"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
She had thought it would be strange to return to Tephra, even if it was only partially. The land of her birth had never felt much like a home, no matter how hard she had tried to turn it into one. But then, Hyaline didn’t feel entirely like home, either. She was beginning to think it was just something wrong with her; the same thing that kept everyone locked out, the walls that she had unknowingly built when trying to keep the dragon contained. That maybe girls like her weren’t meant to have homes, and it would be easier to just accept this hollow, misplaced feeling inside of her chest.
But she was afraid that if she kept the walls up for too long if she continued to hide within the darkness and the solitude that she had created for herself, that Savior would disappear. Just the way Badden had, because she had never really given him a reason to stay.
So she chose to have her newest children in Tephra, both to be close to Savior, and because it simply made sense. They are twins, just like she and her brother, just like Savior and his sister – it seemed fitting they should all be born in the same place, beneath the same sky, and with the same volcanic glow in the distance.
Maybe then she could fool herself into believing this was meant to be, that it was something to hold onto.
She had stayed, letting the twins learn to walk and strengthen their legs here rather than in Hyaline. She had stayed, and while it was easy to reason that it was because they were too young to make the journey to Hyaline, she knows she stays because of Savior.
Because every time she catches sight of him from the corner of her eye she thinks her heart sparks to match the fire opal on his skin, and heat spreads like dragonfire through her veins. Her pale blue eyes find him now, drifting from the place where the twins play to settle on his familiar, handsome face, and she wills away the shyness that always seems to capture her whenever she first sees him. She closes the space between them instead, wrestling her insecurity and uncertainty all the while, until she is close enough to reach and touch her pale nose to his shoulder. “They look so much like you,” she tells him, the awe clear in her voice when she looks back at the twins – both white opal, and Worship with his wings and Rare with her delicate pink flowers woven into her mane and tail. They were stunning, and she still found it impossible to believe that she had any part in creating them.
He had never thought much about happiness, Savior.
He’d never had to.
He had always found his happiness in the simple things: the cold glory of winters in the meadow, the dense heat and thick humidity in Tephra, the weight of the dragon’s heart in his chest.
He had always come by a certain amount of joy simply by being alive, a gift that he had not necessarily deserved but was grateful for all the same.
But this happiness, the elation he feels as he ventures through his home, is something altogether different. It pulses in the cavern of his chest like a second heart, spirals through the network of his veins, loiters in the furthest corners of his mouth (which holds onto a smile that he does not bother to try and suppress).
How strange it is to find that there is such a stark contrast between inherent happiness and happiness with a cause. He feels weightless. Rootless. Untouched by gravity. He feels as if he has been freed from every shackle that has ever kept him grounded. He moves through his home in search of Casimira and their perfect children with a step so light that he appears to be floating.
And when he finds them?
When he finds them, the smile that has lingered in the corners of his mouth expands to fit his whole face. He goes to them, bright-eyed and breathless, and does not try to steel himself against the tremor that steals down the length of his spine when she touches him.
He has never known happiness like this and he has some suspicion that he never will again.
He turns to bump his nose against her shoulder in turn, exhaling a warm breath across her skin.
“They are far more beautiful than me,” he counters with that same tranquil smile, “they get that from you.”
He casts a glance in the children’s direction, the two of them distracted by each other, and Savior’s smile deepens. “Thank you for having them here,” he murmurs, as if she had done it for his sake alone. He knows that Tephra is no longer her home and that she will have to leave eventually but he does not allow himself to dwell on it lest a kind of sadness pollutes all of his tremendous happiness.
SAVIOR
you remind me who i was and who i want to be
you remind me that though not whole, i'm not empty
He seems so happy, and she simply can’t even fathom that it is because of her.
To see him walking toward her and to see the way his smile brightens until it ignites inside his eyes – it didn’t seem real that someone could smile that way because of her. It makes her heart somersault in her chest, makes her own smile hide behind a shadow of shyness, because she is suddenly afraid that she might not live up to whatever expectations he had of her. He must think her to be far more interesting than she actually is – must think that she is something as spectacular as the dragon she keeps locked away, when in reality she is not nearly so fierce or extraordinary.
