusive thoughts that needn't be attended to. Eventually, the sickling grew tired even of this minimal effort, submitting to a quiet and restful existence.

***

In trembling fragments, memories of his triplets were the first to remind him of his place on earth. Mothers came next. The notion of trees, and wind, and water were quick to follow, igniting a dry fire in his throat and a caverness void in his stomach. Moonlight brought a smile. Sunshine a twitch. The face of the woman he loved wrenched his heart from its comatose state, jumpstarting his will to live with the veracity of a lightning bolt. The first thing he knew when his eyes opened was that he had to find her; the first word he silently formed with his mouth was hers.

Dawn!

But the name's meaning abruptly changed as his nutmeg eyes beheld the sun's rise, his lips turning up and cracking in the process. Dawn, he thought again, the word a prayer of thanks to the gods as he witnessed his rebirth to life, christened by the reds and oranges and pinks of the morning. The picture inspired rapture. Tearing his eyes away for but a moment, the stallion struggled to his hooves with outstretched wings and a rattling cough; clarity hadn't yet come to him, but for now, being alive was thrilling enough.

Nostrils and ribs trembling, the once prince took in his surroundings, eyes lifting to the upward slope of the land around him. He'd fallen asleep in a miniature valley near the eastern border of the forest. Pines and birch trees intermingled on the slopes above, the stark reds and oranges of autumn leaves bathing the verdant green grass; in one direction, the shadows of the towering trees stretched endlessly, and in the other, the sun rose.

Then, blackness. The stallion stumbled, nearly becoming sick as a vision overtook him. In it, he came face to face with the woman he loved, and again, his heart wrenched; when he came to, delirium claimed him, desperation written plainly across his sloped face as he awaited her arrival.

Chryseis!

...my name on your tongue and your tongue on my...

@[Chryseis]

...please excuse my terrible writing.