02-10-2021, 03:18 PM
stifled the choice and the air in my lungs;
better not to breathe than to breathe a lie
Her touch momentarily soothes the regret from the lines of his face. Tiercel leans into the soft warmth of her nose, and he grounds himself with the security Islas brings. He doesn’t know what will happen when her white finally succumbs to the black or when her glow finally dims to nothing, but he anchors himself to her presence at this moment. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen when the darkness overcomes her, so he ignores those nagging, vicious thoughts in favor of the simplicity of her touch.
Though his zeal for finding the stars is not completely abandoned, Tiercel is grateful when she agrees to his suggestion. He hopes the break will rejuvenate him, create a space where he can think better about where the stars are hidden, and perhaps the arrival of their child will bring new life to both him and Islas. Tiercel can feel the magic he inherited from Lepis flowing through their child — uncontrolled emotions pulsate in the air around them, feeding into the babe’s two parents, encouraging the tides in Tiercel and filling the emptiness in Islas.
As they head toward the cavern, the dun-and-navy’s mind is brimming. He watches Islas’s figure in front of him — eerie white yielding to shadowy black, her movements swaying and heavy, her belly round and full of the whimsical child that they will soon know — and feels adoration spread through him like wildfire. Tiercel hadn’t realized what it had meant to care for someone (to honestly care, with every inch of his stubborn, emotional, honest body) until he had reunited with Islas and realized she was pregnant. Perhaps this valiant, futile effort to find her beloved stars is just one attempt at Tiercel expressing that affection.
Yet it flows from his soul like a waterfall, an ocean that rises above his head and spills out into the world around him. And oh, if his emotions had light, they would illuminate the whole of Loess.
“Islas,” Tiercel says, and his voice is choked and thick. They walk on a trail that winds upwards along a face of rock, the lake to their left, as they climb out of its basin. His voice echos off the sides of the red stone around them, soft and sincere. “You mean a lot to me.” Is he too scared to say the words? Can he admit that he is beginning to understand what it meant when Wolfbane would pull Lepis to his chest, when she would ask to fly with him, when Tiercel caught them looking into each other’s eyes with a heavy sweetness he couldn’t understand?
He hopes the emotion that dances thickly through the air will convey the words he can’t say, the words that lie stuck in his throat. They are near to the top of the rim now, where the trail will open to solid ground that does not fall away mere feet from their hooves. The lake lies below, shrouded in shadows that seem darker than the rest. Tiercel opens his mouth to speak again, but there is a strange rattling sound in the space between them.
It sounds like bones are clattering into place, drawn together by an unseen hand. Tiercel’s eyes widen, and his chest tightens as pebbles and chunks of rock from the trail pull together to form the shape of a mountain lion. Twin pyres of red flames glow from its face, a pair of eyes that seem like portals to a world of hellfire. Islas. Islas. Islas. The creature seems drawn by Tiercel’s adoration, pulled from one world to the next by the sweet song of a lovesick, stubborn man who hadn’t realized what it meant to care until the moment it is too late.
“Islas, you need to run, now.” And his emotions drain from the world — a rosy-pink light extinguished by the overwhelming dangers that the darkness brings.
Though his zeal for finding the stars is not completely abandoned, Tiercel is grateful when she agrees to his suggestion. He hopes the break will rejuvenate him, create a space where he can think better about where the stars are hidden, and perhaps the arrival of their child will bring new life to both him and Islas. Tiercel can feel the magic he inherited from Lepis flowing through their child — uncontrolled emotions pulsate in the air around them, feeding into the babe’s two parents, encouraging the tides in Tiercel and filling the emptiness in Islas.
As they head toward the cavern, the dun-and-navy’s mind is brimming. He watches Islas’s figure in front of him — eerie white yielding to shadowy black, her movements swaying and heavy, her belly round and full of the whimsical child that they will soon know — and feels adoration spread through him like wildfire. Tiercel hadn’t realized what it had meant to care for someone (to honestly care, with every inch of his stubborn, emotional, honest body) until he had reunited with Islas and realized she was pregnant. Perhaps this valiant, futile effort to find her beloved stars is just one attempt at Tiercel expressing that affection.
Yet it flows from his soul like a waterfall, an ocean that rises above his head and spills out into the world around him. And oh, if his emotions had light, they would illuminate the whole of Loess.
“Islas,” Tiercel says, and his voice is choked and thick. They walk on a trail that winds upwards along a face of rock, the lake to their left, as they climb out of its basin. His voice echos off the sides of the red stone around them, soft and sincere. “You mean a lot to me.” Is he too scared to say the words? Can he admit that he is beginning to understand what it meant when Wolfbane would pull Lepis to his chest, when she would ask to fly with him, when Tiercel caught them looking into each other’s eyes with a heavy sweetness he couldn’t understand?
He hopes the emotion that dances thickly through the air will convey the words he can’t say, the words that lie stuck in his throat. They are near to the top of the rim now, where the trail will open to solid ground that does not fall away mere feet from their hooves. The lake lies below, shrouded in shadows that seem darker than the rest. Tiercel opens his mouth to speak again, but there is a strange rattling sound in the space between them.
It sounds like bones are clattering into place, drawn together by an unseen hand. Tiercel’s eyes widen, and his chest tightens as pebbles and chunks of rock from the trail pull together to form the shape of a mountain lion. Twin pyres of red flames glow from its face, a pair of eyes that seem like portals to a world of hellfire. Islas. Islas. Islas. The creature seems drawn by Tiercel’s adoration, pulled from one world to the next by the sweet song of a lovesick, stubborn man who hadn’t realized what it meant to care until the moment it is too late.
“Islas, you need to run, now.” And his emotions drain from the world — a rosy-pink light extinguished by the overwhelming dangers that the darkness brings.
tiercel.
@[Islas]