She had not been enough in the past, and while she knows she should not dare to hope that she would be enough for Savior, she cannot ignore the ember of hope that refuses to die. He touches his nose to her shoulder and a shiver of dragon scales runs the ridge of her spine, and she lets herself step closer until the warmth of his skin is flush against hers. “I guess we will have to agree to disagree on where their beauty comes from,” she says with a laugh, turning her gaze to again admire their white opal wonders.
Her eyes turn back to his, quiet and soft despite the sharp, ice-blue of them, touching her nose gently to his cheek. “I’ve never met my father,” she begins, hiding the sorrow of that truth behind a veil of nonchalance; it bothered her, but it was not something that could be fixed. It seemed foolish to miss someone that you had never known. “And I didn’t want anything like that for them.” She pauses, searching his face, continuing tentatively. “I was planning on staying until they were a little bit older. Hyaline is my home, but I would rather they grow up with both of us.” She withdraws a little, casting her eyes away from his face and toward the ground. “If you don’t mind, I mean.”
He could not have dreamt them up, even if he’d tried.
Rare, Worship.
Casimira.
He thinks often of the day they’d met, how he’d introduced himself and she’d smiled at him then, said, ‘we’ll see’. He’d felt the same warmth then that he feels now, as she moves to stand beside him, close enough that he can feel her ribcage swell as she draws in a breath. (It seems silly to still delight in such simple things as the brush of her barrel against his when they had gone so far as to create the two children in front of them, but it still accelerates his pulse to have her stand so close).
He lets loose a quiet laugh at her teasing opposition and a lopsided smile remains long after the sound has faded. Because there is no reason not to be happy, there is no reason not to smile.
Until she mentions that she’d never known her father, which hits him like a kick between the ribs. The smile does not disappear all at once but in stages. Slipping first in the corners and then slowly erasing itself from the curve of his mouth altogether. But he does not interject, does not offer his heartfelt apology, just listens and thinks quietly of how much it means that she has shared this with him.
He shifts his focus from the children to her face then and is surprised to find her already looking at him. He steadily meets her gaze, though his heart spasms with the implications of her words. His pulse accelerates at the thought of them living here, together. There is a certain gravity, though, that stops his face from splitting around that same warm smile.
Instead, he reaches out to touch her cheek, huffing out a soft breath. “Of course I don’t mind,” he says, drawing his mouth away again. “Nothing would make me happier.” And he means it.
He pauses then, just briefly. “I would go to Hyaline with you if I could,” he tells her and he means this, too, “but my magic works only so long as I call Tephra home.” He has heard rumors of what Breach has turned Hyaline into, a haven for shifters, but he is only a shifter so long as he stays in Tephra.
SAVIOR
you remind me who i was and who i want to be
you remind me that though not whole, i'm not empty
01-02-2021, 04:09 PM (This post was last modified: 01-02-2021, 04:10 PM by Casimira.)
CASIMIRA
dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah
She has watched her mother over the years, has watched the way happiness has slipped through her grasp time and time again. It must be their curse, she thinks, because Casimira has not lived a life similar to her mother at all and still happiness continues to evade her. She watched from Hyaline as her mother tried to shape her new life and family with Atrox, tried to outrun all of her darkness and all of her sins, and still it always caught back up with her.
She wonders if this is what it feels like.
To have Savior so close, to have him right here next to her, and still feel as though there is a divide between them.
The wedge that keeps her in Hyaline and keeps him in Tephra.
The blade of discomfort digs itself deeper at what he says, when he tells her that his magic is tied to Tephra. It extinguishes the ember of hope she hadn’t even realized she had allowed to spark, and there is a moment where the disappointment seems to darken her light blue eyes. “I understand,” she tells him with a sad kind of smile. When she hesitates it is with the kind of silence that is tense and heavy with words unspoken; the kind that shivers like electricity on a wire, because she wants to tell him that she would leave Hyaline for him. That she would stay here, even if Tephra had never felt like home before, because she thinks she doesn't want to be without him.
But her doubts and fears overshadow all of her wants, because she doesn't expect this to last. She thinks he will be gone soon, like Badden, and she tucks her hope away again, back into the darkest corners of her heart where it was not in danger of catching fire.
