Tiamat

like the ocean kissed the sky

The mare’s white eyes have fallen, lowering to trace the moist spring grasses, focusing too intently on the bending of the blades, how they are tickled with every breath and movement, calling to her family of nature as a distraction—anything to not think of the horrors committed, of what he had done. She can hear the sorrow in his voice, roughened more than usual by the emotion that laces every word, and she squeezes her eyes shut as she fights to stop the tears that trickle slowly, steadily down her cheeks. “I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” she forces the words from her lips in a shuddering and powerful breath, the muscles in her jaw clenching as she swallows against the tightness of her throat. Her eyes flicker to the stallion for a short moment, glancing at his face from beneath damp lashes, before they fall again.

But…what would apologizing do, anyway? Will confessions, will pleas for the forgetting of past regrets, really accomplish anything? Can the simple uttering of words heal previous wrongs? It certainly won’t bring them back…won’t restore the lives of those already taken. He can’t give them back what he has already so selfishly, so hatefully stolen. Her nostrils quiver with every breath, trembling and fraught, her muscles tense and fighting against the tightness that has gripped her chest (she finds her lungs unable to take in enough oxygen, her heart beating painfully against her ribs, so anxious and struggling with what he has told her).

It takes the ocean mare longer than she would have liked to come to terms with it, to begin the faintest movement of grasping at the threads of understanding, of reaching for the beliefs that have so long held her secure. She knows that she must forgive him—and she knows that she will, however challenging it might seem in this moment. There is no way that she can right the wrong that has already been done, but she can right the path ahead, set them both along the straight and narrow—right this offense, so it might flower and give way to goodness. That…that she can do.

However difficult it might seem.

Taking another steadying breath, Tiamat raises her eyes to the stallion again, their trail slow and measured. “You haven’t broken me,” she offers him a small, crooked smile, but it is only a shadow of her usual brilliance, and her voice aches in her assurance. “I just…I would have never thought…would never have imagined—that you—” she has to look away again, her gaze falling to skirt across the field and her mouth pursing against the trembling of her lip. A murderer. It almost doesn’t seem real, so sheltered is she from the certainty of the shadows, it would have never occurred to her that one of her dear friends would be so dark…could have done something so abhorrently wrong.

Arching her slender neck, the blue mare presses her lips softly into the grasses, exhaling a weighted breath and closing her eyes in a long blink. When she speaks, it is in earnest passion, her eyes soon rising to meet his in a sudden burst of fervor. “Don’t do it for me, Nox. It is…it is for the betterment of the world, for our goodness—I know you are good. I have seen it.” She attempts a smile again, the gesture wavering somewhere between friendly warmth and fervent solemnity, “Do it for yourself.” She knows that this is something that he needs to overcome on his own (even though she will not abandon him), a truth that he needs to come to terms with—because, even though she might offer her forgiveness, it is his own forgiveness of himself that will truly make a difference.

“I believe you,” she whispers after a long moment of silence, her white eyes meeting the pale pray of his, her brow furrowing gently as she smiles. I trust you, is a parallel to what she is saying, a promise of her own, an unspoken vow of faith and hope. While his past acts are horrifying and shameful, it is not her place to hold judgement, or to condemn him for it, when all he has done has shown her his kindness. “And I think you’ll make a wonderful healer,” her grin broadens as she lets slip the breath of a chuckle, before she becomes somber once more, the mirth slowly trickling from her eyes. It is again replaced by fear—but a fear for him, rather than of him. “How do you know that you can contain…it?” She struggles understanding exactly how he can be so controlled by something other than his own will—the image of him killing, possessed, quickening the beat of her heart. “How do you know that you won’t lose control again?”


“Speech.”