"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
07-25-2016, 08:10 AM (This post was last modified: 07-25-2016, 08:11 AM by Tiernan.)
TIERNAN
we learn to dive by choosing to fall
He doesn't know what calls him back to Beqanna but he can feel the need in his bones, in his gut. So he turns from his travels, turns back from his large ever-growing family of wilds out on his emerald isle to return to the land where his daughter roamed. Where he had tried and failed twice to make a herd life. He had comes to terms with it, managed to shrug off the feeling of disappointment and failure so that he could live.
Lessons had been learned and he had moved on.
He was back and it felt weird. Felt like he had to resettle into his skin. Magic ran so thick through even the air here that it always made him need a minute to resettle. The first time had he had crossed the borders he had found it...-
Quark? His brown eyes blinked as he saw the sunshine mare slide through the trees. She shifted and was soon in the air, flying towards the east. And so, as the sun sat high in the sky, he made his way through the snow and ice to follow her. It had been years since he had last seen her, since her lover had turned her into something else. Since she had seen nothing but pain and anger and resentment at it all. She was not burning this time.
He picks his pace up a little when the ground is clear of snow beneath him. When the snow crunches and crackles beneath his hooves he keeps a steady pace. He soon loses her, but follows the same direction, skirting around other herdlands until he comes to one that is thick with her scent and...other's scents.
He pauses at the edge of the boundary, smelling more than one male scent and the scents of a multitude of different females. All those were fainter, older than the males' whos' scents saturated the boundary...as well as Quark's. They were preparing for something, but he wasn't sure what.
However he is still hesitant to just cross a boundary so heavily....Fuck it. He slides past it, somehow managing to stumble into her scent, so fresh it is likely where she landed and changed back to horse form. He picks up his pace, ears pricked and listening, eyes sliding over the foliage until he finds her, golden (still) against the white background. And he smiles, stilling.
"Hello mo maise." He says, "Have you missed me?" His irish brogue full of the smile that curls his lips.
Screaming like a siren, alive and burning brighter.
I don’t think Echo Trails has been this quiet since the day we moved in. But Ryss has been feeling restless, and no one’s about to let her wander on her own while she’d pregnant. And once Halo heard there was an adventure in the works, things sort of...snowballed. As they tend to do around our feisty little Halo-girl.
I fully intended to join in the excursion, but at the last second something has me holding back. Eyes unfocused, head tilted trying to catch the sound of a whisper just out of reach, I tell the others to go on. Pazuzu is more than strong enough to protect them from anything that might happen, and for once I don’t feel foreboding itching beneath my skin. So I watch as my family disappears into the trees, trusting that they will all come back to me safely and soon.
I’m still staring into the trees where they vanished when I hear footsteps approaching. My ear flicks back to take in the sound, and before I even turn to look a smile is starting at the corner of my lips. It has been years, an eternity almost, but I know the rhythm and cadence of his footfalls, and I can feel the bond between us thrumming in my chest as he draws near.
Tiernan.
When I turn to look at him, he’s standing in the light that filters down through bare trees, and the smile on his face coaxes mine into a matching one. Before he’s even done speaking I’m closing the distance between our bodies, leaning into him, dragging him into a hug. “God, it’s good to see you, Tiernan.” The last time I had, I was drowning in grief and sorrow. In the depths of my despair, I left everyone I loved behind, and I lost track of too many during those dark years.
“Oh, honey, so much.” I pull back to look into rich brown eyes lit up with the force of his smile. A smile that has the last lingering hints of tension melting away, one that has almost never failed to draw an answering one out of me. “How have you been, darling? I’m sorry it’s been so long.”
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
Perhaps he hadn't crossed that last little bit of distance to make sure she hadn't changed, that he was still welcome. Perhaps he was making sure that she was well, that she was better before he touched her. Perhaps he was making sure that she would want his touch. Otherwise he would have been hugging her before the words had even left his lips. But he needn't have worried, as she was already crossing the distance between them before the words left his lips.
She's pressing her chest to his and pulling him into a hug that he returns as the last words fall into the air. He can't release the smile curling his lips, wouldn't want too even if he could. "It's wonderful to see you Sunshine girl." He says. He has missed her, the way she smelled, the way her smile had always answered his own. He had missed her, her personality, her never ending wisdom, the way she had always known what to say even when she didn't. The brood of happy children around her hooves. He had missed her very essence, the very thing that made her her.