“They seem to like it here,” she says when she redirects her gaze to the twins, to where Rare was trying to place a flower from her mane into Worship’s. It makes her think of Cassian, and her chest tightens when she realizes how long it has been since she last saw her twin brother. “And it’s a….slightly friendlier environment than Hyaline.” The east always felt so dark and tense, and she wonders what it says about her that she felt more at home there than she ever had here.
He does not think to ask her to return to Tephra for good, if only because he would not dream to ask her to sacrifice her home for him. He does not know what circumstances drove her from Tephra and he will not ask, only try to make it known that she can volunteer the information if she ever feels the impulse. He will do whatever it takes to make her understand that she can trust him.
So, it is not because he does not want to keep her with him that he does not ask but because he would not dream of asking it of her. It does not occur to him that her returning to Hyaline might spell the end for them. This is the curse of his confidence in the connection they have forged, perhaps. As far as he is concerned, they can and will make it work any way they have to. So long as she wants anything to do with him after the children are grown.
She says she understands but there is a kind of sadness in her smile when she says it that makes him shift his weight even closer. Until not even a whisper of wind might slip through the space between them. He exhales and sprouts his dragon’s wings, all covered in tangled ivy, so that he can drape one over her back and anchor her to his side. He does so with a smile bathed in warmth, as if he can use it to inject some warmth into her smile, too.
“I will visit as often as I can,” he promises, “we can make it work.”
He follows her attention to the twins again, still wearing that smile, though it takes on something paternal as he studies their children. He wonders how much of their happiness has to do with their environment and how much of it has to do with something inherited. He notices a kind of seriousness in their son’s smile but makes no mention of it as he tips his temple to rest against hers.
“I have heard that the queen has closed the borders to non-shifters,” he murmurs, though he cannot be certain this is unfriendliness she is referencing. “How long do you think it’ll be before we know if either of the twins are shifters?”
SAVIOR
you remind me who i was and who i want to be
you remind me that though not whole, i'm not empty
We can make it work, and just to hear him say that brings her eyes back to his, a look of almost surprise registering somewhere behind the curtain she kept so carefully drawn. She stares at him thoughtfully for what feels like a long moment, as though she could see his thoughts behind his eyes – see if he is lying, if this is just something that he says, even though she knows he is not like that. It was her own self-doubt that kept her from believing him, that told her to keep her guard up – because she has been in love once before, and she was left alone.
The guilt that she feels at her lack of faith in him suddenly squeezes in her chest, and she wonders what would happen if she would just let all of that go; if she would just let herself trust him and be happy.
So she does not resist at all when he pulls her close to him, and instead she releases a sigh that brings with it the tension she had been holding. She lets her pale skin press until it is flush with his, lets herself relax beneath the weight of his wing, until his bones hold her bones and suddenly everything doesn’t feel quite so heavy. “We will make it work,” she echoes him, and though the smile that lifts at the corner of her lips is not quite as bright as his, there is a warmth that reaches her pale blue eyes.
Perhaps he is her savior, after all.
“That is Breach’s current idea for the kingdom, yes,” she answers with her face pressed against his, and then gently brushes her lips against his jaw before ducking to rest her head beneath his. “I’m not sure,” she says with a slight frown, trying to remember back to her own childhood. “I think I was a few months old before I figured out I could shift, but my mother doesn’t think I was born with it.” She remembers how confused Ryatah had been, though at the time Casimira hadn't understood why. It turned out her mother was used to surprises when it came to her children with Carnage, but Casimira's own father, not so much. She pushes the thoughts of her father aside, as she always does, and instead touches her nose to Savior's chest. “What about you? When did you first realize you could shift into a dragon?”
There is enormous comfort in the way she settles so easily against him. She does not resist him, even echoes his sentiment, and an impenetrable peace settles over him. He had known this sort of happiness existed in the world, entirely separate from the happiness he has always carried with him, but he had not known enough to want it for himself. He had been content with his plants, the happiness he found in the simple, mundane things. It had never occurred to him to try and seek out love. He certainly had not thought to entertain the idea of an easy love.
That’s what this is, isn’t it?
Love.
The sort of love that has come to him so naturally that he has never felt he had to force it.
She is beautiful and kind and there is something broken in her that he wants so desperately to heal. He wants to make her whole again. Not for his own benefit. Not because there is anything wrong with her brokenness. But for her. He wants her to smile with her whole face. He wants to show her that there are things in the world worth smiles like those.
