WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT

Tonight felt no different than the others. Twilight cloaked the mare's decaying skin with the skill of a long trained servant, obedient to the last; where once she stood with pride she often feels naked, now. In the midst of the trauma she caused, Scorch became evermore the victim with each passing night, playing a sad reel of memories in the eye of her mind as though it could summon up the ghosts of her past. Or rather, the ghost of her past self.

The Jungle. Him. Their children. She saw it all with the clarity only hindsight provides. And how poetic for her to recite the poems of her broken heart to herself every night, as though the sound and the rhythm of her laments might undo herself. Her past self. Might take back what she broken and make it whole again.

The poems always ended when she felt that pang of disloyal love in her chest for the man who now lay nightly with her grandson. The confusion settled in. The juxtaposition of commitment to a beloved husband and the unrequited love of the man she fell in love with in secret far earlier than she'd ever admitted caused chaos in the mind of the once-great soul. And in her breast, too, lay the agony of immortality.

And with an undying soul comes an undying hope. Even hopelessness could not lay claim to her life the way it might to others and in this way, could not lay claim to her at all.

Not forever, anyways.

So she came, nakedness hidden, shame worn upon her chest in such a way that only the ones she loved would perceive it. Yet though she came, no guarantee replied to her cry for the drink out of the cup of memory. Indeed, she painted herself the fool just by way of her being there.

In the meadow.

Where he rescued her so long ago.

Where she failed to tell him of her love for another, lying to herself that the aching feeling in her chest arose from the death of her unmother.

Where their lives together began -- and, as sure as the sun rises and sets, where it ended.

Scorch

Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle

WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT

Did he still love her?

The question ravaged her mind with a renewed vengeance when she set her eyes upon him, there.

Him. Russet as the scabbed blood of the heart she punctured with her the faithless blades of her own making. Tall, broad, as he stood always next to her, through the hell of it and well into the heaven of it, from her early fall from grace to her rise to power, from her life to her death and back again. Everywhere, everywhere he existed in the grainy playback of her meager existence on this plane: everywhere, consuming, providing, he existed as a cycle whose prowess surpassed even that of the indomitable seasons, of the rise and fall of kingdoms, worlds, galaxies, to the very ends of the universe itself.

At least, this grandeur preceded all other notions (especially those of logic) when she came face to face with the reality of him. In the drowning riptide of his calloused gaze Scorch found herself romanticizing the everything he meant to her as though to write one last poem on the scars of his heart might somehow provide them with that happy ending they once shared, in grace and peace. As though the chisel of her love might etch the last pebble of his resolve into something resembling beautiful.

She shuddered.

In that moment she allowed the shadows to twist away from her, to admit even to themselves the revulsion that filled them at being called to her closeness. And as the last lick of twilight made its exist Scorch did not dare to pick up the defense of the flames, remembering how it burst into being that day in the snow as his knees bled having run to her, as she stood useless with the blood of another growing inside her womb, blood for blood in the most unsatisfying of ways, remembering that day, yes, when her flames burst into being with her admittance of her infidelity.

The flames, too, spat at the notion of her.

Scorch.

Scorch, who once could claim to be loved by him: by Hestoni.

He alone who could hope to find her in the veil of her twilight, eyes adapted to the ways of her magic after years of marriage.

He alone who could break her into pieces just by way of his approach.

So, she asked herself again:

Did he still love her?

A memory answered yes and she felt gravity upend itself as the true nature of her agonized query revealed itself.

Could he ever love her again?

She choked on the words which stumbled out of her mouth like the thirsty towards water, for want of having the decency to at least pretend not to love him, for want of protecting his heart from the wrath of her love, for want of loving him, still.

"Il mio titano"

Scorch

Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle