"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
Cheri’s joy had been infectious when Yanhua had finally approved of her dreams, and Targaryen couldn’t help but smile alongside her. He’d been truly happy for her, in the beginning. Yet her absence left a gaping black hole in his days. The clearing in the heart of Taiga didn’t seem as comforting, the sun didn’t shine as bright, and even his flights across the tips of the redwoods seemed lackluster. Targaryen has forgotten what it meant to be alone, despite the years of his life he’d spent content that way.
It hadn’t taken very long before Yanhua seemed to recognize Targaryen’s need for purpose. The days the tobiano spent roaming Taiga mindlessly, dragging his sullen heart behind him, were very few, but they felt like years to the stallion. One morning, the Guardian had found Targaryen and put him to work for their ancient forest. While he had been planning on visiting Cheri once she was settled in her new home, the duties Yanhua gave him made it difficult to escape.
The work had been good, at first; as the seasons change, Targaryen feels the effects of time and distance stretch between him and Cheri. She overcame him (and perhaps she always has, but distance makes him much more aware of it) and she saturates his thoughts and dreams. The tobiano pours himself into his responsibilities, but each morning he wakes with Cheri’s electric eyes printed on the back of his eyelids, and each night he falls asleep to the sound of her gems echoing a lullaby.
Finally, Targaryen works up the bravery to abandon his tasks for a day. He is thankful Loess is only a short flight from his nest, that Cheri had not picked Ischia or Pangea to explore. The wind currents above the red-rock kingdom are more aggressive than the ocean-side Taiga, whipping off the mountain range in the distance and having room to run above the canyons. The stallion is pushed from left to right as he flies, and his muscles are sore by the time he lands near a hot spring.
Soft brown eyes peer across the landscape, and he huffs out the series of calls they had made together. Targaryen shifts his weight as he waits, anticipation and excitement to see Cheri making it nearly impossible for the pale green stallion to stand still.
Since returning home from the Pampas, Cheri has lived her life in nearly the same vein as Targaryen. Work from sunup to sundown, exploring the vast wilderness of a Kingdom nearly twice the size (if not larger) than her birth home. Her mornings were brief, her afternoons languid and filled with whatever new curiosity she could find hiding between the nooks and crannies of the varying land formations, and her evenings spent trying not to think about her past transgressions.
When she thinks of those red eyes, Cheri feels close to crying.
The weather as of late has been unpredictable. It mirrored her depression on occasion, but more often than not the skies seemed cloudy and burdensome. They only lifted when she left the confines of the borders, and her sunniest day since leaving Taiga had been spent in the company of Anubias - a long lost but now recovered friend. Spring arrived, bringing a season of hope with it and taking away the insecurity she was often left to face when night approached. The air was warmer and Cheri had a little home of her own, thanks to Tarian.
She still missed the redwoods, especially Targaryen, and when his familiar call echoed out over the rolling hills Cheri was actually shocked. She thought it might’ve been a trick, and then when her suspicions were confirmed to be real she raced toward them in flight without bothering to keep her hooves on the ground.
“Targaryen!” She called out his name, breathless as she hovered above the steaming clouds that kept the warm bathing pools hidden from sight. With a flap of her wings, Cheri kept herself aloft only until a passing breeze swept away some of the foggy cover and then she swept down in a giddy descent, heading straight to where Yen was waiting for her. Her thundering heart could hardly believe it; he was here in Loess, standing beside the hot springs as if he’d been here all along. “Oh Yenny!” Cheri tried miserably to hold back tears of joy, splashing her way through the shallows and up the sloping bank where he stood.
She could care less about decorum. In an instant her wings had flared forward to wrap themselves around his sturdy, handsome body and her head carefully tucked itself underneath the crook of his chin, which was much easier to reach than it’d been the last time they were together. Tenderly, Cheri made sure not to scrape his viridian skin with the jagged edges of her forehead crystals. “I was starting to think you'd never come.” She murmured into his neck, drying her eyes.
“What took you so long?!” She blurted out in surprise, pulling her wings (if not her body) away from his in mock anger.
