[open] swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame; any

[brigade]

I was a poor boy; you were a bright light
I was a sinner and you were a snake

Death still clings to his bones, coats his throat, and he is interrupted by not one, but two.

His grey eyes flash as the mare approaches and he remembers the vitriol in her eyes well. Coughing, he shakes the dust from his coat—the ash—and finally brings his gaze up to her. “Me,” he rasps, not surprised at all that his throat feels rusted and worn, his voice difficult to find amongst the chaos of it.

He laughs at her insult and shrugs his shoulders. “You sound surprised,” the words coming easier now but still sticking to his tongue, unraveling slowly, peeling from his throat with only great effort. His wings shuffle by his sides and then settle over his back, red as wine and full, as though life still flowed in him.

When the other stallion approaches, he says nothing, his face growing more grim. There was something that ran like an undercurrent through the moment, and he watches with only mild interest as the male grabs at Brunhilde with such possessiveness that it makes his stomach curl. He has no great love for the spitfire mare but there is enough of his mother’s son in him to know something is off—something wrong.

Still, he makes no move, protective or otherwise.

Instead something like amusement strikes his sullen face as he turns his attention back to Brunhilde. He angles his antlered head. “Yes, little sunset,” his lips quirk at the charming term of endearment, the softening of her into something she clearly was not. “What ugly plaything am I exactly?”

No plaything, he knows, but he does not mind playing the part.

Does not mind pretending.

shook like some old souls when our bones broke
swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame

BRIGADE