He will not lose her because they cannot live in the same home.
They will make it work, he is absolutely certain of it.
He touches her so freely, so easily that it makes him shiver. He is so grateful for it that he thinks he could weep. He thinks about her as a child, wondering what it must have been like to have to discover it on her own. He wonders what it must have been like for her mother to think that she had not been born with it but developed it sometime later instead. He contemplates this a long moment before he nods to indicate he’d been listening.
He shivers again as she touches her nose to his chest, momentarily distracting him from his answer.
“I always knew,” he tells her with a faint smile. “My mother is a magician and my parents made my sister and me dragons so that we could protect Tephra.” He has only a passing knowledge of the history of his home, the terrible things that transpired to make his parents feel they needed to create dragons of their own in order to combat the dark forces at work.
“What was it like to discover such a thing about yourself?” he asks, quiet.
SAVIOR
you remind me who i was and who i want to be
you remind me that though not whole, i'm not empty
She remembers what she had been like as a child; something so entirely different than she is now. Her and Cassian had been wild and carefree, impossible for their easily distracted mother to keep track of. Adventurous and determined, Casimira had been so delighted when she first discovered that she could shift into a dragon — something that was completely her own. There hadn’t been issues in the beginning. She could fully shift at will, and maintain her senses. It was not until she grew older—two years old, maybe three—that she began to lose control.
It came in brief fits of rage, fire-bright but short lived. Until those moments began to stretch into hours, until some nights she awoke in Tephra with the taste of blood still on her tongue and charred bones at her feet. She began to shift less and less, suddenly afraid of this part of herself that she could no longer control.
The day that Loess set Tephra alight had been the tipping point for her. Reborn from a single one of her dragon scales that had been left behind after the star-dappled mare had shattered her to pieces, she had vowed to never shift again. It was not until she came to live in Hyaline with Breach that she began to practice again, and though she had made it through the Alliance without losing herself, she was still tentative.
She doesn't feel any envy when Savior says that he has always known; instead she just feels admiration. “It was exciting at first. I liked having something that set me apart from my twin, and everyone else in our family.” She pauses, her thoughts becoming heavy, and it shows in the slow way the words leave her tongue. “It feels more like a curse now. I think if I woke up and it was gone I would not miss it.”
She does not like that she has turned their conversation to something negative, and so she lifts her head to press her lips to the fire-opal of his cheek. “You’re different from the other dragons I have met,” she says, her ice-blue eyes studying him with the faintest of smiles touching her lips. “I think you are maybe the only good one to ever live.”
He does not understand the concept of curses. Perhaps this makes him a fool.
He knows that there is darkness in the world. Cruel things, vile things. But they have always existed outside of his reality. No terrible thing has ever befallen him, the blessed thing that he is. But he understands well enough not to say this out loud. He is not so foolish as to not understand that she has almost certainly been the victim of these dark things. So he does not speak at all, just holds her a little closer.
He exhales a soft breath and turns his focus to their children, as if to offer her a moment of privacy. As if this is a deeply personal thing she has just shared with him. And if there is any awkwardness that flares then it is only because he cannot relate to whatever thing she has been through that has changed her ability from a gift to a curse but he is sympathetic. He aches to know that such a thing happened to her, that she had been forced to live through it, but he does not know how to put his ache into words.
“I’m sorry,” he says because it feels like the only safe thing. And he is sorry. Sorry that the dragon has not been as kind to her as it has been to him. Were he someone less acutely aware of the gravity of her words, he might have asked what happened to change her mind but he does not. Cannot.
But she kisses him sweetly all the same and the smile returns. He can’t help it, though there is nothing in him that thinks to stop it. Why should he? It does not occur to him that he should hide how happy she makes him. He shifts his focus back to her face when she speaks next, his heart thumping something heavy against his ribs.
The kindness in her sentiment chases a tremor down the length of his face and he is stricken momentarily speechless. “How can that be when you exist?” he asks and reaches out to nudge her gently, smiling softly.
“And if the children are dragons they will be good, too.” He’s so certain of it.
SAVIOR
you remind me who i was and who i want to be
you remind me that though not whole, i'm not empty
