"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
He should have known, of course, that his peace and happiness would not last.
He should be grateful, he supposes, that it lasted as long as it did. That he has spent these last several years at Wonder’s side, watching their children grow within the protective borders of a kingdom that he now considered home. He still despised the nights – still grew tense and silent when the sun would dip lower, still hated the feeling of skin and muscle falling away to stained-bone beneath. He hated, too, seeing how many of their children had inherited this from him, and the only relief in this was that none of them seemed to mind. He envied them, in a way, especially the ones that seemed to be able to control it – the ones like Rosine that could shift from skeleton and back as she pleased during the night.
His has always been uncontrolled, a curse that strikes as soon as the sun is out of the sky.
But his nights always relented to the dawn, eventually, when he would again be whole and could relish in the feeling of Wonder's warm body against his skin.
The end in sight, the literal light at the end of a dark tunnel, was nearly the only thing that kept him from surrendering to the frustration and fury that he still kept locked inside.
It’s why when the moon first inched its way in front of the sun he had to fight the panic away, but he held fast to the notion that the night always ended.
It’s why during that first night – and he counted the hours, he stared at the horizon and willed the sun to crest it – he refused to believe that this was actually happening.
And when he finally accepted it, when the hours stretched on and on into days and the sun never returned and his muscle and skin never reformed, he no longer denied it.
The fury rises in him with nothing to contain it. It bleeds out between his bare ribs, and it echoes in the sound of his bone-wings clacking as he hastily abandons the cove his family frequented. He walks until he is far enough away that the waves that crash against the shore don't sound like the same ones that roll against the sands of their home.
And yet, no matter how far he goes, there is still the same all-consuming darkness and the same shadowy moon greedily blocking out the key to his release from this skeletal prison that he found himself trapped in.
The dark becomes a distance that swells between them, and though she can feel it pushing them apart she does not know how to fix it. He is wounded by this perpetual night, and when the sun clashed with the moon and the sky fell away, she is certain part of him fell away too. More than meat and muscle, more than the rhythm of the heart inside the cage of his chest. It is like she can feel how the dark roils inside him, more wild than it’s ever been.
Her mistake was in giving him space. She thought it might help him heal a little, but he is like stars untethered and the more space she gives him, the farther he drifts. The further he falls.
She can feel him always though, and she’s never mentioned it, never asked if he can feel her too. But it is as though he carries a piece of her inside him, and it is impossible for the compass of her heart to ever point anywhere else. So when she wakes once more to the sound of bones clattering together, she rises too. He is gone long before she can catch him, so heavy with child, but there is no swell of fear when only the dark greets her searching eyes.
“I will always find you.” She promises to the silence.
She trails him for a long while, staying close to the narrow rivers of Tephran magma that cross the land like unwalkable paths. It does nothing to alleviate the more distant shadows, but at least it is easier to see where to place her opal hooves. When she finds him he is still, standing like carved quartz in the endless dark and she is glad for whatever thought it was that shackled his feet. “Hello.” She whispers, and she is careful to hide the strain from her voice and the way the muscles along her stomach tighten in the silence that follows.
She breathes, and the sound is only faintly ragged.
Her lips find the broad bone of his shoulder, tracing the ridges and valleys with kisses placed like the constellations that live inside her chest. She misses the warmth of him, the substance of a body to curl into especially in this perpetual dark, but she is no less glad to settle beside him and trace her lips along the curve of his jaw. There is still a heaviness in her chest though, the weight of not knowing what to do or say or how to fix this. She knows it bothers him to be this way, can see how he watches his sons and daughters when the night takes them, too. And maybe that’s the issue, that it is something taken from them, a freedom robbed. She can understand that.
“It’s weird,” she says, and her eyes drift up to a sky trapped in a moment, to a dark pupil ringed in pale light, “I don’t know what time it is, or even how many days have passed.” She frowns, but her brow is immobile beneath the thick mask of bone that sits on her face. “And I should probably be terrified, but I’m not because I still have you.” She looks back over at him, tracing the teeth on the side of his jaw, the empty sockets and incomplete circles of each nostril, and she imagines she can see the pain etched there. “As soon as I’m done having our thirteenth child,” she pauses because that number is incredible to her, impossible, “I’m going to march right up that mountain and find the sun again.”