The sound of her voice is the sweetest song to his heartsick ears. But the steam hides her, and Targaryen begins to wonder if he’s dreaming or hallucinating or missing her so terribly that a bird’s cry sounds like her. Like the tides on Taiga’s shore, his heart rises when he hears her voice and then falls when disappointment grips him. Doubt creeps in, bringing an army of questions he hasn’t had the time to think yet. Is she too busy to spend a day with him? Does she miss him? Does she think of him as often as he thinks of her? Does she even think of him at all? Is there a new best friend she’s adopted? (And deeper, he wonders if there is a new best friend she spends her nights with.)
Just as Targaryen feels the weight of his questions begin to suffocate him, the clouds move aside to reveal Cheri. Her rapid descent pulls the steam toward her, and for a fleeting moment, he catches the sight of her wrapped in light and soft clouds. His heart clenches, and then suddenly speeds up as she splashes toward him. The tobiano almost can’t believe she is truly coming toward him, appearing from among the steam and sky like a ghost. As she comes closer, Targaryen can see the sparkle of tears in her eyes, and he knows she’s real.
He’s always been a sympathetic crier, but the tears that form along the brims of his eyes are also from the overwhelming tide of emotions that crash upon him at the sight of Cheri. He cannot help thinking that she is beautiful, and this time he leans into the thought instead of pushing it away. In their separation, Targaryen had begun to wonder if he could continue living in silence — if he could continue to ignore his feelings for Cheri, feelings that go beyond what he knows of siblings and simple best friends.
As her blessed wings (silky and soft and warm, as if the sun had placed itself in the gentle slopes of her shoulders) wrap against his sides and as he feels her slender head tuck itself perfectly beneath his chin, Targaryen suddenly understands that he cannot stay silent any longer. The desire to stand like this with her, to feel her tears dry on his skin, to be a home among her adventures, to be an adventure — he has to bite his tongue to stop himself from spitting it all out at that very moment.
Her question prolongs the moment a bit longer, and Targaryen leans back so he can see her face. “Your dad gave me a lot of things to do. I wanted to come sooner, but I couldn’t get away until today.” The stallion feels his entire being simultaneously tighten and relax at the sight of her. He had thought once that an entire world could be found in the curves of her face, and now he realizes that there is more than that. Targaryen can see pieces of himself reflecting in her eyes; within the pale green islands against her ebony ocean, he can find where he has buried his heart.
“Cheri,” he says, with a voice that is low and soft, “I’ve missed you so much.”
Cheri was close enough to feel the steam clinging to his fur. Targaryen was warm and firm to the touch, solid in all of the right ways. Underneath him, Cheri hardly felt an ounce of hesitation or uncertainty, her head was clear and her thoughts just so. She tried not to focus on the slick curves of his shoulders, how buff they were in order to sustain his wings and lift him into glorious flight. The muscle along his ridgeline wound down into his chest, pressing into the feminine curves of her own in a way that belied exactly how she felt. Her flesh, dark and supple, bent to his masculine frame.
Cheri refused to part herself from him. “Dad, of course.” She thought crossly, the feeling displayed across her face quite clear for him to see. Only Yanhua would be capable and cunning enough to keep Targaryen out of her reach for an entire season. She considered all the ways she might return the favor, most prominent of them being an idea to coerce Targaryen into staying with her for the Spring, but the look in Yenny’s eyes and the tone of his voice had all of those things rushing out of her head in an instant.
She felt her heart leap into her throat. “Oh, Targaryen.” She felt powerless to say, the corners of her vibrant eyes softening at the expression reflected back in his. He was serious this time, just like the first day of sunlight they’d spent together in the meadow of Taiga. It made her feel all the more guilty for her rash night of debauchery in the Pampas, though in earnest nothing had really happened between her and Obscene. Or … had it?
“Targ…” Her voice broke, a dam past the point of bursting. “There’s something I need to tell you.” She tried to hold his gaze. The rest came tumbling out quickly.
“I’ve met this horse … this stallion. Once in the Meadow during the Eclipse and most recently in the Pampas, where he lives now.” She took a gulping breath of air. “At first we fought - he pissed me off. But this last time …” Cheri shook in fear, “This last time I got drunk, I don’t know. I drank more nectar than I should’ve, my head wasn’t screwed on right, things got intense and I … I kissed him. We kissed.” She struggled to explain, knowing it was no good to place the blame where it didn’t belong. Her eyes opened again, anguished and torn.
