we're knocking knees in a traveling breeze; brigade

[brigade]

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

He catches the scent of her before he sees her and is surprised to know that she smells of life.

(Of dreams, mostly, but they are more of life than death and thus the comparison stands.)

He swings his antlered head up to peer into the darkness, searching for that familiar sight of ivory and the sheen of an oil spill and catches onto it just as she breaks through the shadows, the darkness parting before her like some great sea. He doesn’t smile at her (he isn’t certain that he remembers how, if his mouth has somehow atrophied into this stern, grim flash) but his face does warm, even if imperceptibly. It is the most minor of changes, the way his light grey eyes grow less steely, the storm in them quieting.

“Irisa,” her name comes easily and he remembers what it was like to run alongside her as wolves when they were still the creatures of home and not the harbinger of his death. Still, she herself is a comfort still and if he closes his eyes, he is certain that he could remember what it felt like to be a young boy standing before her—hearing of dream worlds and marveling at the alien way it felt to have her wings brush against his. How strange and wonderful to be trapped in a memory when all of his are dark and endless.

Brigade takes a step forward, tucking his wings in closer and frowning, unaware that what feels so natural comes across as such—a grimace melding into a scowl that shows nothing of his pleasure of seeing her.

There are other words trapped in his throat. Questions about how she has been, things about how he has missed her and missed the world she created for them, stories of his own—no matter how dark—but they don’t come. They remain stuck and he just stands there, trapped and silent and wishing he wasn’t.

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

BRIGADE

I AM SO HAPPY