"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
hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
She is still curled beneath his heavy neck when morning finds them, barely more than a tangle of bodies pressed close to ward off the ghosts of loneliness. Her mouth hovers close to the dark of his skin, her lips like fingers tracing the patterns of pink, puckered scar-tissue and delighting in the way his flesh trembled beneath her touch. She felt strangely whole as she stood beside him , against him, her lips tracing quiet kissing along the wide ridge of his heavy jaw. “Offspring.” She breathes into his cheek and a smile glows on her lips, etched gently into the shadow of her mouth, when he pulls her closer still. They remained that way for hours, ignoring the sun as it climbed higher into the bright aching blue of a morning sky.
But then it is time and she is slipping reluctantly out of his grasp to stand facing him. She thinks it’ll be easier this way, with his face bared openly to her and hers to his, without hungry touches and gentle kisses to fog their thoughts. “I’ll come with you anywhere.” She tells him with foreign softness to the delicate angles of her brown and white face. “But I need to see my mother first, I understand something now that I didn’t before.” She pauses and her brow furrows a little, those dark eyes dropping to his chest, heavy with thought and uncertainty. “I cannot leave things as they are now.” Her eyes lift and return to his face and she is startled by the wariness that waits there for her. But it only takes a second to understand, just a heartbeat in time and she steps closer to push her nose against his, along the line of his jaw and the curve of his cheek, to press promises in the shape of kisses to the dark of his skin. “I will always come back to you, Offspring, I promise.” She draws back just a little, pressing a kiss to the soft curve of his mouth just above the corner of his lip. “I only need three days.”
With that, and a terrible amount of reluctance, she turned and left again. But this time she paused just before he was out of sight and turned to watch him for a long moment. He was large and imposing, intimidating with so many scars like pink spider webbing across his coat. But most noticeable were the shadows of doubt in his face as he watched her go. She wondered if he could hear the way her heart shattered in her chest, if he could hear it all the way across the clearing. But she was too far for him to hear her so she willed him to trust her, and then she turned and disappeared into the shadows.
--
The two days she had spent with her mother had been good ones, days of smiles and laughter and remembering things that had made Isle’s heart hurt before, but now she understood. Somehow, understanding Oksana’s heart, her love, it eased the ache she felt. And Isle did understand. She understood what it felt like to be willing to give all of yourself to someone, to endure pain and hurt for the sake of something more. It was love and it wasn’t, still volatile and unpredictable in its newness. But she could not deny the pull she felt when she was with him, or how much worse it was when she was away from him. She felt it urgently, like a dying man gasping for air. It was even worse now in the days she had been gone, like a blade buried in her chest and she could scarcely breathe around it. But she felt something else too, a guardedness she clung to even despite the way her heart begged her to ignore it. He was still just a stranger, and she wondered if she could truly trust him with the jagged pieces of her broken heart.
She felt the cold long before she saw the snow gleaming at her through the dark of night, and her skin prickled and protested against it. Offspring’s coat was thick and coarse, suited to the extreme weather of the Tundra, but hers was the thin silk of a summer coat, bright and sleek with no protection against the weather. She hunched uncomfortably against the bite of almost-winter but it did not slow her down. With some uncertainty she followed the thin, winding path worn smooth by many years of many hooves, and only when she at last came upon the immense wall encircling the kingdom did she finally stop. Wind whipped up around her, tangling the dark wisps of her mane as the currents of air raced along the wall. A shiver raced along her spine as the cold buried itself like teeth in her skin, and she wondered with just a shadow of uncertainty if Offspring would remember her promise. Three days. With the dawn of the third day casting pale gold reflections in the dark dapples of her gleaming coat, she hovered uncertainly outside the gate. She could enter, she supposed, but something held her back, like hand wrapped around her heels. Instead she waited, uncertain.
when you fall I'll be the only one who looks away; when you call I'll be the first to tell you I can't stay.
He delights in the way her lips touch and caress his skin, even into the newly birthed light of morning. He savors the dim lighting of a rising sun, still cast in the shadows with her tightly held in his embrace, bathing in its faint light as it slowly permeates and penetrates the thick forest canopy. He tastes her again and again, showering her in affections as silence falls comfortably between them. Between intermittent dozing and soft, breathy kisses, he has fallen into a lull, comfortable to remain within these moments of solace with her for eternity, if at all possible.
