"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 had remained slender for a long while, with skin pulled too tight over too many ridges and too many ribs pushed up beneath those soft brown dapples. Her flightiness had always kept her thin, those fearful urges unfurling like butterfly wings in the pit of her stomach until she chased the shadow across meadows and forests, reluctant to stay in any one place for too long. Offspring had done much to settle these worries, these reflexes imbedded so deeply in her mind, like parasites eating away at her sensibility. But five years of solitude had shaped her whether she liked it or not, despite his promises and his kisses, despite the heat she felt in her belly every time she spotted his familiar silhouette so dark against the white and blue of the frozen tundra, it was still in her nature to drift. Those feelings of never being enough, they had not faded yet.
So when at last she did begin to gain back some weight, to see some of those hard points soften beneath the dark brown of her skin, she thought nothing of it. But as the months stretched on and on, and still she gained, anxiety attached itself like a burr in her chest. It made it easier when Offspring left to solidify kingdom alliances, none the wiser, and Isle had turned to the cold and the snow of the mountains and buried herself in the solitude she knew. The solitude some broken piece of her still needed. It had been easier still to conceal the weight from him, he was so tired with so much rebuilding of a Kingdom that had sunken into a snowy slumber of complacency. When he came to her on different nights and they had stood with bodies entangled and on the edge of sleep, he would’ve felt the fullness of her belly but he would not have noticed the disproportionate weight of it in the heavy dark of the night.
And she never said anything.
Her quiet felt treacherous even to her, but the uncertainty that bled from that broken piece of her soul had poisoned everything else. For a long while she had not known the words to say to him, had not even known the truth in her own heart where it lay buried and drowning in the shadow of doubt. But she felt it now, so bright it outshined even those cold silver stars like pinpricks of light against the deep night. She wanted this, as much as she had ever wanted anything, she wanted this child, this family, this life it sometimes felt like she had accidentally stumbled into. She wanted all of it. Anxiety still twisted in her stomach, but it was different now, lesser, more the product of facing an entirely new unknown and not knowing whether or not she would face it alone. Offspring was the King of a rapidly growing kingdom, his time was already spread so thin.
But when morning flushed the sky and snow beneath it with a soft peach light and she turned to spy a familiar silhouette heading in her direction just a little lower down the mountain, she did not hide. Worry tightened in her belly but she turned to join him, moving slowly, slowly down the narrow, worn path. The slowness was due in part to the uncertainty she felt blossoming like a smothering heat across her skin, but also to the now enormous swell of her belly as it swayed from side to side. There was a moment when at last they were only a short distance apart and she paused to look at him with dark, uncertain eyes. But the uncertainty paled against the intense wave of affection that tore through her after having been apart from him for so long, and in the next instant she had closed the distance between them to push her face against the hard slant of his dark shoulder.
For a long moment she said nothing because she still was not sure what she should say, and instead basked in the familiar scent of snow and sweat and sun on his skin. Her lips found the point of his shoulder, the thick line of muscle that climbed up along his neck. They traced the curve of his heavy jaw and the line of it to his chin until at last her lips found the soft curve of velvet skin above the corner of his mouth in which she placed a kiss, a promise, before pulling back a little to look up at the burning coals of his crimson gaze. Her words are gentle when they spill over her lips, soft when she reaches over again to brush her mouth against his cheek, “How do you feel about being a father, Offspring?”
BROTHER, LET ME BE YOUR FORTRESS, WHEN THE NIGHT WINDS ARE DRIVING ON.
I CAN BE THE ONE TO LIGHT YOUR WAY; I WILL BRING YOU HOME.
The winter had been brutal and insufferable for many - mostly those who had not yet acclimated to its ferocity and intensity, especially the thick blizzards of flurries that traveled through and the whipping winds that followed. His mass of muscle and fur had left him with a strong defense against the colder elements, but now he had simply become one of them. His flesh was more often than not covered in a sheen of frost (especially when venturing into warmer territory, which he now felt was more uncomfortable than ever) and there were always thick, albeit small ice crystals hanging between his tangled tresses.