He had missed her so damn much.
So when she starts to step back, he holds her for a moment longer, inhaling her scent and just...just holding her for a moment. Too soon for him, he releases her and his smile becomes softer, something more intimate between the two of them, but no less happy. "I have been alright. How about yourself? You look better." She apologizes and his heart clenches a little. "Oh no, mo chroí, don't be sorry. You had to heal. Don't be sorry for doing you first and everyone else second." His lips touch her cheek.
"Don't ever be sorry for doing what you needed to do." A sadder smile curls his heart, thoughts of his Willa-girl and what she might be up too making it hurt just a little. His hooves had been wandering for too long and he had lost track of her. But he slides it away, would shelf it and consider solving the problem later. For now...Quark. He huffs his warm breath softly against her cheek, feeling his heart both ache in sadness for what she had been through and happiness that she was here. Happy that he could touch her and--
Happiness that she was here. "What have you been up to?"
Screaming like a siren, alive and burning brighter.
When Tiernan holds on just a little longer, I smile and let myself linger in the warmth of his embrace for a few heartbeats longer. It’s been so long since anyone held me like this, since I felt such uncomplicated joy just being near someone dear to me. When he lets go, I press a soft little kiss to his shoulder before pulling back to look at him.
“I am, much better. It...it took a long time, and it still catches me out of nowhere now and then. Being back here…” The smile on my face gets a little heavy, the edges weighed down with echoes of that old grief. “It’s harder, being here. So many old memories, so many old ghosts. But it was time. I’ve grandbabies about, you know, and I’ve missed being surrounded by little ones.”
God, he’s so sweet, so understanding. His lips brush my cheek, and I lean just a little into the touch. He could so easily have felt hurt, or rejected, or unimportant, tossed aside by the waves of grief that had been drowning me. Instead, his words ease something in my chest, an old ache of guilt over leaving everyone behind when it got to be too heavy to bear any longer.
“You always know just what to say. Thank you, love. I...I needed to hear that.” His breath against my cheek chases the last of that old sorrow from my lips, and my smile softens again as I brush my lips against his cheek in return. “Lately? Spending time with a few of my children, their mates, their babies. Immersing myself in family. What about you?”
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
I've always felt my heart stir in response to being near her. It's something I have never let her know about or even gave any indication that I thought of her as more than a friend. However she is a brilliant and gorgeous mare and it would be arrogant of me to think that I was that good at hiding my emotions. There is always something that might have made her pause but go on, the way my body would sway towards her, or the light touches on her cheek. But for all she knew I could have done that with anyone.
I was surely free with my love around my daughter. I was always touching her and smiling, laughing when she had been nothing but a ball of black fluff and long legs. Telling her stories and holding her close when she had the very rare nightmare. Besides her family, Strangelet and whatever other children were close, we rarely invited others to our little conversations.
Myrna had always known, bless her soul. She had always known when Willa would come home and tell her mum all about her adventures with Sunshine mare and Strange-thing. She had known with a look in my direction and by the guilt on my face. But she had loved me anyways and so I had done my best to give her love in return. It had never been anything soul-rending, nothing that would break my heart into a thousand pieces. But it had been a comfort when I needed it and Myrna had needed someplace safe to raise our daughter.
So the light touches of her lips against my skin makes me tingle, makes my blood run a little bit hotter and I try harder to keep it hidden. To keep it from pouring out into the air between us. She speaks and I remember the stories she would tell the girls as they laid bundled at our hooves after a particular exhausting adventure. The gentle rise and fall of her words were like music...even now when the tinge of sadness and grief threatens her.
"Gra geal mo chroi." I say, barely above a whisper as she speaks before I touch my lips to her cheek again in comfort. "Ach grandchildren? That cannae be possible." I say with a laugh. But it could be, too easily, with the brood her and Nocturnal had always had. It makes a smile curl my lips once again. Ears flickering as I listen some more. Children, their mates and grandbabies. It sounded wonderfully wonderful. It was the kind of life I had always wanted for Willa, but hadn't found here. So we had wandered back and forth between our Irish family and this place where we had no one.
Until she had left to return back here and I had stayed there.