“I know this might not make sense, because we’ve always just been friends you know? But I missed you so badly, I think I wanted him to be you. I felt so confused.” Cheri sobbed, pulling away from him in shame. “When you look at me like that, when we’re together I feel something inside of myself I can’t ignore. I like you, Targaryen. I think I always have.” She blurted out, the steam and the heat all coiling together in her fluttering breast.
He has missed Cheri for who she is. He has missed the sound of her laugh in the evening, her ability to drag him away from where he feels comfortable, the pure vibrancy that fills her and spills into his life. Since he walked into Taiga two years ago, the black-and-green girl has become a sun in his life, impossible to ignore. Her adventures in Loess made his days much dimmer, and Targaryen cannot help but pull himself closer to her brilliance.
He absorbs every inch and second that he can. His eyes study the gentle sloping planes of her face — the petite muzzle that carries healing powers, the depths of her electric green eyes, the crystalline crown across her brow, the soft curve of her lips. Targaryen feels the way her dark body bends to fit his muscled one, and he takes the time to truly feel it. Heat sparks where they touch, nerves on fire with a desire that has become much more practiced with time. She is supple where he is firm, and the winding roads of her body become a trail of electricity wherever they find themselves against him.
Targaryen isn’t sure what he expects to hear in response to his admission, and his heart beats a rapid drum to a song of anxiety. Despite his lack of expectations, the story she tells him is not what he anticipates. It even somewhat confirms his doubts about what she has been doing in their time apart. She has found someone else, and they’ve even drunk and kissed together. The tobiano forces his eyes to stay on her face, to see the torment that flashes in her green eyes, but his gaze tells of the hurt that slices through him. He hadn’t trusted his doubts, but now he finds that they are partially true. Yet he cannot help but ask, “Did he hurt you?”
Targaryen wants to close himself down, to push away the parts of him (the majority of him) that had been gentle and willing to finally admit his feelings for her. He forces himself to ignore the way her touch ignites something deep, to stop thinking about how her slender dark curves might feel under his mouth. His brown gaze is beginning to harden when she speaks again to push past her explanation and into the truth.
She missed him. She wants to kiss him. She likes him. Targaryen grabs onto her words, holding them like a lifeline, and he stops his heart from hardening. “Cheri,” he says softly, and it’s the only thing he knows to say. His head is spinning from moving so quickly from joy to doubt to desire to anger and then back to joy. The tobiano sucks in a slow, deep breath to calm his racing mind.
He decides within that breath that he will take the plunge. He has already felt the sting of hurt… Targaryen knows he would be able to live with himself a little easier if he follows through with his decision, even if it means he might be rejected. “You make me feel like I have a place in the world,” he admits. “Cheri, you’ve always been my friend, but I have feelings for you that go beyond friendship.”
Ever so gently, he reaches forward to move aside a section of her spring-green mane that has found itself in her way. His mouth brushes against her face as he does so, and he lets it linger there. Softly, hesitantly, he places a warm kiss on the smooth shape of her cheek. Targaryen feels his lips tingle, and he whispers against her skin, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
No, no, She shook her head, denying the worst of Targaryen’s fears. But the truth was different; more secure and untold than what she was telling him now. Obscene had hurt her, just not in the typical way that could be seen. Cheri had given him an ounce of her trust, believed that he might’ve meant what he said when he told her she undid him, then learned the hard way how it felt to be shown the opposite. In a second of vulnerability when she’d felt uneasy and unsure of herself, he’d snapped back into his nature of grinding her underneath his heel. She’d left that night all alone, hardly making it back to Loess before collapsing in a thicket of spiny desert grass.
“Something Targaryen would’ve never, ever considered.” Cheri knew, waiting with her lungs full of air.
He spoke her name. She exhaled.
