"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 leans tiredly against Kronk, willing her legs not too shake, not to give out beneath her. The pain was distracting, it was disorienting and she found it nearly impossible to keep her focus trained on Ledger and those hollow, shame-filled eyes she suddenly loved so much. All at once Kronk disappears at her shoulder so he can look more closely at the damage on her chest. She braces her weight and doesn’t move, though she inhales sharply, reflexively, when his face swings close.
“It’s not going to kill me.” She tells him quietly, tiredly, her soft voice even more hushed now than it had been before. But she does not know that it will not kill her, not for sure. She has never had a wound like this before, never seen a wound like this before. But she is afraid that Kronk will make her leave if she tells him how much it hurts or how dizzy her thoughts felt spinning in her head. She isn’t ready to part with Ledger, not yet, not until some of those shadows have lifted from him face.
But even she knows it to be an impossible desire.
“You’ll hurt me if you leave.” She says quietly, her voice tremulous. And she knows how cruel her words are, how they mean to trap him here. This selfishness is not wasted on her. But when her eyes sink into his and hold his gaze, she finds something there that feels kindred and the thought of him leaving makes her stomach hurt. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have touched you so.” There is an apology in her voice, and she doesn’t tell him that she’d do it again if she thought her legs would let her.
The wounds in his heart were their long before Carnage had ever trapped him in the cave. They were there long before his claws ripped through Ilka’s chest. Had existed long before he had ever called the Gates home. They seemed to be multiplying though. The chained box was opened now thanks to Carnage, replaced by that raging beast that even now clawed inside of him as it looked for a way out. He shudders at the feeling, claws against bone as they drag along his ribcage. The eye closed, trying to escape the world that he was now in and the image of her bleeding in front of him.
”You’ll hurt me if you leave.” It’s a new kind of agony that pulls across his heart, splinters of ice still lodged somewhere inside it and slow to melt. The guilt reflected in the gold of his eye as he looks at her. He knows it is best for him to leave, best for all of them. Yet the girl he barely knows and yet feels like he’s known a lifetime is reluctant for him to go. He has torn open her chest and yet she pleads for him to stay, apologizing for what he had done. How much guilt can one man hold? The chestnut stallion is his father’s son after all, they both carried a lifetime’s burden on their shoulders. The family trait it seemed.
He takes slow steps towards them and his muzzle reaches out to her spilling wounds. The scent of copper makes his eye water, blood smearing against his lips as he kisses what he has caused. ”I’m sorry.” There is a world of regret and sorrow in his gaze but he can’t put her through this. Not any of them. The Gates had already suffered so much. He looks to Kronk and softly asks, ”Please take good care of her. Perhaps the Falls will help her heal. You should take her there.” A last reluctant to her and he wants to reach out and embrace her but he knows if he does that the bear will come and ruin her. Soon Magnus would come for him and take him to Atrox and perhaps then he could come back. Come back to the Gates. Back to her.