But as with all things, good things must eventually come to an end. He stirs as she shifts away from him, her warmth suddenly absent from his side as she draws away. His deep crimson gaze follows her carefully, observing her every moment. He does not want her to fade away into the morning, like a beautiful, tumultuous dream, leaving him drenched in sweat and with an aching heart - but she does not. She lingers, the warmth of her own eyes meeting his, and his heart soothes .. though he knows this sudden distance may mean something he does not want to contend with.
I'll follow you anywhere, she says earnestly, yet he can sense a deeply imbedded but lingering at the end of the sentence, and he is not disappointed by his own intuition when she presses on. But I need to see my mother first, I understand something now that I didn’t before. Her words swirl and swim in his mind as the tired, weary gears begin to turn. He tries to focus on her previous statement - a verbal agreement; a confirmation of her feelings for him - rather than linger on the dread that is beginning to well up within his chest. She has not parted abruptly this time, and for that he is grateful, but he cannot ward away the ache of pain that dully throbs in his chest.
As if sensing his hesitation, she says to him, I will always come back to you, Offspring, I promise. I only need three days. And three days feels like an eternity to him in that moment, even with the many tens of thousands of days he has lived. He nods slowly to acknowledge her, though the aching does not cease. It grows, filled with a despairing longing that will surely eat away at him in pieces, like a flesh eating bacteria, gnawing away at his well being until she was with him again. He swallows it, willing it away as his eyes meet with hers.
"If you must go, I will not stop you. I will see you in three days, Isle. He murmurs gently to her as her lips touch his cheek, and then she is gone, and suddenly the darkness of sunrise settles into his flesh and he feels altogether alone. It is time to descend to the icy confines of his dwelling now, and leave the heated kisses, lustful touches and intimate moments beneath the forest canopy. He watches her go, doubt etched in his features but a bubbling of hope festers in his heart and he knows that somehow, she would find her way back to him. As she disappears from his sight, he stirs and flexes his sore, tired muscles, stirring them to life as he finally shakes himself away from the embrace of morning and turns the other way. Home.
--
Much has changed in only a few days, and it is only within the depths of the icy embrace of evening that he longs for her most. She is never gone from his mind - far from it, but he is now filled with a terrible longing that has far exceeded even his own expectations. He had returned to the kingdom of ice, beckoned by his King and urged to step into the Brotherhood - and now he remains, scarred by its experiences emotionally and physically. His mind often falls into short, breathy lapses as he draws onto those heart-wrenching memories that had been drudged up by the inner demons that lie within. He had seen death, despair and loss, within minutes - hours? - he could not possibly know; his time spent in the cave felt like it had lasted an eternity, but it had also happened so quickly his mind had hardly been able to process the terror it had left behind.
He had pressed through, in spite of the scourge that had settled into his weary heart, and his mind now draws between the living nightmare he had endured, along with his anxious hunger to touch and kiss his sweet Isle again. Somewhere, in the depths of his mind, he draws upon the word King and its meaning. Something had been seen within him for the alabaster monarch to pass the torch unto him, and now the title he held weighed heavily on him and his own mind. He felt as if he was pulled in many directions, altogether torn, his mind a constant turmoil of uncertainty.
Now, in the dying light of evening, the dawn of the the third day fast approaches. The stark, white scar has settled onto his skin (he had seen it in his own reflection, admired its smooth lines and sharp contrast), forever pressed onto his left cheek - a permanent marking of his Brotherhood to the icy kingdom. His massive stature shifts in the pale moonlight as it begins to peek through the heavy clouds that lazily drift through the sky, blanketing the dying valley in its darkness. He stirs and flexes, stimulating his blood to flow to his tired, cold extremities, his weary mind altogether aware of how many days had passed since he had last seen her.
The King of the Tundra had much on his mind, many changes to implement and many more lives in his care now. He was no longer a wanderer, but a leader, and the severity of it weighed on his mind as the reality of it sunk into the recesses of his mind. He knew he would have to take the title and absorb it and allow it to permeate his icy, stoic exterior - he would have to exude the same warmth he had harbored within so long, while also holding a demeanor of strength and courage in difficult times. It was no burden; it was an honor. One that might take getting used to, and one that might take convincing for others to see as well.
With a deep, heavy sigh, he pulls himself from his reverie as he stirs and pushes forward from the comfort of the shadows. He shakes his tangled tresses as he wanders forward, his weight pressing thick prints into the hardening soil. Winter is approaching, and though the tundra flatland has grown dry and brittle in previous days, it is only a matter of time until the icy embrace of winter envelopes itself around the land, blanketing in thick, pristine snow. This soothes him, as the cold is meant for a hefty beast such as himself. He looks forward to it, and awaits its presence.