It was the same way he’d said it months ago, light and yet sincere, like a prayer to the fae. Something in his manner made her look up; Cheri could feel the pain in her expression dissolving with every word he spoke, replaced just as subtly with hope and a longing for more, which Targaryen delivered as if he’d heard her very thoughts. Gently, his nose came to rest upon her skin and Cheri felt her body react against her will. He brushed the tendril of hair away from her eyes and she bit back a childish sob, knowing that even though it came from a place of serene joy he might mistake it for something else. It was only when he kissed her: securely, tender and yet certain, that Cheri bent her head and pushed into the touch with more longing than she’d thought herself capable of.
This was exactly what she had wanted. All those years of confusion, trying to chalk her emotions up to something that never quite fit the bill until she just admitted it aloud. Cheri had fantasized about how he would say it, what Targaryen might do in the moment, and now that it was happening she could hardly believe it. As tempestuous as her feelings, the wind picked up and seemed to push her closer towards him. For once in her life Cheri was not afraid.
This was Targaryen, after all.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to admit it.” She smiled, curving her face against his so that their noses and cheeks were rubbing together. Hell, she hardly knew until Obscene - “Don’t think about him.” Her mind rejected the red-eyed stallion of the Pampas, thoroughly annoyed. He’d made his choice, now she was due hers. “I knew for certain when we went north together.” Cheri was suddenly shy, though she kept her skin warm against his.
That afternoon and long evening spent on Icicle Isle had been a constant memory for her, and the night after an even hotter one. Targaryen had slept with her but for some reason, that night it’d felt so much different than all the rest. Cheri had a hard time falling asleep.
“You’re quite attractive you know.” She blushed, wanting him to kiss her again. Her wings bent forward, cupping themselves gently against the curves of Yenny’s as if she were longing to pull him closer again. “I always thought that when you left, you were going to visit your girlfriend or a secret love. I never imagined…” Cheri’s voice faded into silence.
She pulled her head back softly, eyes shining with a fire they’d never dared to light. “Never imagined that it would be me.” She thought.
His chest is tight with nerves, even while his mouth is soft against her face. Targaryen can picture it now: her green eyes flashing, the sensation of his heart falling as Cheri tells him that she’s only ever considered him a friend and she wants it to stay that way. Would he be able to handle her rejection? The stallion has seen his mother, rooted in her place among the woods, cry over the lost loves she’s had. He doesn’t want to find himself in a similar position, neglecting future children and telling sad stories to the trees. But he can’t help but think of where he might be without Cheri, and he wonders if he would still be alone in a thick, abandoned forest.
The tobiano feels Cheri’s face relax with his admission, and he feels his chest loosen in tandem. She presses into him, and Targaryen exhales gently at the sensation of her body molding to his. Their bodies are so different — she is all slender curves, while he’s defined by straight-lined muscle — and yet she fits into his chest perfectly, her nimble head fitting easily under his chin. He feels like he can truly enjoy Cheri’s closeness knowing that she has accepted him, and the wind tugging her closer only further stokes the fire that her touch ignites.
Targaryen can feel her smile against his face, and his mouth curves to mirror hers when she mentions the festival. That day has been on his mind since it happened, a memory that continues to drag him back toward Cheri. She had looked so lovely, a young goddess of the earth and sky placed among a land of ice. And he’d almost confessed his adoration for her right then, with those pale flowers falling from her plaited mane and their teeth chattering from the cold. He’d been worried she would have rejected him then, too, and it had kept him silent. Yet he can still remember the way Cheri had tossed and turned beside him as they slept that night, and he can’t forget the way he had stayed awake too, feeling a hundred questions race through his mind.
He flushes at Cheri’s compliment paired with her wings spreading across his sides. They have mentioned the ways time has matured them over their years of knowing each other but her compliment is different this time. Her voice is soft but confident, and Targaryen knows Cheri could ask him for anything and he would do whatever it takes to give it to her. “I’ve always found you absolutely dazzling,” he says in response with a voice laced with confidence and sincerity. It feels strange to compliment her after she’s mentioned his attractiveness, but Targaryen can’t stop the words from leaving his mouth. He’s spent years keeping those six words a secret, but he would regret it if he didn’t tell her how beautiful she is.
