It is the nature of dreams to end // Raul

[Warlight]

There is something close to wrath in the usually calm features of his face, something she had never seen before. It is terrible, and she feels her blood rise; she feels the charge of battle quickening her limbs and hardening her black eyes. He grinds his heel into the wound of her humiliation; her instincts tell her to lower her antlers, that such words could only be answered for with blood.

But this was Raul.

She bites her tongue and her mouth fills with the dull taste of iron, but the fury roaring in her chest leaves her gasping for words.

She looks behind her to her sleeping children, the only sight that could temper her passion. Another around glance confirms that there are no others near, that the sisters nestle together would be safe in the quiet kingdom.

"Follow me if you think there is any part of us left to save."

And think over whether those are the words you meant to say, she doesn't add out loud.

Then, she runs.

She gallops across the open grasslands with a fury, her weariness is forgotten. She will yell if she wants to yell, she will draw his blood if it will make him see straight. She crosses a stream of lava in a bound, then another stream, then another, and she tells herself the tears streaming across her cheeks are from the wind.

Over the thunder of her hooves, Warlight can't tell if he is with her, and she never looks back. She doesn't know how long she runs for, but she only stops when the loam grows sandy, and a grove of coconut palms marks the spot where the ocean kisses the earth. Her momentum slows as her hooves splash into the shallows, and the ocean rises to her knees.

"If you wanted peace, you shouldn't have tied yourself to me," she gasps into the night, her lungs burning and her ears pinned. Still, she doesn't look over her shoulder to see if the stallion is there or if only the stars are there to hear her. Had they been wrong to think that the lust of their youth was a love that could last a lifetime, or even two?

She wanted to think so, oh, how badly she wanted to think so. But they had never seen the world the same way, and now it seemed that same spirit that had drawn him in was pushing him out.

So she appeals to the stars and the tides again, hoping that he is there to contradict her. "Maybe we need some time apart if you need to clear your head and think about what it is you want," she draws her breath as her sides constrict at the sound of those words, "but you are all I've ever wanted."