He pauses to drink in the sight of his land, of his kingdom. He wonders for a moment what she will think, how she will react when she finds out. Would she turn away and leave? Would she view him differently? Dread again rose up within his mind. He did not want it to alter what he shared with her, for he was the very same he had always been and would always be .. but he knew time might have to be the all-telling factor to make her believe such things. Their love was still so new, so fresh that it reminded him of a newly birthed spring, bright with its allure of new life, warm with the promises of sunshine and tasting as sweet as the flowers that scatter and blossom about. There were still many things about her he did not know, that he ached to know - and many things about himself that he had not shared and might never share.
If she were to return to him, that is.
With a deep, breathy sigh, he walks on, his limbs shifting to and fro as he stalks the perimeter of the border. Brynmor was usually so dedicated to this task on his own, yet this evening, he must have found himself wrapped up in the affections of another - Roan, he had come to know her name to be, and he suppresses a smile at the thought. He is interrupted by his own thoughts as a sweet, familiar scent rises in the air. Flora and fauna. His heart skips a beat within his chest and he moves faster now, to the very slim entrance at the base of their wall of ice, uncertain but hopeful that dawn will bring with it his sweet Isle.
And there she is. Aglow beneath the light of rising sun and changing sky, her gentle, kind features are illuminated, warming him to the bone. She is as lovely as he remembers, caressed by the light of morning, and again, his heart is soothed. He barely noticed the rising wind, which tangled itself in his tresses, pressing them away from his crimson eyes, which bore into her as he took in the sight of her. He presses past the barrier of ice, closing the space between them and drawing her close as he presses his whiskered lips to her cheek, taking in the sight and scent of her so near to him again. The corners of his lips press into a smile as he studies her, his breath icy against her cheek - she knew not yet of his newly acquired, altogether terrifying power of ice control, and he would hide it away for now, though it had already settled into his skin and his blood and in spite of the warmth he exuded, there was still an icy bite to his touch now and again.
"What took you so long?" He teases, a low rumbling chuckle rising in his throat as he kisses her again, brushing her dark tendrils of hair away from her beautiful eyes. "I have missed you, Isle," He breathed, drawing her closer as the icy chill of morning settles in. "and there are not enough words to say how glad I am that you have come."
the ice king of the tundra
OFFSPRING
Here, have a book. :| I don't even know why I wrote so much. Word vomit, everywhere.
No need to regard the first part - I just wanted to conclude. :)
hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
Three days felt like an eternity, like lifetimes stretched endlessly beneath the universe. Had she known his truths, his deepest secrets, she never would have been able to fathom so much time, most of which had been spent in loneliness. She had thought leaving him would be the hardest moment, the heaviest pain in her chest, but as one day turned into two, and two turned into three, she could feel a gasping emptiness in her belly, a longing only he could fill. She missed the quiet way he watched her, with eyes as bright and red as stars in their final moments, the way he traced her brittle bones with gentle kisses, pressed secretive smiles in the hollows filled with gleaming brown dapples. She felt whole with his neck across her withers, his dark heavy head pulling her close to his chest where she could live and die in the sound of his beating heart. It was terrifying how quickly she surrendered to her heart, how easy it was to love a complete stranger who had never seemed so strange at all. Even from the first moment, that strange day in the meadow where the world crumbled around her like shattering glass, there had been something safe and quiet and altogether right about his looming presence. When she had looked to his dark face, set aglow by the burning of those knowing eyes, she had found only concern and the absence of pity. Even if he had not understood the darkness yawning in her mind, he had instinctively understood the patterns of her heart and from that moment she was his.