Targaryen rumbles a laugh when Cheri mentions a secret romance, but it is filled with joy rather than scorn. “No, I’m just dumb enough to get lost.” He’s always been clumsy — they’ve both known that since the beginning — and it makes sense that he would have gotten lost in the dark world of the eclipse. Yet he can understand her worries, even shared in them. For the briefest moment, a brindle girl flashes through his mind’s eye, but Targaryen dismisses the thought. He thinks Catryn is a friend, and as brave as she may be, he doesn’t have the same feelings for her that he has for Cheri.
Her closeness draws him in, making the hot spring and Loess’ wide landscape fade into a blurry backdrop. Cheri’s mutual affection makes relief buoy his heart upward, and he becomes even more aware of her presence when she leans back to look at him. There’s a fire shining in the electric green of her eyes, and Targaryen’s brown eyes brighten to mirror it. He wants to kiss her again, but he’s nervous about what might happen if it goes further than that. The tobiano isn’t sure if he can trust his instincts. Will the daydreams he has about her guide him into the future? What if his lack of knowledge isn’t enough for her? His thoughts begin to make him nauseous, and Targaryen realizes he’s probably overthinking it.
She’s here, real, right in front of him with her eyes searching his face with a look that drives right into his chest.
And he can sense that she wants more, just like he does. Targaryen catches her gaze with his eyes and quietly says, “I can’t believe you’re really this close to me.” They’ve slept beside each other, flown together, ran together, and she’s healed his wounds more times than they can count; but this is different, much more intimate and hotter than he could have imagined. Her skin looks so soft from this closer, and her curves feel like sun-warmed water against him. Targaryen can’t help himself — he presses his lips to her cheek again, then moves further down so he can place a trail of kisses toward her mouth, feeling his lips tingle and his heart soar.
For once, Cheri was grateful for the privacy Loess’ hot springs offered. The steam rising from the clear blue bathing pools curled around both her and Targayren, trickling down her neck in tiny rivulets of condensation and gathering in her hair until it curled. Both of them were obscured from sight and the scene felt surreal; she laughed prettily at him, understanding perfectly what he meant about getting lost (though she disagreed about the dumb part.) Targaryen had a wanderer’s soul from what she knew of him, and though he never lingered on his past Cheri knew that he had a family member outside of Taiga that he sometimes liked to visit. She felt silly for ever having thought there might’ve been someone else in the picture, though her heart twisted a little bit at the idea of herself tangled up with Obscene.
Yenny didn’t deserve it.
“Believe it.” She smiled into the crook of his cheek, adoring the way he made her feel alive and womanly beyond her paltry three years of life. He had told her she was dazzling, had leaned into her touch and accepted that this was happening despite the youth they’d spent together, and Cheri believed him wholeheartedly. With him, everything felt easy. “I had a strange sort of feeling from the moment we met.” She tried to explain through her shortness of breath.
It was the way he was kissing her. Cheri could hardly keep her eyes open.
“Do you remember?” She murmured, reaching up to grasp the bright tendrils of his spring-colored mane with the very edges of her teeth. Cheri tugged and pulled them backwards, trying to guide him into the warm waters at her heels. One of her hooves tipped back and slipped into the pool so she let go, allowing Targaryen to make the final decision. Her eyes fluttered open weakly, a strange sort of heat flooding into her veins when she caught sight of him and the kink in his hair from her efforts.
This was her stallion.
A well-built horse, no angle left to soften on him. He was brawn and clean-cut, holding himself well and sporting a loveable sort of personality inside that attractive head on his shoulders. His wings, part white and partly the color of springtime grass, were magnificently curled against his sides. She’d never seen him angry - save for that instance during the Eclipse when a monster had knocked her off her hooves intending to kill her - but right now there was an aching ferocity to him that made Cheri weak against any reservations she might’ve had. She wanted him, badly.
“Come.” Cheri tossed her wet curls as a silent invitation, backing further into the warm springs where all the world was quiet around them. If he couldn’t figure out by the demure curl of her smile or the way her eyes flashed, then she’d tell him outright if he asked: Cheri had waited long enough, Targaryen even longer. She’d never been more certain of anything in her life.
