you are miles away but i still feel you
The grieving process has been torturous for him.
It might not be over yet — layers of bitterness and grief coat his mind like a thick film. Hestoni has learned to live in the state that Scorch’s betrayal cursed him with. He wakes with a quick jab of pain in his chest (for her hairless skin is not pressed against his in the early morning) but by mid-morning it has turned into disgust (for her hairless skin had been pressed against two other lovers).
He feels particularly bitter today, standing in the exact place where Scorch had first approached him. The fire that flared on her skin from her anger would have burned the snow that now covers the embankment. If he had the power of fire he would be able to burn the snow away with his anger. And it would be so satisfying. The sound of hooves crunching on snow turns his attention away from his thoughts. A pair of dark blue eyes shine in the shadows but the mare is quickly pushing her way into the lazy winter morning light.
“They’ve been with me for some time now.” The deep sound of his answer is stern. In all honesty, the dark thoughts that linger around him like a cloud have become familiar and welcomed. The anger is easier to deal with than the sorrow. Brown eyes look out from a bold red face. “It seems Beqanna has become a place of many talents.” It hadn’t always been like that, he reflects. In the time of the Jungle, antlers and fire-breathing and animal-shifting had been rare to find. Now his mind can be read as though he were speaking the words out loud.
So rather than telling the story that causes his bitter emotions, he shows it to her. Like a movie displayed on a projector, Hestoni begins with meeting Scorch at this very scene (ablaze and passionate from Jungle drama) and progressing through at first discomfort with another and then the endless passion of love for many, many years after. If she is watching, she witnesses the birth of their first set of twins and the nine children that come after. Her eyes might catch upon the sight of a weak, broken daughter soaked by the rain on the Forsaken Valley’s floor, the haze of death thick in her eyes. Starsin might hear Hestoni’s deal with Carnage to bring his wife’s mother back one last time and the ten years he spent serving the magician-god. The ache of their death within the Jungle’s embrace and the joy in their revival.
With each memory, the swell of emotions Hestoni felt in those moments accompanies it.
And finally… The plot twist that birthed such thoughts that brought Starsin to him arrives on the screen. The silence of undesired slumber for several years and the awakening in the bitter Nerine cold to find a wife swollen with the weight of a child that does not belong to him. The story of an additional child who also does not belong to him. The scent of others — of romance and nights spent alone — dancing on her skin.
The retelling of his story is exhausting. The red stallion slowly inhales and his wide chest expands with the air that fills his lungs. He says nothing and his expression is an expanse of natural seriousness (Isnofret had always told him to smile more, so many years ago). His brown eyes find her face, perhaps searching for something. He isn’t sure quite what that is.
hestoni
@[Starsin]