He had become one with his own kingdom, and it suited him well. He could not imagine leaving its icy embrace, for it brought him more numbing comfort than any other land mass ever had. The memories of his loss and devastation had ebbed - his mind was much more rampantly filled with the concerns of others, with the welfare of those who would carry the world on their shoulders for decades to come. Time was fleeting, and with every day that dredged on, he'd become more and more acutely aware of it.
His weary body moved through his altogether familiar kingdom, dark eyes traveling along its familiar walls of ice and waning, melting piles of snow, which trickle away beneath the bright, warming sun of spring. It is difficult to believe he had been away so long, so often - diplomacy took time, days at a time, and winter had come and gone before his very eyes. A melancholy ache rose in his chest as he thought of his precious Isle, who he had only been able to steal away between the evenings of his leave, trailing soft kisses and unspoken words. It had been tense and terse between them in the past months - she, struggling with the weight of his responsibilities, and he, struggling with the pressure of caring for so many.
They had drifted, separated, and though he had seen her at a distance, he now only craved her touch. He could feel himself growing more tired by the moment - he had not rest much, intellectually or physically, and he wanted nothing more than to melt against her and allow his tense worries to melt away. Wordlessly. He could not burden her with his heaviest thoughts, for she was gentle, fragile and he wanted desperately to protect her. He wanted to offer her solace and comfort; not trouble her with his obligations. His hefty weight left thick prints in the melting top layer of permafrost, small specks of green peeking out from beneath the slush that lie across the flatland.
Another reminder of time. The death of the land had resulted in the birth of a new season, and he had been away for most of it. He wondered, as his crimson eyes strained and bored into the valley, if she had gone. Would he have noticed? A lurch within the pit of his stomach told him no, and a heavy wave of dread washed over him in the form of thick ice, which encased his spine and tangled itself between the individual hairs of his mane.
He would not have noticed, for he had been too preoccupied securing the future of others - and himself. He missed her, gravely, and would be swept with angst and anxiety if he were to find she had gone away. He could only hope that she understood he had not stayed away on purpose. Alliances were of such importance, and once established, would result in safety, in growth, in comfort. He wanted nothing more than to provide that for his men, and for their women. For their children. Still, he had spent too much time away, and his bones and heart ached for her again.
The bleak morning light bathes the terrain in its warmth and pure illumination, causing the melting ice to reflect brilliant hues of red, blue and yellow, welcoming him home and he cannot imagine anywhere else he would rather be. He searches still, nostrils pressed to the breeze as he tries to catch her sight, his eyes peering to catch sight of her - to no avail, until .. he can feel his heart skip a solid beat, and she is there. Relief floods through him with such intensity that he finds himself overcome with emotion for a moment. His lazy stride turns into a hefty trot as he closes the space between them, but pulls himself at a full stop as he takes in the sight of her.
She is beautiful - ravishing, even - awash with light from the pale morning sun, highlighting her soft, feminine features - her bright, albeit uncertain eyes - her thick, voluptuous and now heavy curves. He stares for a long moment, stunned - the breath escapes him, and he forgets to breathe. Her warmth presses against him, and he draws her close, though his eyes never move away from the obvious, swaying swell of her belly. Her kisses (he had missed them so) trailed along his neck and his jawline, and her sweet, soft words (the first he had heard in many months) ring in his ears. Father?
The word was bittersweet. He had been a father many times, and the familiar anxiety of loss begins to flow through his veins, filling him with apprehension. He could remember their sweet, innocent lives - the way their innocence painted his days with broad strokes of hope and affection. He remembered their undue deaths, the way losing them weighed so heavily on him. Eternity was a long time to spend alone, to spend waiting for the inevitable end of the ones he loved. He tries to shake it (steeling and burying his thoughts, not wanting her to see), his lips moving to travel along her own neck, though his eyes remain settled on her belly. On her pregnant belly. He thinks of Thaniel, of Maribel, of the closeness he has gained with each of them. He thinks of the soft kisses of the beautiful mare standing before him, revealing a secret she was evidently tentative to give away, and how he had once thought love was something he would never find again.
His lips touch her shoulder, and then he steps forward to touch the bridge of his nose to her belly, to nuzzle and nudge it, before he looks to her again, wide crimson eyes inquisitive.