"Ya ken, wandering until my hooves are weary. Visiting some family when my gut told me to come back. So I did." I smile at her. "I know why now."
Screaming like a siren, alive and burning brighter.
I love the way Tiernan touches the people he loves, the unrestrained affection in the brush of lips against skin, the warmth of his embrace. It’s always been like that, and it’s always made me feel so at ease with him, so comfortable and comforted and close. I’ve missed that. Oh, I get cuddles from my grandbabies, even from my kids when I’m lucky. But it’s not the same as a friend’s embrace, and I’ve so few of those left these days.
Still, there’s a difference in the way he touches me, an intimacy that’s different from what I have with other friends, but different too from what I had with Nocturnal. That was fire burning bright every time I saw her, every time I touched her, every time I so much as thought about her. Wildfire raging unchecked, burning hot and fast and bright. This is something quieter, warm and soft and gentle. A cozy glow that lights up my chest.
That lovely brogue of his, speaking familiar syllables I don’t need to know the meaning of to know that they are endearments, helps bring the smile back to my face after thinking about old sorrows. His laugh does even more, chasing away the last of it and leaving delight in its wake.
“I spent a long time wandering too,” I confess, “and not all of it so lovely. Oh, the last while before I returned, that was spent in a jungle not too unlike the one here, exploring some of my more complicated gifts with people who shared aspects of them. Before that...well. It was a dark time for me.” Shadows at the edge of my vision, darkness haunting my dreams, and a vague suspicion that it wasn’t the last dark time in my life. “I suppose I’ve had a lot of that, and I doubt it’s over yet, especially being back here. Still.”
I look into the rich brown depths of his eyes, and that warm happy glow in my chest brightens just a little. “My gut told me it was time to be here too. Just like it told me to stay put instead of wandering off with my family just now.” Is it silly that I already miss the warmth of his skin? So I sidle up to him and tuck myself up against his side, brushing my cheek against the smooth expanse of his neck. “ And I’m damn glad it did.”
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
The bright love of my heart. Wasn't that so true? The way her yellow and white coat almost seemed to glow. So bright. The way my heart lights up a little more each time she touches me, speaks to me, feeling her warm breath against my body. I almost sigh. I almost close my eyes and relish the feel of it. But I don't. They stay on her, laughing with her and darkening in sadness when she tells me her story.
All was well.
For now.
Wasn't that how it always worked.
I touch my lips to her cheek, allowing them to linger. I burned to tell her how much she meant to me, but she wasn't there yet. Not quite. So I would touch her and linger with her and talk and just in general be there. I would do anything she needed me to do without questions, without a pause.
"Dark is just another part of life. I am sorry you have had more of it than others." I touch of my lips to her forehead. Another smile. "I will help you face the darkness, if you need me Sunshine girl." I huff softly against her skin, moving my lips to her neck even as she settles back in at my side.
"I will always be there if you need me." I choke on the words 'that's what friends are for.' So I don't say them, even if I should. "I am glad you stayed too. It is so good to see you. It makes my heart happy."
Screaming like a siren, alive and burning brighter.
Warmth radiates from every point of contact, gentle and lovely and tingling beneath my skin. His lips linger on my cheek, and I lean into the touch, smiling and brushing mine against his in turn. There’s more to his touch than there was before, or maybe...maybe it’s just that there’s more to mine. He was always just Tiernan before, just a very dear friend, and then the father of my youngest daughter’s best friend. The time we spent together was innocent, and so shrouded in grief toward the end. Now?
I probably shouldn’t be surprised by the way that warmth slowly kindles into heat as his lips touch my neck, but my next breath is a little unsteady, a little shaky as I inhale and press into him, coming out a soft, surprised little “oh” that turns into a breathy sigh as it leaves my lungs. I pull back just enough to look at him, to search his eyes, needing to know if he feels it too.
It’s not that I haven’t touched anyone since Nocturnal, but...but not in this shape, not in this body. I think I half-believed that part of my natural shape was dead, left behind in the afterlife with her forever. But my skin craves contact with his, and his lips leave trails of sparks in their wake, heat building as he stirs part of me I’d thought was far beyond waking. “Tiernan?”
