"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
It pleases her, a little, to think of thousands of fools offering themselves, their wings, to her. Perhaps because it would mean nothing at all to have anyone else lovesick for her. The would could clamour for her attention but aside from the stars, nothing had quite captured her curiosity as much as the boy standing with her. “Let them. Millions could offer and none of them would mean half so much to me as you.”
Such certainty, for one so young. For a colt she has only just met. But she has absolutely no trouble believing the stunning Worship will be in her life for a very long time - she’s quite determined to make sure it happens.
When he answers her question, staring at the ground between them, Stellaria finds it is the easiest thing in the world to close the gap between them. The simple gesture of a muzzle dark as night against daylight skin. It’s a whisper-soft touch, though she thinks she still feels it when she draws back to look into his golden eyes. Her smile is gone though her gentle expression does not quite match the seriousness of his. She’s not sure she could, even if she tried.
“Are you causing the ruin or are you being ruined?” Her voice is quiet and curious - unafraid, and unaware that perhaps she should just leave this alone.
Already he is a lovesick fool.
See it in the way his heart twinges and spasms when she heaps this praise on him.
He can hardly breathe to think that he should mean anything at all to her.
A lovesick fool. Or perhaps just a fool. Too young to know what it means to love anything at all.
But he would tear the wings from his shoulders and lay them at her feet should she ask it of him. He would not think twice about it. Even if it meant he would bleed to death. He would. For her.
He does not smile or blush. He does not surrender to any bashful feeling that might swell up in the cavern of his narrow chest. He just goes on looking at her. As if he might see beneath her surface. As if he might determine if she really means it just by looking at her.
And then she closes up all the distance between them and she touches him as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. As if it does not stop her heart the same way it stops his. He stares at her, his gaze imploring.
Doesn’t she see how easily she could bring him to ruin, too?
He swallows thickly, uncertain if he should tell her the truth.
Uncertain if he can tell her the truth.
Uncertain if he can even open her mouth and speak with the way his mind cannot seem to budge from the memory of her skin on his.
He closes his eyes to better concentrate but his flesh still hums where she’d touched him.
“Both,” he says finally and does not open his eyes, afraid of what he might find in her expression.
you were the boat that breached in the tale of conrad
oh, i loved you with the good and the careless of me
but it all goes bad
He closes his eyes before replying to her question with a frustratingly short answer - and Stellaria’s entire focus is on him. The rest of the world does not exist - just their day and night bodies, just their talk of dreams.
She’d like to drag a longer answer out of him, discover how she can get him to talk again. Her curiosity and interest has a life of its own now, she’s not sure she would be able to stop it even if she could.
Stellaria cannot puzzle out why he does not meet her gaze, why this ruination seems to bother him at all if. Does he think she would be afraid of these dreams? Or is he afraid of them for himself?
She’s not sure how to ask these questions. It is not that they are just dreams - she does not belittle her own dreams in such a way so she would never think to do the same to his.
She doesn’t move away, just watches him - her vibrant eyes not leaving his face when she begins to talk and she begins to memorize the patterns in the colours there. “Sometimes, when I dream about flying, I’m a dragon instead of myself. In those dreams, I am terrible and fearsome… but beautiful and incredible at the same time. There’s a... thrill in the power. That no one could ever touch me unless I wished it.” Her voice carries that quiet reverence still, utterly unafraid as she watches him for his reaction.
There is something soothing in the way she speaks.
He thinks he would be all right if hers was the last voice he ever heard.
If he left here and staggered through the desert for the rest of his life and heard nothing again but this poetry. Her dreams of dragons, terrible and fearsome. A thing that could not be touched unless she allowed it.
Is he a dragon in his dreams of ruin?
No, there are no wings. No scales.
He cannot be touched in these dreams but only because the things that touch him die.
Everything dies.
He opens his eyes and studies her face. Such a lovely face. Does she know how fearsome she is already? Does she know that mortals should shudder to touch her already? Cut him open and he will bleed poetry at her feet. He was built to worship her and her alone.
He swallows.
“No one should touch you unless you wish it now,” he tells her.
“But my dreams are not like that. I’m no dragon,” he confesses. “I am a serpent.”
But he knows, too, that they are not merely dreams. He knows that the thing he is in his dreams is a thing that lives beneath his skin. It lives inside him. A terrible thing clawing at him to get out.
“A dreadful thing. A thing that kills with a glance.”
He does not know if this part is true or if this only part of the dream.
“A thing of scorched earth.” He shakes his head. Mournful.
Such an ugly thing. Such a stark contrast to the thing stood before her now.
“I fear it is not just a dream,” he whispers, averting his gaze again.
you were the boat that breached in the tale of conrad
oh, i loved you with the good and the careless of me
but it all goes bad
Stellaria thinks, but does not say, that she wishes for no one to touch her but him.
Like others that she has had in his presence, is too big of a thought for such a young mind. But like the rest she knows it to be true already. Believes it will continue to be true throughout her entire life. Who else could be worthy?
Stellaria has never needed nor given comfort so she is not very sure how to give it. She just knows that the mournful way Worship speaks of this serpent causes her heart to ache. If she could share the fascination she feels with him, she would. If she could share the thrill in her heart at the imagery that swims through her mind.
If she should be afraid, she isn’t.
When he averts his gaze, her muzzle breaches the gap between them again with a gentle touch - so at odds with the dreams that he speaks of. “Whether it is just a dream or not, it is okay for you to be afraid.” Though she does not feel the fear herself, she sees no shame in it. One day she might even have enough wisdom to know that fear can bring much-needed clarity and restraint.
Right now all she has is the boldness of her youth, though, and a complete certainty that she attempts to make him believe with her next words. “But I am not.”
She is more merciful than he deserves, touching him so sweetly that it could take him to his knees if he let it. And how terribly he wants to lay his weary head to rest against her chest and let her heartbeat lull him to sleep. Surely such a sound could stave off the nightmares.
(One day he will learn that his sister is responsible, in part, for his troubled sleep. He will not fault her for it, but it will make him think differently of the dreams. Maybe someday he will think differently of ruin.)
She touches him but he cannot bring himself to touch her back.
Surely to touch her would be to spoil her. He has no right to sully her, to dirty her with his fiendish mouth.
It is all right to be afraid. And he is afraid. So desperately afraid. And it is different to be afraid when she gives him permission to be. He looks at her with such a plaintive expression now. He does not know what it means to hear her say that she is not afraid. Not afraid of him? Of the things he fears he might be capable of?
He swallows thickly.
“I think it is time for me to go,” he whispers. How it pains him to have to say it! “But I will find you again, Stellaria,” he vows, solemn. “I swear I will.” Still, he does not touch her, only nods, leaves her with this promise. Looks back only once as he turns to make the long journey back to Tephra.
you were the boat that breached in the tale of conrad
oh, i loved you with the good and the careless of me
but it all goes bad