Targaryen tries to remember the first moment they met, though she makes it very hard for him to think beyond her endless curves and how the steam brushes against her skin. His brown eyes reflect his struggle, the way he fights through the present to reach their past. His very first memory of Cheri is hard to remember in the first place; he had been slowly regaining consciousness when she’d found him on the riverbank. He does remember the way her touch had ignited a fire that blazed through his body, repairing the wound on his leg. Targaryen remembers thinking the fire was his death, assuming he was reaching the end of himself, and how he’d surrendered to it.
Perhaps he wasn’t so far off; meeting Cheri had been the end of himself in some ways. It was the end of loneliness, the end of his rogue lifestyle, the end of his life in the woods. The tobiano has a hundred things to thank her for, and he wonders if he can come up with a hundred ways to show his gratefulness. Cheri ended a period of his life that wasn’t the best, but she also started a new journey that has brought him so much joy. He isn’t sure if he will ever be able to repay her or even put into words what she has done for him.
And the fire Cheri had sparked that day has only grown so that it burns hot under his skin. She guides him toward the waters and he goes willingly, following her as he has since the moment they met. The tobiano pauses for a moment, water lapping at his front ankles. Cheri looks so beautiful, so ethereal, that he can’t help but absorb the view. The steam curls around her body, making her dark skin shimmer and the vibrant green of her hair appear to glow. Her wings illuminate the steam surrounding them with a soft, electric light that dazzles on her jewels. And her eyes — the words unspoken in their emerald depths leave him breathless.
Targaryen can’t wait to press his lips to her skin, to trace the curves that only the steam has claimed so far, to outline the jewels on her brow with his adoration, to brush his wings against hers. “Cheri,” he exhales softly (yet another prayer, another promise, another confession). He doesn’t waste another moment to meet her in the spring, the steps he takes and the look in his eyes confirming the way he feels: he, like Cheri, has never been more sure of anything in his life.
The universe dictates equal compensation for equal reward. You cannot truly appreciate the beauty of freedom until you suffer, you cannot appreciate the light unless you’re forced into the dark, and you cannot fully understand love until you’ve known its counterpart hate. A give and take, push and pull, yin and yang: there are always two versions of yourself reflected back in a mirror gaze. One is how you perceive yourself and the other is how you are perceived. You can take a middle ground (for that is life and the beauty of it, free will) but even in choosing nothing you’ve made a choice.
What choice do two young lovers make, then?
What does the universe see reflected in that moment? Perhaps it saw equality: they both gave and took from one another, a pure transfer of energy. To them it felt differently at first, but to Cheri it was all the same in the end. Targaryen had swept her off her feet quite literally, showing her the sky and all its freedom there before he took her young heart. Now, he had her innocence as well.
It seemed only fitting, given everything they’d been through. The mare with crystals adorning her skin had no regrets afterwards, either. Only the firm comfort of knowing that she’d done the right thing that day in the Pampas by leaving - else Obscene would’ve had what Targaryen now owned. She thinks, as she bathes herself in the afterglow, that he would’ve tarnished that too. Made it as black and dirty as his pelt, riddled with inconsistent marks of gold that hid much worse intentions. He would’ve never cherished it the way that Targaryen seems to worship her.
Cheri smiles at his touch now - the gentle, unspoken way he worries over her when she’s always been the one to piece him back together again. “I’m fine.” She soothed him now, reaching across the steaming pool to press a confident kiss into the corner of his handsome mouth. In truth she was; a part of herself understood that something was strange, though. Different. It wasn’t a pain she could fix, more of a ‘confusion’ that kept repeating itself over and over in her pretty head: “That was all?”
That was what every horse got starry-eyed over? That was what her father feared and her mother tried to prepare her for? A … moment?
And something that was supposed to have been beautiful and mythical - it was, she told herself - suddenly became a harsh realism. Targaryen had mated with her. They were lovers now. It felt strange … “But I didn’t dislike it.” She thought, blinking softly. “I didn’t dislike it.”
In fact, she was curious to try again. However, one look at her paramour stopped the thought dead in its tracks. He was adorably attentive, which drove Cheri to step nearer to him and rest her angled head into the curl of his shoulder. “That was different.” She could only laugh, a bit shy now. “But good. Will you stay with me for a little while, here in Loess?” Cheri breathed into the dampness of his skin.