Another shiver climbs along the length of her spine, burying cold teeth beneath those dark brown dapples gleaming on her narrow back. With a sort of wide eyed curiosity she inched closer to examine the wall that surrounded the isolated kingdom. It was impossibly tall and thick, made of ice and she wondered if was born of some kind of magic or if it melted and wept beneath the heat of the sun. The wall stretched as far as she could see, curving and winding and finally bending out of view somewhere in the frosty distance. It seemed impossible, improbable, but she suspected it must encircle the entire kingdom, a barrier of ice meant to protect those who lived within. Isle could not help but find it amusing that all she had wanted for so long was to find a quiet place of solitude where her mind would not ache with every thought from every passerby. She had buried herself among the shadows of the forest for that reason, using the thickest parts of the woods to avoid encounters whenever possible. But now, impossibly, Offspring had given her a home on a mountain of ice, a place that reeked of solitude except that he would be there too. There was a voice in her head, a thread of doubt worming itself into her thoughts even despite the way she tried to ignore it. It whispered to her all her fears, all her insecurities, it shone light on the worry that someday cracks would appear between her and Offspring, fault lines meant to tear them apart and turn her heart to rubble.
You aren’t meant for happy endings, Isle, this doubt whispered in her ear.
There is a sound to her left that draws the dark of her wild eyes, and it is accompanied by a scent she nearly misses because she is so unused to the cold and ice and the smell of winter that fills her nose. “Offspring.” She has enough time to whisper, to smile, to feel her face soften and shine with the undeniable affection welling up for him in her chest. And then he has closed the distance between them with impossibly long, graceful strides and she is once more pulled to the curve of his dark, scarred chest and she knows, she knows this spot beside his heart was carved out perfectly for her. She does not notice the new marking on his cheek, not at first among the cold and frost and almost-snow that flurries but does not stick to anything, nor does she notice the chill to his body, the ice at his core. She is already so cold that it does not register above the rest. But then she wiggles out of his embrace, twisting to better see his face, and she notices the new scar on his cheek so stark and bright and white against the gleaming black. Her smile fades a little, entirely forgotten in her curiosity at this marking that he had not had three days ago, a marking she had decided immediately seemed to suit him perfectly. “You’ve been busy.” She breathes, reaching up to trace the lines and curves with her pale, tickling lips. She is struck with a sudden thought, a curiosity that bubbles in her chest. “What does it mean?”
But then she is distracted by the way his mouth roves over her skin and a different kind of shiver races up along her spine. She winds even closer to him, chest to chest and then opposite shoulders touching before she turns to settle against his side and opposite from where the wind seemed to have teeth of ice. Between the immensity of his body and the heat his lips coaxed from her, like a blush burning beneath the silk strands of her dappled bay coat, the cold was suddenly bearable. With a sigh she settled her cheek against his large chest, counting the beats of his heart until the pressure in her own chest had abated some. When he speaks she smiles. “It’s only been three days.” She admonishes with a quiet laugh that softens her face, but she knows it must be evident by the way she is curled against his side that each day had felt like a strange eternity to her too.
‘There are not enough words,’ he says, ’to say how glad I am that you have come.’
Her face twists with a smile at this and her lips immediately move to trace quiet kisses along the curve of his dark neck. She reaches his jaw, only because he holds his head low in his embrace, and trails her teeth along the sensitive skin all the way up to his mouth. “I wouldn’t stop you from trying.”She whispers. There is a wild light gleaming in her dark eyes when she lands a teasing nip at the base of his heavy jaw. And then she pulls away from him, just enough so that she is standing in the narrow gate at the entrance to the kingdom, and glances back at him uncertainly over her shoulder. “You’re certain no one will mind me being here?” It was why she hadn’t tried to go in without him, why she still did not cross the threshold of the ice kingdom. “Are you sure I’m welcome here?”
when you fall I'll be the only one who looks away; when you call I'll be the first to tell you I can't stay.
He cannot get enough of her gentle touch and her warm breath on his skin; he has felt absent of warmth for days now and it felt undeniably addictive to draw her close to him - to feel her every fiber stirring within. Caressing her skin with his own, he breathes a deep, elongated sigh that reaches to the very deepest inlets of his lungs, as if he had been holding his breath for the entirety of their time apart. His icy breath brushes over her skin, which he finds to be frosty to the touch - while he may have a bite to his touch, he is still warmth and comfort and he drapes himself so very close to her to provide her with what he has to offer.
The way she murmurs his name causes his heart to swell twice its size within the tight confines of his heart, and for a moment, he closes his eyes and allows himself to fall into the lull of her adoring embrace. There is nothing that can come close to this emotion that ebbs and flows, overwhelming the stoic stallion and washing away his every insecurity and shred of doubt with each lingering wave of her affection. He loses himself in it for a moment, savoring the way her heart pounds and thumps raggedly against his chest and the way that she curls into him with such flawless perfection that he is certain that somehow, in spite of the many years and miles that have separated them, they must have been created of the same mold.