"Isle, you're pregnant? How have I not known?" The past slips away, evoking regret in the depths of his chest. How did he not see it sooner?"You look stunning," He murmurs, his lips to her ear now before he nibbles along the length of her neck, drawing her close to his chest. "forgive me for not seeing this sooner. You're really pregnant?" He knows the answer, but he needs to hear it. The weight of its reality dangles over him, and there is wavering hope on the edges of his deep bartion. He knows the consequences, he knows what the future holds - but time is fleeting, and he desperately hopes she says yes.
hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
Heat flushes her skin when he stops so quickly to look at her, and flushes deeper still when she can feel his eyes tracing the curve of her very swollen belly. She wants to look away in that moment, to let uncertainty pull those dark, secretive eyes from his face. But something steadies her. Suddenly she wants to see what flickers across his face in this moment, suddenly she needs to know the truth in case he hides it from her as she had hid it from him for so long. But all she can see is the absence of disappointment, and the relief she feels is immediate. He pulls her to him as he has so many times before and she covers his skin with kisses, traces his scars with the pale-bright of her delicate mouth. I love you, she tells him with each touch, though she does not say it aloud, not yet, not now, I love you, I love you, I love you.
In this sudden closeness after so much time apart she can feel a pain in her chest so keenly. It abates only when she can taste the dust on his skin, only when she can drown in the sound of his heart beating beneath the array of scars on his pitch black skin. In this closeness she wonders how she had ever lasted so many days without him, how she had not run to hide from the pain swelling violently in her chest. She sighed shakily, feeling suddenly fragile in the immensity of his shadow, and pressed her cheek against his shoulder for as long as he would let her. It felt strangely like filling up on moments so that she would have them during the lonely times, the absent times. But never once did she resent him for taking such good care of his kingdom, his brotherhood.
Suddenly though, and like a pit of dread opening in her chest, she thinks she can feel him stiffen beside her. But it is so subtle, so restrained that she wonders if she imagined it. What she does not realize is that he is remembering. Remembering lives and lifetimes long since gone, years and even decades turned to dust. So much time that she did not even know existed, burdens he had carried for a century, burdens she would carry with him if only she knew. Instead she pulls away just a little, gently disentangling herself from his neck with which he held her close against his body. She wondered fleetingly if he knew how much she loved it when he did that, how much it felt like home crushed up against the thrumming of his heart.
Her chest expands with the words she is about to speak, but he steps closer and she is immediately silenced. His lips find her shoulder first and then he is touching her belly and she is certain her heart is going to burst within her chest. He nuzzles the swollenness and nudges it, and she cannot be certain that she didn’t just imagine it, but she thinks the child might’ve moved beneath his lips. Her face is radiant when she turns to look back at him, and for once there is no guardedness to greet him. Only open affection as she reaches over to nibble at the thick hairs at his shoulder, using her teeth to curry away the loose coat. And then with that same, soft smile stretched over the tremulous pink of her whiskered mouth, “You’ve been busy, love.”
But it becomes quickly apparent that he is distressed over not noticing sooner and she slips close to him again as if to soothe him. “The Tundra comes first, or you would have no right to call yourself King, Offspring. Don’t ever feel regret over being a diligent leader.” She pauses to nuzzle the soft skin on his belly right behind the elbow of his foreleg. “I wouldn’t have stayed if I was unwilling to share you.” A smile traces across her mouth and she pauses to close her eyes and rest her cheek against his ribs, sighing. But then he twists and they readjust so that his mouth is beside her small ear and she flicks it to catch his quiet words. Stunning, he says, and oh how she must glow bright enough to put the sun to shame. He pulls her tight to his chest again and she curls there readily, melting languidly into the curve of his neck where he held her close. “Yes,” she murmurs, and then laughs quietly, her face upturned to catch the crimson of his gaze, “I am definitely, really pregnant.”
And then before she can stop herself, “and happy, Offspring. I’m so happy. I've wanted a family for so long.” Her mouth returned to the curve of his chest, tracing hard bone and sinew, tasting the sound of his heart where it beat within his chest. She paused, breathing heavily, and then rested her face tiredly against his neck. When she spoke again her voice was small and murmurous, as honest as she’d ever been. “I’m scared too, though. Scared I won’t know how to be a good mother.”
