[private] wide awake in a world of lullabies

[aletta]

She's known the hardness of living. She has felt the bitter blows of it take something from her youth. She has felt the coldness of it as it stripped her of beloved things from her middle years. She feels the absences of ghosts in her present and she fills those empty spaces with the stars that she and Warden stand beneath. They have always played a pivotal role in her life and it shouldn't come as a surprise that they became a constancy as the years went on. As the dapples of her coat faded, as the sterling of her mane and tail turned to white. She knew that someday she'd be the color of new-fallen snow; she just never knew what the experiences would be that would blanch and bleach her.

There are a few blemishes - the patch of skin on her right forelimb that is whiter than most from a skirmish with Frostbane and his ice Magic, the jagged scar on her right haunch where Sirocco's hoof had managed to catch her a reminder of when she hadn't been quick enough - that stands as a testament to the marring of time. She has grown paler as it has gone on. But Warden? Warden will never grow grey (at least not like her) but he carries all the weight of time that she has earned. His time in this world seems so brief to her, a brevity that has tired him before it's due. His circumstance makes her angry (and it touches so close to home, in ways that Warden will never know). Colts growing to stallions before they have had the time to grow into the length of their legs and the depths of their chests.

"I won't presume to know how your gift works," she says coolly despite the warm air, a sweet gust of summer that stirs beneath them and the starlight. "But if the future always lingers as a threat on your horizon, you will always see war." Her dark eyes consider him as he rolls his shoulders, like he is already bracing himself for the impact of her words. Do they crash against him? The Watcher still stands. To his credit, he doesn't break or fall apart at her implications. He stands - a tall and resolute figure in the dark. Warden raises his head like he might have a hope in his future and that turns her pensive expression lighter. He might have something to brighten his horizon. Someone to keep his shadows at bay and help carry this burden that he was given (so young, too young). He tells her that he prays that he can keep them far from the knowledge of their futures, those he cares about.

"The future always comes," Aletta reminds him again. Her slender head turns more sharply towards his, raising to look at him directly. She has always known the future as a changing thing; Marcelo had told her once that his visions were always different. All it took was another choice, a chance meeting, a moment of something unexpected and it could all change. That had been his crux to bear. He could no more prevent the differents paths as he could the future. All he saw were the possibilities - some bright, some grim - and not his spare those he loved any of them. She doesn't know if it works the same way for Warden. She doesn't know if what he sees of the endings are concrete, if they are like her - something set in stone (at least until tonight; he's given her many questions as well).

Aletta blows out softly and then turns that black, glittering gaze above his spiraling horns to the cosmos. "If you see the end, if you can't-," stop it, she doesn't say. Lives are cut short; some stories go untold. The pain in that unsaid sentence is acute and slashes through the midnight air. "Use your power differently," she manages to choke out. It is hard to find joy in death but it is an inevitable ending for all of them. Even the Immortals will return to stardust one day. "Encourage joy, @[Warden]. Find love. Laugh. It all ends, anyway. If you see the endings of those you care about it, use your power in a way to bring as much happiness to their lives as you can." The gray mare brings her regard back down, thinking of those ending when she looks back to the overo stallion.

"The ending wouldn't bother me," she tells him. "Live a life well and you will find little regret. I've made plenty of wrong choices. Some for the right reasons and some not, but there is nothing I would change." She says it with that iron-willed certainty that she always carries. The way her head tilts questions him. Would he change anything about his past? About his decisions? Could he exist as he does now and find peace with how he ends?

And then he leaves her alone. Something in Warden retreats, as though the night air has sucked all the oxygen from his lungs. Concerned, she takes a small step forward and reaches out to him, broaching the space between them for the first time. The shadows of his eyes turn white and wild, like the foaming tops of waves during a storm. He (finally) turns to look at her, like he might be afraid of what she might say. Aletta, though, has already given her answer. She has already told him that there is no fear in knowing her end; it's what she's been looking for: "Tell me."

i wrote you a novel too - i love them!