A kiss to his jaw, the curved bone alight in the closeness of her glow. “I love you.”
She follows him, and the first thing he feels is relief, but it is quickly overtaken by guilt. He can hear the strain in her voice despite how she tries to hide it – she should know by now she cannot hide anything from him, just as he should know she would always follow him. He knew she had walked all this way despite being heavy with child, but he had not intended to leave her for long. Not even when stuck in the darkest pit of his own self-loathing could he leave her alone and risk not being there if something were to happen.
He turns a skeletal head to follow the sound of her familiar voice in the dark, to push the bones of his face into the strands of her mane and admonish her quietly, “You shouldn’t have come all this way.” He wants to trace his lips down the slope of her neck like he might have done once, but he hears the sound of bone scraping against bone, and instead he withdraws, swallowing away the disgust at himself to keep it from showing in his voice. “And I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to.”
Her voice is soft and sweet in comparison to the harsh thoughts of his own mind, a stark contrast to the endless cycle of negativity he had found himself lost in. And he thinks, again, how different his life would be without her in it.
Her words surprise a short, quiet laugh from him, and he shakes his head. “Thirteen? How did that happen?” There is almost a lightness to his voice, a glimpse of some of the softness and humor he reserved only for her managing to slip through the cracks of light only she can create. But it fades at what she says next, and he shakes his head. “You’re not going anywhere,” he tells her, the bones of his wings rattling when they instinctively move to drape across her like they might have once done, but he catches himself. “This darkness isn’t normal, Wonder. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
He is quiet for a long moment, the silence feeling heavier from the night that weighs all around them. Finally he shifts closer to her, unable to resist touching her even despite how much he hates the way the skeleton of him sounds against the bone of her. He misses the warmth of his body against hers, misses being able to press his lips into her skin. “I love you, too,” he murmurs back to her, resting his head over top of her neck. Her glow chases away the dark closest to them, and he can see the large swell of her barrel, and again guilt and concern weighs like lead in his bones. “How are you feeling?”
She is soothed by the nearness of him when he touches the flaxen softness of her hair. “Maybe not.” She says, but she is smiling in a quiet way because he should know by now that while she is full of poor choices, he (and the decision to be near to him) has never been one of them. “But I didn’t come out of obligation.” She tells him, following in his wake when he moves to pull away, because the absence of him is something she cannot abide. Her lips are soft where they reach out to touch him again, moving over bone made bright by the nearness of her own glowing skin. “Where else would I be at the end of the world except here by your side?”
And it does feel that way sometimes. Like there cannot be anything good left to follow in the wake of so much dark and violence. This is a world reduced to shadows and ruin, where the tides are unruly and the oceans heave, where plants wither and die and it is so much easier to see the bones once hidden beneath healthy flesh. Her eyes lift again to the sky, staring at the eye that looks back as though it knows she’s there below it. How had any of this happened? Why had the fairies let it carry on for so long? She knows, of course, that there must be more to it than she can possibly understand, but standing like this beside Nightlock in an abyss of starless night, it is hard not to feel abandoned by those she had once helped.
His words are a distraction, and she smiles at him, ducking her head to look over into his open face. “How?” She repeats, and there is a new note of teasing when she reaches out to trace her lips along the front curve of his neck. “Do you require reminding on how such things are possible?” Her pale sea green eyes alight with a shy heat that even this apocalyptic world can not chase away from her. “I would be more than happy to remind you.” Her kisses find his jaw and trace all the way down to the corner of his mouth.
But even these moments are not immune to the dark, and she can see the instant his softness is stolen away by something more harsh, by an invisible barrier that rises between them. “I’m not going anywhere.” She promises, and when his wings rattle and her eyes lift to watch them move and freeze and return to him, she can still recognize the gesture and it is all too easy to step closer, to let his love shield her from the dark. “But I would do anything for you, anything.”
There is quiet, and it is punctuated only by the pain in her stomach she has no reason to acknowledge yet, until he reaches for her and she cannot help the way her whole self alights in this closeness. She smiles again, not minding the harsh sound of bone against bone if it means he’ll stop holding himself back from her. And it’s like he reads her mind, because suddenly he’s reaching for her and she’s tucked beneath his neck, and it feels entirely like home. Like this is a place made only for her.