BROTHER, LET ME BE YOUR FORTRESS, WHEN THE NIGHT WINDS ARE DRIVING ON.
I CAN BE THE ONE TO LIGHT YOUR WAY; I WILL BRING YOU HOME.
He feels breathless in these moments; speechless. Her radiance draws him in and pulls him closer to her, and it is within these seconds caught as a glimpse of the hundreds of thousands of minutes he has spent living that he finds himself lost. There is nothing around their existence that can possibly pull him away, distract him or perturb him - he can feel the weight of the world still settled firmly on his shoulders, and yet simultaneously, his heart feels alight with a fire that now burned brightly within his chest. He had longed for this moment for so long (for a second chance), and to have its fragility within his grasp was both invigorating and terrifying.
His lips travel her shoulder as she falls adoringly against him, and he loses himself in his thoughts as he observes her swollen belly again. Their passionate time spent together had blossomed into something breathtaking and beautiful - a miracle that could only add to the glistening glow of pride and enthrallment that begin to fill his veins. A welling giddiness lingered in his throat as his kisses became more pressing; his eagerness more present. Her words echoed in his mind again - I am definitely, really pregnant - drowning out his immense doubt and overwhelming guilt of not having noticed sooner. She forgives him, graciously, lovingly and he decides in that moment that there could never be another like his precious, dappled Isle, who he so adoringly begins to rain affection upon.
"You have no idea how unbelievably happy that makes me." He murmurs feverishly, eager for her to hear the captivation and enchantment in his deep baritone. "There is no better news you could give to me. I only wish I had realized sooner."
The sunlight begins to wane in their presence behind thick, rolling clouds, but their mingling joy is the only light he can feel for miles. Her murmured promises of devotion warm him to the core, in spite of the ice that lingers just beneath the surface of his marred, scarred flesh. He could not ask for anything more, and he too was devoted to giving her what she so desperately needed. A thick pool of lava now filled a nearby cave; a promise of warmth and comfort when he could not be there. A merciful gift given by an allied King. And soon, another ally would deliver upon a similar promise - the hearth of a bonfire to mingle near, to bathe in the light of during the darkest, loneliest months.
He would build up their dwelling to be everything that she needed, and in time, his own time would be hers again too. Yet somehow, she managed to be empathetic to his valiant efforts and he could feel her veneration to the very depths of his bone marrow and it urged him harder to do everything within his power to meet her few, meek needs. A tremble ripples through him as the bridge of her nose touches the sensitive skin of his leg, crawling across his obsidian pelt and through his nerves. She curls into him, and he drapes himself over her once again, as they always did when they came together. Whether apart for minutes or days, their sessions of affection and adoration always began the same way - hot, lingering kisses and gentle caresses. He told her many things with his touches that he could not say with words.
He was a well spoken man many a time, but with her, he so often found himself speechless.
Unlike now.
Mirth bubbled up from within, overwhelming him to his very core. Though he had grown close to young Maribel and Thaniel, fatherhood was a word that was all encompassing - and to experience the birth of his own again - it was more than he could have ever hoped for. Though a small pit of doubt simmered beneath the surface, his delight could not be dampened by the fear that would eventually be drawn to the surface by time and its inevitability to destroy every shred of happiness it could grasp onto. His joyousness began to fill every crevice of his being, welling up again as he began to pace around her, nose pressed to the feminine curve of her hip, nudging the swell of her belly again (feeling the movement of life within her) and he is altogether bursting.
His glee begins to seep out from within, washing him with a thick blanket of ice and frost as every square inch of him becomes encased within its icy embrace. It travels swiftly across his skin, tangling itself within the individual hairs of his tresses - both mane and tail, braided with ice crystals that develop quickly into small shards of ice, reflecting the delicate light of day. The ice follows the lengths of his legs as he circles her, breaking away and falling away from his skin before growing again - a never-ending cycle as his glowing excitement becomes evident through ice and sleet.
