in the cold light of day we're a flame in the wind
not the fire that we've begun
She can feel her very soul shattering, but there is nothing she can do to stop it.
She can feel him drawing away, and she doesn’t blame him. He is starting to tense all over—a vision, maybe?—and Dawn lets him draw back, shivering as they once again become two separate beings, the cold ocean winds threatening to sweep her away. She would let them at this point, as her misery has become her, but it is no one’s fault but her own. She doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to lose him, but what is the alternative? Living in someone else’s shadow for the rest of her life while he lives the life he’s always wanted?
He mutters something then, and though the wind tears the sound away from them and down the beach, the implication is there in his pinned ears and tense body language. She tries to ignore it, push it away, but the look on his face is frozen in the back of her mind and she cannot help the tears that continue to fall. Oh, she’s ruining everything, and the wave of self-loathing that rushes over her is almost enough to drag her under, to take her over. She nearly surrenders to the bear but instead tightens her hold on it, refusing to let it surface.
Unlike her mother, she is not full of fire and anger. She is ice and snow, storms and waves; there is no rage in her heart, no anger fueling her veins. She is not an avenging dragon; no, she is the opposite, drawn to the icy ocean and things that don’t belong to her.
Dawn will never lose the battle with her bear, despite what Sunny’s visions tell him.
The cracks between them is quickly growing into a canyon, and she can see the hurt and despair in his gaze as he murmurs the two words she never thought she’d hear him say: Goodbye, Dawn. She releases a strangled cry as he shakes his head and turns away, wanting to go to him but knowing how much worse she would make it if she did. She can tell by the gentle shake of his shoulders that he is crying again, a quieter and sadder crying that freezes her from the inside, ice pouring through her veins.
“Rhaegor.” His name is a quiet imploration for him to stay, and she is proud that her voice does not shake this time. She reaches for him but he cannot see her, and her touch falls short. Her energy—her willingness to fight—flees her and she sighs heavily, head drooping as she stares at the sand between her hooves.
“I have nothing if I lose you,” she whispers, unable to look up and see if he’s even still there. For all she knows he had slunk away, using the shifting sands to hide the sound of his footfalls. “And I cannot live with myself if I lose you. My Sunny, my Sunny. I have no claim to you but here I am.” She swallows hard as the words stick in her throat, but her bear encourages her to continue.
“I will lose myself if I were to lose you, and my feelings are so much stronger than the ties of family or friendship. I... see that now, and I know it complicates everything.” This isn’t how it was supposed to be, how things were supposed to end up. Best friends until the end and nothing else matters, what happened to that? But she cannot stop now; she has already gone too far. “I want to be wherever you are. And I won’t come between you and Chryseis, I swear it.
“But you should know the truth of how I feel. I owe you that much.”
Now it is her turn to turn away. If he leaves, she will manage, despite the tides threatening to pull her under. But she will not be the one to walk away from what matters most to her.
Dawn
Hyaline's resident polar bear cub