“I’m well.” She promises him, though the words come mildly out of breath and there is a restless sheen of sweat damp on her neck and hidden beneath her thickly flowered mane. She breathes out again, and the sound is made harsh when her muscles spasm and she leans into the sharp bones of his body. The magic leaves her in a subconscious way, fitting itself to the shape of her thoughts, to the wish that he might be made whole and soft again, that he might be able to hold her close in the moments of birth that move steadily closer.
It is as though the sky of old is what answers the call of a magic she still does not understand, as though starlight and shadow, the half-light of dusk and dawn all weave themselves around his body to be the meat and muscle and sinew stolen from him. She is unaware at first, eyes still closed in a wince until the pain passes and she recognizes that the weight at her shoulder is no longer sharp. Her eyes open, and there is such surprise in the gaze she turns on him, such wordless awe as her eyes roam the beautiful, almost membranous silhouette settled over Nightlocks bones that seems to solidify until he looks not unlike a spectre of himself.
She reaches out to him, unsure of what she’ll find, but there is an odd kind of resistance that meets her lips, something softer than skin but not warm. She counts dapples that she knows to be a perfect match, greets them with kisses because she does not know what else to do, and when she shifts closer to bury her face in the wisps of mane more beautiful than spider silk, she can smell only the cool crispness of a summer night. Her lips drop to settle in the crook of a shoulder she could trace in her sleep, and with eyes closed she follows a memorized path up the length of his neck and to his throat, then down the curve of his jaw until she feels the perfect shape of lips beneath hers and presses to them a shy, sweet kiss. “How is this possible?” Her eyes open again, and she feels wildly selfish for the ache that flares to life inside her, the desire to be touched and held after the absence of his softness for so long.
He did not deserve anyone that would stand with him as the world—his world, at least, a world where his curse was bearable—ended. But it would be a lie to say that he did not appreciate it, that to have her next to him lifted a weight he had not realized his shoulders carried. He wants nothing more than to pull her tight against his chest, to feel the way her heart leapt against her skin to thrum against his. He wants to press his lips into the familiar warmth of her flesh, whisper to her in that way he only does for her, but that feeling of being entirely undeserving of her keeps him anchored where he stands.
She doesn’t allow that distance to exist between them, of course, closing it and drawing him back in with her soft touch against his bones, and he allows himself to sink into her. It stirs the distant part of him that wants to hope that this darkness will not last forever, because darkness never has, and he cannot imagine a life where he can no longer touch her. But he has never been the kind for hopes and dreams, and it is much easier to drown in negativity and despair than to swim against the current of it. And she continues to be his lifeline, and he clings to the glow and the warmth of her, even if he has nothing to offer her in return. Though he wants to disagree with her, wants to point out all the reasons that she should not be here with him, he is far too selfish to say them.
Instead, he can only drink her in, the bone of his nose buried beneath the strands of her mane and the flowers tangled there. Though he no longer has the lips to form a smile it is still there, taking shape in his voice when he says light-heartedly, “Don’t tempt me.” This time when he gets the urge to pull her closer he does not fight it. With his head over her neck he tugs her in, anchoring her to his side, and for now, he does not fight the serenity that she offers him.
She says that she is well, but the way that she keeps tensing and sucking in sharp breaths that she thinks he will not notice tells him otherwise. When she presses into him he instinctively holds her tighter, and he almost does not notice the twilight that blooms from his bones. It takes him a moment to realize her skin is no longer against the hard angle of his skeleton but instead curled into the softness of shadow and light, taking shape across his face so that the surprise that settles there is visible, no longer just an unreadable plate of bone. He can feel her kiss against him just as he would before, and it sends an involuntary shuddering throughout his body. “Wonder,” her name is an almost breathless growl in the back of his throat, confusion and awe alight in the strange twilight of his eyes. “How did you do that?” because he knows it was her, knows that no one else could have possibly crafted him an entirely new body made of shadowlight.