Soon, she parts from him, but he does not protest - he, too, wants to see her gleaming eyes as they shine in the beautiful pale sunlight of morning. The hefty ice wall that lay behind him gleams, too, with gentle shards of ice reflecting the brilliant light of the rising sun, causing flickers of orange and yellow and pink to litter their skin and taint the plain below their hooves. He decides he has never seen anything more breathtaking than her bathing in the illumination of dawn, his deep crimson eyes taking in the very sight of her, pristine and fragile and irrefutably stunning. She pauses to admire his new mark, which he at times forgets is present. A deep, rolling chuckle rumbles from the depths of his chest.
"It is a long story, but I am altogether unsure myself. The ruins that lie within the walls of this kingdom are equipped with a deep source of magic all their own, and upon entering the Brotherhood, we men surrender to our inner demons and relinquish our skin to its marking. It does not hurt - not afterwards, at least," He muses, recalling the searing pain of festering, open wounds that had vanished the moment he stepped out of the infamously dangerous cave opening. His skin still bristled from the memory, yet there had been little harm done. "and it symbolizes my unity with the others."
His lips continue their descent along her cheek and jawline, his cheek pressed against her neck as he nears her again. He breathes in her scent, allowing it to wash over him and lace its way through his memory, permanently becoming a piece of him as well. He cannot imagine anything sweeter, and yet her kisses never cease to astound him. She chastises him gently for his confession, but he too laughs with her as his neck drapes around hers, his whiskered lips pressed to her skin again. She melts into his embrace, and he is again content to hold her until dust and then dawn again.
Her quiet whisper draws out his rugged, scratchy voice again, which rumbles softly over the sound of the whistling wind as it whips through the passage. "I will spend every evening telling you of all the ways I cannot get enough of you and all of the reasons why." He promises gently, but amusement is soon evident on his otherwise set, stoic features. His lips curve into a simper as she steps away from him, peering through the slim passage that leads to the wide, brilliantly open flatland of the icy tundra. She utters doubt and uncertainty about her presence in such a land, wary of acceptance and anxious with woe. He follows her, his hefty stature settling beside her - side by side - as he lips affectionately at her dark tresses, with icy snowflakes tangled amidst her locks.
"I have never been more certain of anything, Isle." He pauses, his smile changing into a smirk as he studies her worrisome expression. "You see, you couldn't be more right in saying much has changed in a few days. I gained more than a mark of Brotherhood upon my return - I also gained the throne. I am now the King of these lands, and you have never been more welcome. My men will accept you, as I already have."
hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
The sun rises further in the sky, peeling itself from the pink horizon to hang like a ball of watery yellow silk amongst the wind-scrubbed blue. When the sunlight falls around them, catching and reflecting in the vast and pocked wall of gleaming ice, dimples of pink and gold and orange leap like flames across the snow and suddenly she is drenched in dawn. Nothing has ever been so beautiful as this. It dances across the brown dapples of her delicate skin and in the dark tangles of a very windswept mane, and when she turns to Offspring with dark eyes glowing in delight, she finds the colors dancing across the handsome black of his skin, too.
He moves close to join her again at the gate and she can feel that same, strange heat flaring in the pit of her belly even as her heart pounds wildly in her narrow chest. She loves this closeness, has come to crave the way his lips press heat beneath her skin and coax tremulous shivers along the length of her delicate spine. Her lips are still against the crisp white markings on his cheek when he starts to answer her and she finds she loves the way his low, rumbling voice vibrates his skin beneath her mouth. “Magic.” She repeats with a kind of quiet curiosity, her dark eyes disappearing thoughtfully behind lashes as black as soot. “Is it the same magic that built and maintains this ice wall?”
And then-
“Not afterwards.” She repeats stiffly, and she does not miss the implication that it had hurt at one point. She is startled to feel the way her mouth tightens and her brow furrows, the way her dark eyes narrow with something that must be anger that Offspring would ever have to feel pain. She feels it in her stomach too, a strange, defensive worry that is only appeased when she reaches over to rub her face unhappily against the curve of his dark shoulder. It was protectiveness, she realized suddenly, that tightness in her chest, in her heart, in the way she pressed closer still, to his side as if she meant to leave room for nothing else but herself. Her face was still pressed stubbornly to the hard line of his shoulder when she found her voice again and quietly, “but not now?” She just wanted to hear him say it again, to confirm that he was okay so that maybe this awful tightness in her belly would dissipate.
