"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
Agetta’s world has been a fog, time slipping past her without her being aware, though she’s gradually been trying harder and harder to grasp it and pull herself back. She lost too many years as a wandering ghost and, if she cannot have death, she may as well try to live until she can riddle out how best to end everything for good.
She only lets herself think of such things when the twins are off, playing and growing and learning. They are so vibrant but she is left in shades of grey. All of her own making.
When Agetta catches Garbage’s scent, it feels as though she has been winded. Thoughts of him are constant, joining with those of Plume until she drowns each time in her own guilt, knowing she loves them both so much and knowing it is too much to ask of either of them to be content with that.
If there is a moment where she considers not going to him, where she considers giving into the fear he will not be happy to see her, it is too small for her to even notice. The instinct to close the distance between them is too strong, the love she feels swelling with her desire to make sure he is okay. Because she almost can’t believe her eyes what she is seeing when she comes across him with a very, very newborn son. More questions than she can count fly though her mind as she nears the pair (what magician did this? Are they in love? Has Sleaze’s father returned?).
“He’s beautiful.” Her greeting is quiet and truthful, just a 'hi' is too small in the face of everything.
Although she aches to touch him, to feel someone touch her, she stops a short distance away - her gold-marked head lowered slightly while her midnight eyes flick from father to son and back to father. And asks the only question she really wants to know - the one causing concern to overshadow everything else she is feeling.
09-28-2020, 06:51 PM (This post was last modified: 09-28-2020, 07:11 PM by Cassi.)
he must be wicked to deserve such pain;
He thinks her a mirage, at first.
It’s not the first time, and doubtful that it will be the last. By all rights, she should be some sort of a mirage, a spirit on the horizon, untouchable. It’s all he deserves – a glimpse of beautiful things before they’re gone.
He looks at her pale form as she emerges as if she’s just that, and when it comes to him that she is real, and not some pain-born figment of his imagination, the emotions that follow are muddled and pounding. There is excitement and love and hope because she’s here, she saw him and she did not tun.
And there’s a sort of strained, hot shame, because he is here in this strange position, vulnerable in yet another new way before her, still down in the grass with a newborn son, a child she’d had no knowledge of. What would she think of this? Would she find it a betrayal, turn on her heel from him?
She comes closer, though. She looks at his son – at Bad – and her words melt him. He smiles, still drunk on the pain and endorphins of childbirth, almost laughs.
“Like the stars,” he says, then, “and something else. I’m not sure what yet.”
He thinks of that brief shift, how the lips had curled into a snarl. Maybe he’d imagined it. His son has not yet tried to stand, but it will come soon.
Garbage stands, now, his own legs weak as if he were the foal. He breathes deeply, trying to steady himself.
“I think so,” he says, then, “are you?” Will you run? is what he wants to ask, but he is too afraid of the answer.
10-11-2020, 04:19 PM (This post was last modified: 10-11-2020, 04:20 PM by Agetta.)
He smiles, and it’s instinct to smile back - something Agetta does not restrain herself from doing as she takes another step forward. Her head rises when he stands, and her heart beat won’t settle - it’s beat fast with their proxmity and with too many emotions it’s loud like the ocean in her ears. Her navy eyes roam him, checking him for confirmation of his uncertain response to her question - and she is glad to see he does not look any worse than most who have just gone through a birth.
Her eyes snap to his when he returns the question, though, and her smile fades.
It’s a simple question, one Agetta has lied in answer to a hundred times both to herself and out loud to anyone who has asked. She thinks she’s going to lie again because it will taste sweeter on her tongue to do so but when she speaks the truth comes out instead.
“No, not really.” She’s quick to say more, though, to assure him this truth has nothing to do with this situation. Nothing to do with seeing him again or his new son. “But I’m better now. I missed you.” She says these words tentatively, as though she’s testing the ground for quicksand that might swallow her whole if she takes a wrong step.
Not realizing she has already drowned in it a hundred times over.
Agetta's gaze shifts back to the nebula-decorated colt and she shifts the topic away from herself and finds another smile, this one gentle and teasing. “Dare I ask his name?” She’s working up the courage to ask about the boy’s father, even as she reminds herself her jealousy is beyond hypocritical.
They are never okay, maybe, the two of them – perhaps it is what has drawn them. Perhaps it is why she hasn’t left, even though he keeps expecting her to, because why should she stay? What does he offer, he with his self-loathing and now this child, son of a dark god and entirely unintended.
(None of it had been intended, but it’s not as if he’d been forced – no, the dark god had been there reeking of magic and stardust and something heavy and wanting had twisted within him, and so he had gone to him, offering to him what he could, and the god had taken his pound of flesh and that was all that she wrote.)
Still – he is glad at the rest of her words. I missed you.
“I missed you too,” he says, and he dares to touch her then, his muzzle against her neck. She is warm and familiar and he isn’t ready for the way his heart lurches upon contact, isn’t ready for how he almost wants to weep at the feel of her skin.
Not okay, but better. She makes him better.
He withdraws – reluctant – and glances at his son again. He wonders if the parentage is obvious – he has heard stories of the galaxy-strewn god, even before seeing him in the flesh – or if that’s his confession to make. He’ll know soon enough, he figures, but now there’s another confession.
“His name is Bad,’ he says, and his voice is rightfully abashed. It’s a terrible name for a child, he knows, but it had been the first word to cross his mind upon the boy’s birth, and besides, it seems to run in the family.
“It was the first thing I thought, when I saw him – not that he’s bad, but…the situation is a strange one.”
He manages to smile, sheepish.
“It’s a good thing you named Maze. I don’t think it’s my strong suit.”
