He dreams of her, even in death. He had wasted too many years when they were alive, blind to the one thing he had always had, the only thing he had ever needed. But death is a strange place. No, not a place. It’s not a place at all, just a state of being. He’s vaguely aware there are others, but they do not exist as more than a prickle on his skin or the hair standing up on the back of his neck.
He can see the living though, and if he cannot be with her, he will watch everything they had created and left behind. There is happiness and pain, and there’s a part of him that wishes he could have protected them from the pain. Barret, as he betrays their golden girl. Modred, when he leaves behind their wild child for the embrace of the ocean. Riagan, who finally comes back to Beqanna because the pain of leaving his sunshine behind is too much to bear.
But they all had happy lives. They all had love. Children and grandchild and great grandchildren. Their dynasty may no longer rule, but their legacy will never be completely gone. And then one by one, their children leave the world as well. Alysanne and Nylee together, just as they came in to the world. Riagan with Rayelle by his side. Some disappeared too far from Beqanna to find, in the end. Conner and Zvezda. But they lived, and they loved. He knows that much.
In the end, he couldn’t have wished a better life for any of them. Despite the pain. Despite the problems.
Then the world changes. Maybe not the world, because he’s not really anywhere. But everything shakes and rattles and when it settles again, there is a world. The beach. But not quite the beach. He knows he’s dead, knows that this isn’t life. But still, he feels solid and alive and there’s Rhy, somewhere in the distance with oh. Riagan. He can’t interrupt that moment, and there’s another black stallion there as well to take care of her. He’s never met his electric granddaughter, and perhaps someday he will.
But he has to find her. There’s been too much lost time already, and he will take every moment he can have with her. She’s looking for him too, and they collide as he wraps his neck around his tri-colored love. “Neraza,” he says, breathing out the word. He has breathed her name all his life, and feels so natural, so good, to finally say it aloud after all this time.
i'll love you in the morning
when you're all strung out |
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