But his lips climb across her neck and down her cheek, along the thin line of her jaw and it is impossible for her to focus on a single detail but the ones that reveal themselves to her in the weight of the kisses he buries beneath her skin. “Then I will spend every evening loving you.” She says without ceremony, not recognizing the weight of that one single word as it slipped honestly over her dark, velvet lips. “I feel like I could spend a thousand days with you and still it wouldn’t be enough.” His neck settles back over her withers and she finds that it is a weight she has come to welcome. It is reflexive when she settles against him, her lips tracing the sensitive pink scars etched like strands of memory over his dark skin.
But then she is tense against him, her breath catching like a stutter of whispered sound in her throat. King, he says, and she can feel herself unraveling. She tried to relax against him again, to let her body soften where it was pressed to his so that he wouldn’t notice her uncertainty. It changed none of what she felt for him, not the desire to love him for everyday of a forever that suddenly felt too short, not the reflexive urge to protect him from whatever demons she could. But like a hand reaching into her chest, it dredged up those feelings of inadequacy, all those insecurities and worries she felt like a tickle in the back of her mind but tried to desperately to ignore.
You aren’t enough, the voice whispered again, the one that waited for her in the deepest shadows.
But she said none of this to him, tried to hide any trace of it from the wide-eyed way she watched him. “Of course you are.” Is all she can say, and in a voice so soft that the wind might’ve stolen some words. She remembers crashing against him in the meadow like a frightened doe, the way he had quieted her frantic heart and made her feel almost immediately safe. “You’re a natural leader.” A caretaker, she thinks, a friend. Her nose touches his cheek but the gesture is more subdued than usual and she pulls away again without leaving a kiss.
There is a creeping hollowness in her chest as doubt burns like a fever inside her.
when you fall I'll be the only one who looks away; when you call I'll be the first to tell you I can't stay.
She is breathtaking; alight with the glow of winter's caressing dawn and illuminated by the warm hearth of her own giving heart. He can feel her against him, fragile and slight, and he aches to mend her wounds with the shakily placed stitches of his hot kisses. With eyelids closed over his searing eyes, he savors the sensation of her brushing her own lips across his cheek, across his stark marking of alabaster and fire, listening to the soft rumble of her throat as she speaks gently to him. He could spend an eternity beside her, listening to her softly spoken worries and curiosities, but life never plays fair.
Her question draws a deep chuckle from him once again, rattling his throat as his thick lashes part to allow him to look at her again, taking in her doe-eyed intrigue and the soft features and how the light of morning so gracefully illuminates every sweeping line and crevice of her exquisite femininity. He is drawn to her with an urge that is altogether masculine and fueled by testosterone, though his heart drives him closer to her as he craves her presence and her every waking moment. He is taken by her, with her and for her - he cannot fathom wanting anything more.
"It is. It's the very same magic." He muses softly, though his amusement falls away as he feels her tense beside him. Her features grow much more intense by the second, filled with disdain for an unseen force that he cannot feel himself. She curls into him, pressing her cheek against his shoulder, burying himself into him as if she were trying to burrow her way through is flesh and bones, to become one with him. He traces the length of her neck, nibbling what skin is left exposed to him as he caresses his jawline along her nape. He holds her close in an attempt to soothe her, but her broken words soon show him the source of her anxiety. But not now?
"No, not now. It healed the moment I stepped out of the cave; it hasn't hurt since. I remember the pain vividly but it has not bothered me in the days since." He murmurs softly to her, urging her to be comforted by his words. He can sense her hesitance and he holds her close, allowing the icy flakes that have begun falling from the sky to envelope them, cradling them in its wintry wonder as he falls into silence. He does not allow his thoughts to overpower the moment; forbidding them entrance into the intimacy of their embrace. He wants to hold onto his moment for as long as he is able. He wants to protect her, to evoke her deepest insecurities and console her with his adoring touch and quiet words.
Then I will spend every evening loving you, she says, and his heart sinks to the depths of his being. His chest begins to grow tight, taut with wisdom and angst and vexation. Love is a four letter word with enough strength to fall even the most brawny, powerful of men, and enough power to take the fragility of life and tear it into small, infinitesimal shreds. He swallows the bile that seems to linger at the bottom of his throat, bubbling with a faint thread of anxiety that trembles in his core. To love is to allow oneself to get too close, and loss was something he was not certain he could yet handle. Instead, he draws his lips across her cheek with a gentle kiss, urging her to understand his own unspoken adoration.
She falters beside him, and he watches as she crumbles within her own mind as he utters the word King. She falls away within herself, pulling away into a shell that he cannot hope to penetrate, though he will try for an eternity. He presses close to her again, urgently wanting to comfort her but she is too far gone. Insecurities simmer within her stunning doe-eyes, which he admires for a long moment as he traces the flat of his nose along his jawline before brushing away her stray locks of hair, which are now encased in soft white snowflakes. A natural leader, she utters, but not without a trace of longing and doubt and dread.
"It is a title and only a title, Isle," He murmurs softly, drawing her to him as he drapes himself over her once more, warming her with the comfort of his heat and yet at the core, ice chills him. "and though I cannot read minds as you can, I know what you are thinking. I want you, the very same that I did three days ago and even months ago. You've made me feel alive for the first time in so long," (and he would never tell her how long,) "and I want you by my side. And only you. You are here now, and that is what matters. I see strength and promise in this kingdom, and I will do what I can for my brothers - but when it is all said and done and I pass the throne to another, it is with you I will run away with into the mountains. I promise you."
hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
She smiles faintly, distantly, when he confirms that the magic of the caves and the magic of the wall are connected. Her eyes return to trace the patterns of morning where they stain the iridescent glaze pink and red and orange like bottled sunshine. She wonders if the magic is old, if it is tied to something or someone, or if it as much a part of the Tundra as the snow and mountains are. Her eyes drift further along the wall, upwards as high as she can see and she wonders if this wall still melts as all ice should, or if the magic has turned it to cold, impervious steel. She supposed it didn’t matter though; nothing would be able to slip inside unnoticed. Even invisible, one would still leave a trail of footprints behind in the layers of snow-crust. She twists, reaching over to touch the soft pink of her tremulous nose to the strong curve of his dark jaw. “Is there other magic?” She asks with a seriousness that disappears almost immediately, shattered to pieces by the impish smile that stretched itself across her shivering lips. “Maybe a fire? A heated cave?”
His words do manage to appease her if only a little, but shadows remain like bruises in the bottoms of those dark eyes when she lifts her face to his. The curve of her nose cups and catches the watery sunlight until those dapples are gleaming and ringed in liquid gold. “I’ve never known physical pain.” She admits, tilting her head uncertainly to one side as her lips reach out the brush the impossible whiteness of the markings carved into the coal-dark of his cheek. And then her mouth drops away from him and the cold slips in to bite the places where his kisses had been just heartbeats before. She hunches a little and shivers, the wiry muscles beneath her sleek dappled bay coat rippling like coiling snakes. Her eyes drop further and further until they are low enough to be tangled in the pink scars that pucker across his chest, breaking up the deep black with their ugly permanence. “These hurt too.” She says touching them, tracing them, and it isn’t a question when it slips from her lips but she wonders anyway. She wonders, too, if he will ever trust her enough to tell her the stories that belong to each scar, for surely they were from more than just accidents, more than just battles won and lost.
But she cannot help the way she drifts from him, the great chasms of distance that fall between them when he wedges that sword of a word, king, against her trembling heart. She drifts and she drifts and her eyes are dark, guarded bruises until he uses his chin draped over her spine to pull her back again. A string of words wrap themselves around her heart and tug her closer still, and she can feel a familiar heat flaring beside the uncertainty brewing in her belly. “Months ago?” She asks, she breathes, she whispers in a voice that trembles like a leaf at the end of its mooring-branch. “You wanted me even then?” She asks again, and her dark eyes are impossibly wide and uncertain. In her chest her heart thumps wildly, feeling suddenly trapped against the cage of her ribs woven carefully around it. “When I was so scared and so broken, at my worst, you saw me and even then, you wanted me?” She shakes her head because she cannot understand, because she knows she does not deserve his affections and yet they’ve found her anyway and she finds she refuses to ever live without them again. He tells her what he sees in this cold, frozen kingdom, in brothers so loyal to one another she is sure they must be of the same blood and bone and broken flesh. He makes her a promise that buries itself within her treacherous, traitorous heart like a beloved blade.
But she speaks again, another brittle question that feels like broken glass spilled from unwilling lips. She lets him pull her close, close so he cannot see the exquisite pain that casts the delicate angles of her brown and white face in heavy shadow. “And what of me, Offspring. What is it that you see in me?”