He shakes his head and draws her back in again, hungrily sweeping his lips up her jaw and into the groove of her throat. When he pushes his nose beneath the strands of her mane to press a trail of kisses there and finds the damp skin beneath his chest clenches, halting his greedy exploration of the body he already knew so well. “Nevermind,” he murmurs, taking note again of her uneasy breathing. He has been present for the births of all of their children save for Flower and Tangled, and as badly as he wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her touch and the amazement of this strange show of magic, he can recognize that now is not the time. Instead, he lifts a shadowy wing to drape across her back, and gently presses a kiss to the soft spot behind her ear, resting his nose near her mane to ask, “Where do you want to go? I don't think we will make it back home.”
She is beaming at the easy way he returns her flirtations, suddenly all warmth and sunshine even despite the reaching dark that laps at the edge of the light emanating from her. She laughs and the sound is like morning, dawning bright and beautiful in the smile on her mouth that grows again when he moves to pull her in against him. It feels no less like home, cradled against bone instead of flesh, but she cannot help but to want more of him to touch, more to feel. She wants the curve of his neck and to see the lean muscle flicker beneath the gentle tickle of her lips. She wants to bury her face in the stormy strands of his hair until she is drunk with the way he smells like summer and starry nights. She wants to be shielded beneath wings full of the softest feather she’s ever known in her entire life.
She wants him to be himself instead of these bones he would never willingly choose.
She would give anything, just as she had before for a different cause, for a continent of strangers, to give him back everything that had been stolen.
Which is why it is so hard to fathom the strands of twilight that weave around his bones, so hard to understand why and how especially when he says her name and asks her how she did that. She blinks at him from behind the ridges of her bone mask, two eyes as teal as the tropical waters that rest on nearby shores. “I don’t - I didn’t,” and she feels confused but not accused, can’t help but to be mesmerized by the intensity of his beauty, “I just really missed touching you.” She says finally, and the smiles that had been erased by her awe now slip shyly back into place as she reaches up to kiss him. “A lot. Everywhere.”
And then once more she is crushed against him,and he is firm and corporeal, wholly tangible in a way that makes her heart skitter wildly inside her chest. His lips are against her jaw and over her throat, in her hair and along neck until she is leaned into him with her eyes closed and soft sounds of breathless want upon her lips. He stops because he is sensible, but she is not and when her eyes open again to find him it is to ask, “Are you sure? I can probably wait a little while longer.” Which is of course an untruth even as she buries herself against him with another trembling groan. But she can’t stop touching him, can’t stop leaving these trails of wanting kisses over the curve of his shoulder and along the tines of where her antlers have solidified in the space of his chest.
“I love you.” She tells him again, whispers it into the twilight of his skin in case he has managed to forget in the last sixty seconds. “You are everything I never deserved and exactly who I would have dreamed of if I was ever brave enough to do so.” She’s whispering now, eyes closed against the vulnerabilities that swell there, swimming like sea stars in the swirling teal. And when his lips find the soft place behind her ear, she surrenders to the urging of her body and lets her legs crumple beneath her.
It is not long before there are three of them in this quiet place, and she is grateful for how smoothly the birth goes. She isn’t sure either one of them could have handled more pain and more loss from this world frozen in time, frozen in fear. But in the pale golden light that shines from her lantern skin, there is a small boy with a coat the same color as his fathers and with soft rosettes the same shade as a cold winter sky. She kisses every spot she can reach, curling around him in the dark so that no chill can find his damp skin. She cleans his ears and his face, traces the curve of delicate wings full of soft, delicate feathers that make her smile in a soft way and look up at Nightlock with every ounce of pride.
“He looks like you.” She says, and her voice is still softer than starlight when she reaches out to touch her nose to Nightlocks. But this boy is like her too, with the spots that sometimes sprawl across her skin and the opal sheen of the small hooves tucked beneath him. There are even impossibly tiny buds in the down of his mane that promise all the places flowers will one day bloom. The way he is so completely both of them makes something start to ache inside her chest when she finds Nightlock's watching gaze again.“Will you name him?” A gentle question from gentle lips that reach out to motion Nightlock down beside them where he can see his boy and she can map out the constellations of his twilight face in kisses she traces over the curve of his jaw.