I hesitate just a moment, part afraid I’ll hurt him somehow, part concerned it’s just me, that I’ll overstep and drive away someone who has been my friend for a very long time, distant or no these last years. I don’t have many friends left to lose, and the thought of messing things up with him has me holding back just a little too much. But there’s something in his eyes too, and in the way he touches me today. Something that makes me just a little bit brave.
So I touch my lips to his neck, letting them linger against his skin, dragging up to trace the edge of his jaw. And just in case that isn’t clear enough, I press a longer kiss to the corner of his lips. “Right now I don’t need anything,” I murmur against his skin, not entirely sure it’s true. “But I can think of a few things I want. If you like.”
What the hell am I doing? Tiernan is one of my oldest and best friends, and he probably doesn’t want--I just basically threw myself at him, and...ugh, what am I doing? Just a little bit mortified, I pull back, looking away, my face flushed with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, I...um, please feel free to pretend that didn’t happen.” Unless...I can’t help but steal a suddenly shy, questioning glance at him out of the corner of my eye.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
I don's miss the way her breath is released in a sigh. I don't miss the building heat between our bodies, even if I am sure it is more on my end than on hers. Many long years of yearning, wanting, but never being able to have, to cherish, to love, gave me a little more heat, a little more hot.
Her eyes catch my own, searching, but I'm not quite sure what she is searching for. I've had years to keep my love for her hidden, to keep our relationship to what she wanted, what she needed. Years to squash my feelings down into exactly what she needed, even if I was burning for her on the inside for so long. Do I feel it, this heat burning between us? Oh gods, yes. I have felt heat and burn and fire for her for a long time.
Her lips lingering on my neck, dragging towards my jaw. I can't help the way my eyes drift close and a soft groan, a sigh of breath that I release. I can't help the way her bold touch releases some part of what I felt for her. My body curls towards her automatically and my eyes open just as her lips touch the corner of mine.
That is all it takes for the fire I have been keeping to a smolder to roar to life inside me. I pause, the intensity of it surprising me. And it's that pause that causes her to turn away in embarrassment. It's that pause that makes her think I don't want her when I have wanted her every damn day since I met her.
"If I want?" I say as my lips touch her cheek, and then her neck. "I've wanted for a long time." I say as my teeth follow the path I had just made with my lips. The air around us hot and thick. "So no, mo chroi...I will not pretend. Not any more." My brogue thick with that heat as it falls from my mouth.
Screaming like a siren, alive and burning brighter.
All of my doubt vanishes beneath the weight of his touch, the heat and the hunger in his rich voice. Mmm, that voice, I don’t know if it’s his accent or his words, or the depth of want in his tone, but oh it makes my eyelids heavy, my heart pound, my breath come faster. His teeth draw a soft moan out of me, coaxing it from my throat as I melt into him. I don’t have any words left, just the fire that flares back to life in my blood as he speaks, as he touches me. But there’s no need for words anymore.
Not even after, lying curled up next to him, my lips tracing the line of his shoulder, the salt of his skin on my tongue. If this moment could stretch out forever, I think I’d be pretty damn happy with that. Tangled up in my lover’s touch, nestled close, resting in the aftermath of an unexpected inferno. I didn’t see this coming, though looking back I wonder how I could have been so blind. Ah, but I only ever had eyes for Nocturnal while she was alive, and I was still drowning in the depths of my grief the last time I saw Tiernan.
I’m not drowning anymore.
Even now, I can’t get close enough, as much of my body touching his as possible. A soft little smile plays at the corners of my lips as I press a kiss to the hollow where his neck meets his shoulder. And I meet his gaze, humor and affection in mine as I finally speak. “Well then.” My smile widens and I press my lips to his neck. “That was…” Mmm. Surprising. Wonderfully, delightfully surprising.
And I feel...I don’t know, just...just good, happy in a way I haven’t felt in a very long time. A way that isn’t tangled up or complicated or weighed down at the edges by grief or sadness or strife. Warm and sweet and languid and lovely, utterly relaxed, just good. “...much better than pretending, yeah. Good call.” One more kiss, just one maybe. To the corner of his mouth, quiet and slow and soft. Oh, and a touch there, a gentle brush of my nose against his cheek.
Then a happy little sigh, as I curl into him a little more, settling against him and smiling. Damn glad I stayed behind today, that’s for sure. My chest vibrates with silent laughter and I brush my lips against his shoulder as I rest my head there. Fine, so I lied, one more kiss.