He barely realizes he has become enveloped in the very same material as their age-old walls and the slush that remains at their hooves; he is too enamored with her to pay it any mind. His lips - icy cool to the touch, and yet still warm - trail along her skin as he presses whiskered kisses to her cheek, to her jaw.
"I have too," He whispers against her dappled, perfect pelt, nostrils pressed against her warm skin as he inhales her familiar, intoxicating scent. "and I want nothing more than I want this. You will be an incredible mother, Isle - you are radiant, inside and out, and generous and kind and there is no one I could possibly imagine loving our child more. I wonder if it is a boy, or a girl," He muses softly, but it matters not. "and when they will come. I will be here. I promise you."A promise he had made before, and failed upon - but she did not know this, and he would not fail again.
hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
She burns beneath his kisses, like a hundred suns pressed against the brown dapples glowing on her skin. It is not a traditional warmth in this cold, wintry bite of the Tundra, but admittedly it is the one she prefers. Each kiss feels like a promise, eager and urgent and she bends pliant beneath them with her breath hot and sweet where it stays trapped in her throat. “Offspring,” she breathes against his chest, against the pink puckered scars, and her voice catches each time he touches her. It feels wholly impossible in this moment that she could have ever doubted that he would love their child, that he would want it. She would feel more foolish if it weren’t for how distracting it was to feel the heat of his mouth along the curve of trembling back.
Her ears flick to catch his words and it takes a moment to shrug out of the fog that fills her thoughts. But when she does she feels instantly quieted, shamed by the joy that radiates from him. She hunches a little in his embrace, pulling her chin close to the curve of her narrow chest. “I should have told you sooner.” She admits, apologizes, wants to trace her lips across the smile etched into his face but finds she cannot bring herself to do so now. She pauses for a heartbeat and the silence feels corrosive, chewing unhappy holes in the pit of her belly. “I didn’t want to bother you with it, you’re so busy right now.” Her restraint fades a little and this time she does reach up to touch her nose to his imploringly, ruefully. “Next time I’ll-” her dark eyes flash wide with sudden, distressed clarity as she realizes what she was about to say.
Next time I’ll tell you as soon as I know. Next time.
It was so impossibly easy to forget that they had not known each-other forever, that they had not lived and loved for entire, repeating lifetimes. In some ways, yes, it did feel new. There was a balance Isle struggled to find between clinging to the solitude she had known for years and opening her whole heart to him. It was the friction that sometimes came between them, the wedge she sometimes shoved between them when she thought about how it would kill her to lose him like she had lost everyone else in her life. It was so easy to forget the newness that, for a moment, she had imagined their family growing, another child, another version of them even after this one. And it had felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Her eyes slip away from his face, dark and bright and wide with a quiet kind of confusion that etches the angles of her dark head like brittle stone. She would have sunk further into the quiet, subdued by the uncertain hands that seemed to be struggling to pull her back away into the shadow from which she had escaped if not for the way Offspring had burst in winter. There is frost and ice stretched like a constantly breaking and growing armor across the dark of his skin, ice rattling like glass beads in the tangles of his mane and tail. He touches her belly again and she is immediately undone, all worries breaking apart from her in the same way winter shed from his skin. “Offspring!” She murmured incredulously, surging forward to touch the winter encrusted on his skin. She traced a line from his shoulder to his ribcage and up towards the point of his hip with curious lips, pausing only as he circled around again to press his cold mouth against the delicate curve of her jaw. “My beautiful snowman.” She says with a laugh, shivering a little where the ice touched her dappled coat.
Even despite the snow and slush and ice on his skin, she settled back against him, ignoring the chill that drew shivers along her narrow spine. She picked carefully at the beads of ice, alternating between melting them with the warmth of her lips and crackling them between gentle teeth. “I don’t know if it is a boy or a girl,” she muses quietly, “I’ve thought about trying to read its mind though, I know there wouldn’t be thoughts like ours, but-” she falls silent and shakes her head a little, then rests her shivering cheek against a neck that radiated both cold and warmth “I’m just eager to know them, whoever he or she may be.”
And with a smile whose softness rivaled that of the snowflakes that fell suspended in the cold morning air around them, “I know you’ll be here, I trust you.”
